Wednesday, December 07, 2005


Quilt Swap done-
This quilt has been done for months, but I wasn't allowed to claim it publicly until the swap was over. So, here's the background on the project.
So many fabulous quilt artists are members of Quiltart, a mailing list for those who consider themselves quilt artists. There are big name quilters who hang out there, and people like me who aren't big yet. So many challenges come about from simple conversations there. One was the idea of trading quilts. Wouldn't you love to own a fabulous quilt? Don't you wish you were more financially stable to be able to afford to buy one? We are all fabulous quilters here, why not trade quilts? So, the challenge was born. To make it more fair to those of us who do not have a famous name in the world of quilting, the choosing was done blind. We didn't know who made the quilt, we could pick from our top ten choices and the coodinator put it all together. So, if A liked B and B liked C and C liked A, then it was all worked out by the coordinator. (what a hard job that had to have been) This quilt is now owned by Diane Becka in Washington. I now own a lovely quilt by Jan Patterson.
So, this quilt is based on a photo of my most favorite cat, Snuggles, who loved me. (unlike the current cat, Psyche, who tolerates me) I manipulated the photo in paintshop pro to break the photo into distinct layers. I printed the line drawing as a "poster" to get the size I wished and then used that as my pattern for the fabrics. I used machine applique' stitches for the edges of the layers.
If you recall the quilt for 'why is the sky blue?" posted here earlier, it's the same technique.
I've enjoyed doing portraits in this style. I will be on the look out for fabrics that will work for this technique to add to my stash.
But, in the meantime, I'm working on another quilt which is heading in a different direction currently. I was planning a landscape quilt, but thought that having large stretches of "nebulous background foliage" was a bit boring. I'm playing with creating a subtle design for that area using patchwork techniques. I'll add more specific landscape elements for the foreground.
In my mind, I can see it working, but we'll see if it actually works in fabric. I have no plan on paper, no pattern to follow on this one. I'm making it up as I go along. It's challenging and exciting.

Forced Hiatus-
I wouldn't have neglected this blog for this long if it weren't for extenuating circumstances.
I was thrilled to have cable connection after being on dial-up for so long. We all are very happy campers, able to surf and play games and download demos all at the same time. But, that's only when the cable works. When it doesn't, I am frustrated by trying to keep up with my email, some critical messages, and I miss being able to share stuff here too.
Long ago, when we first moved to this area, the only cable company was a co-op. It eventually was bought out. We moved to a more remote area, but it was about this time when I realized the cable company wasn't doing a great job maintaining the cables. We eventually switched to satellite because we were tired of the cable going out every time it rained. Of course, a dense cloud knocks the satellite out of service, but that's reasonable. So, now that cable connections for computers exist, we are now forced back into using the same tired wires that have still not been maintained well. How do I know that? Well, three or four years ago, we had a bad storm on Easter morning that took out a large tree and the electric pole on our street. By late that day, the electric company showed up and strapped the pole to a tree, connected the wires and we had power again. Later that week, they put in a new pole and transferred all their wires to the new pole. The cable company's wires are still attatched to a pole that is still strapped to a tree.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, don't even get me started about the telephone company! It's even worse.
So, at least, for now, tonight, I'm able to be online long enough to write here. Woo Hoo!