Latest Moutain Art Quilter's Challenge

The challenge theme was "Anything but Cotton" and it was so much fun.  Ardy's piece was made from her husbands garage scraps!  Mine is made of felted wool, hand made paper (I purchased this), temtex painted and foiled, window screen material made into background and beads, more beads and ribbon.  Just about everything but the kitchen sink.  I wish I had been able to record all the decisions made in this piece because it just took on a life of it's own.  The mistake of making the background too large turned into a better composition, the mistake of not enough paint on the window screen turned into just the right amount when folded and rolled.  Every time there was a problem, I had more fun fixing it and going in a different direction.  Hope you like it.

I enjoy working with the small pieces and adding embellishments but the whole whole piece does not get very large.  Most of the competitions want larger pieces.  So there is something for me to think about.  If you have an opinion, please use the comment option at the bottom of this blog entry.

A Winner!

Norwegian Coat

Third Place Winner

PIQF 2010

Along with two friends - Vicky and Sue, I was a winner at PIQF 2010!  I can't believe I won for a coat that I sewed and I'm sure my Mom would be so surprised.  The coat above which started as a Rachel Clark challenge, won Third Prize for the Coat & Jacket competition.  You can imagine how excited I got when I walked up to the display?  I checked to see if maybe the ribbon had blown over from another coat, but no it was mine.  Life is good.  The bus ride home was really great because there were five of us that had been juried into the show and then there were three of us with ribbons.  Friends shared in the excitement and made the whole thing just that much better.  Again I have to thank my friends for all their support and I think of you often.
There was more good news from SAQA because they sold my donation (12 x 12" square) in the Annual Benefit Auction.  Thanks to the good friend Betty who purchased it.  She saved me from having it mailed back.  Betty was the friend that first brought me into SAQA and I thank her for all the wonderful things that have come from that kindness.

I'm Back from Tile Heaven

Hi Everyone,  I have just returned from Spain and Portugal and what a feast for the eyes.  After a 1000 pictures I am showing you just two.  In the last city I visited - Porto Portugal - all the walls were covered with beautiful tiles.  Every little building had something different in both color and design.  I would love to spend days just taking pictures.  Too bad I don't do detailed applique because I would never lack for inspiration.

Now I have to get back to work/fun and finish up the different challenges that are due.  The one for MAQ - Everything but cotton, is still wandering around in my brain; Jan's challenge to create a piece from a cup design is almost done so you should see that soon; and the SAQA challenge is waiting for loads of embellishments.  While it seems like lots of work it is really lots of fun with just a ting of stress!

Hope you will forgive the lack of updates but the wanderlust of travel calls.  More later.