New Year Resolutions

I have none. Yes, that's right...none at all. It's not that I don't have goals and dreams; it's just that I believe that goal setting happens more than once a year! I am constantly looking at my life and what I want to change to make it better -- my art, my relationships, my job. And I come up with things to try, and goals to set and dreams to chase. And then I come up with plans to make it all happen. Does it all happen just as I want? No way! I just keep trying!

But, to get into the spirit of things, I found a website that will give you five resolutions when you tell it what you wish for the year. Here it goes...

Your New Year's Resolutions

1) Get a pet monkey 2) Eat more cotton candy 3) Travel to Holland 4) Study witchcraft 5) Get in shape with roller derby

What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be?

hmm...

Challenge Quilt

As a general rule, I have given up Challenge Quilts. While they are a lot of fun, they are also a distraction from the art work I need to be making. My one exception is our guild President's Challenge. This year, we were given one dozen lemon yellow buttons and some red polyester (yucky) mesh fabric, like football uniforms are made of.

This was certainly not my color palette! But we were given no other restrictions, we just had to use these items in some form. So I changed their colors! I painted the red mesh with copper Lumiere paint, and covered the buttons with black handmade paper. This wasn't really true black enough, so I then painted them with black acrylic paint as well.

I took a piece of black fabric and had tons of fun stamping it with different kinds of paint and utensils. I used a swirly stamp, I carved a double "o" stamp, I stamped with a potato masher, meat tenderizer and a chopstick!

I also added some red chiffon that I later burnt out a bit. And here is the result...



I am totally in love with this piece...I'm not sure if its because I like how it looks or becuase I just had so much fun making it. Either way, I love it!

Grand Opening

My Etsy shop is now open! I had to take a few days off from blogging to get the shop set up and photos taken, uploaded, etc. But I have it up and running now, and I am so excited! Take a look and see what is up for sale -- hint: it's not just quilts!

ArtShare

ArtShare is a meme started by one of the members of the Art Quilters Webring. Here is how it works. The first five people who leave a comment on this blog entry will receive a small piece of my art. So no anonymous posters, or no reply! I need to have an email address for you so that we can exchange snail mail addresses. The catch is that each of the lucky five must also post an ArtShare on their blog. So, unfortunately, participants must be bloggers. But, fortunately, all you bloggers are eligible to win, and to share your art with others too!

This blog is, generally speaking, a Meme-Free zone. However, I think the spirit of this meme is right on target. I love the idea of sharing my art with you. And, by the way, I was one of the lucky five to participate on Deborah's blog. If you haven't been to her site, check it out -- her work is fabulous. I think I am one lucky girl to receive one of her pieces!

Spooky Weekend

Kyle and I are on our own today, since JB went hunting with his dad. We decided we didn't care about going out and doing anything, but we still wanted to do something special together. And what could be better the weekend before Halloween than carving our Jack O Lanterns!!

And here they are!



Kyle's version is on the right, and mine is on the left. Kyle wanted to make sure his had lots of fangs! We had a lot of fun doing this together, and Kyle is still young enough to need a little help cleaning out the pumpkin and carving it -- the nose is all his!

And of course, when you clean out a pumpkin, what do you get? (besides pumpkin goo...)



Pumpkin Seeds! And here they are in all their roasted glory. This really isn't very many for two good-sized pumpkins. But we will enjoy them just the same!

Meditations

Here is a photo of Meditations 16"x21.5", created September 2006. The fabric used was handdyed by Melody Johnson. Even though I have started dying my own fabric, I have a backlog of purchased handdyes to draw on also! I love how these three fabrics work together so dramatically, but also imparting a sense of peacefulness.



Here is a detail shot. (please forgive the poor lighting)




To make this, I applied fusible web (Wonder Under) to all of the fabric. I cut the pieces freehand with a rotary cutter. First I took the middle piece and overlapped in with the top piece and cut them together, so the edge would have a common curve. Then I fused them together. I used the same process with the fused piece and the bottom piece. At that point I was able to fuse the larger piece to my batting.

I used the "escape hatch" technique to apply my backing and turn the quilt. I love the smooth edge this gives me, and use it for all my fused quilts. My original idea was to heavily quilt this piece to give it texture. But the more I looked at it, the more it did not want this treatment! I started looking through my supplies and found a great silk screen from Marcy Tilton. It seemed so perfect for this piece...so I screened the design with some Lumiere.

It still needed something more, so I took a plain stamp and applied Lumiere paint to each half. I used two different color combinations of paint. I heat set all the paints and then it was ready for quilting! I wanted straight line quilting to offset all of the curvy-ness of the design, so I quilted with the feed dogs up to make sure my lines were straight.

Meditations will be on display at the Westerville OH Public Library in December 2006, so stop by if you are in town!

Networking

In this week's Art Marketing Newsletter, Alyson Stanfield talks about meeting people at parties and openings. What a great topic! I know that, for me, this is one of the hardest things about exhibiting my work. It is incredibly difficult for me to talk about my work, especially to strangers.

This is one of the reasons why I accepted the offer to speak to my art quilt group in November about my work. After all, I might as well practice with a friendly group who has given me a lot of positive feedback. Of course, I am still nervous about it. But I think this is something I need to work at if I am going to achieve the goals I have set for myself as a Contemporary Quilt Artist.