Something About Nothing

I've been playing catch up on my Journal quilts. Here is  #3:  Rejoice is a background of a few random fabric paints, covered by my Sharpie marker drawing of a tree branch, singing bird and word.  The bird is painted onto of the background with acrylic inks.  I quilted around the marker lines and then decided it needed a few more leaves quilted into the background.   #4:  Swirls and Circles   is fabric painted using stencils and Setacolor paints that I used to practice some new free motion quilting designs I learned from this great website .   #5:  Flower Man is made up of pieces left over from the  Journal cover  I blogged about earlier in the week.  I liked the odd shape it took and so I decided not to square it up.  Once finished I thought it looked like a fat flower man. #6:  Feathering My Nest is made from a couple of recycled (upcycled?) Shout Color Catchers  I had thrown in the wash with the fabric I ice ...

One of my lunch bag students whose name is Delight allowed me to take a few photos with her camera and now that I have copies I thought I would share them here:  We had an enormous classroom which allowed everyone to spread out.  I like how after your generosity I neglected to get a photo of the camera owner.  However I suppose if it were me I would have avoided the camera as well.   Thanks for your help Delight!

I bought this book by Alisa Burke  because I've been admiring her style on her blog . I love that it has a DVD with it where she shows everything she talks about in the book.  I've had some fun playing and ended up making this journal from a piece I made based on Alisa's techniques. I used my phone camera so that I could quickly send a photo to someone and then I forgot to take a good photo with the good camera because I let one of the girls take the journal to school! And here is one more piece inspired by Alisa:

I was so busy during the  Utah Quiltfest  that I didn't take many pictures. One reason I didn't get pictures was that I forgot my camera when I taught my lunchbags class.  However I did have my phone:  Nine out of the ten students finished their lunch and sandwich bags. One of the students did not bring her machine down because it was too much for her to carry. All of the ladies did a great job! I did manage to bring my camera and take two photos of the set up for my Painting on Fabric class. I showed quilts I have made using different paints and also displayed some books about painting on fabric.   Once the class started it was all lecture and I think I yammered on about various paints and techniques for  over an hour and a half and about 10 glasses of water that my wonderful angel supplied me with.  I had 17 students and only 16 handouts (there were some last minute sign ups I didn't know about).  I was fortunate enough to have two friends in th...

I was inspired by this message by Leslie Riley and thought those who stop by here might enjoy it too: The Others Let's talk about  the others.  I've always had a love hate relationship with them. There was a time when I stalked newsstands, waiting anxiously for the next issue to hit the shelves. I'd buy them all, devouring the eye candy and inspiration. I lived for those magazines. But then, slowly, it would creep in. You know what I'm talking about - the doubt, the disappointment, maybe even a hint of depression. "I'm not good enough." "Everyone else is so talented." "How come my work never looks that good?" Instead of being inspired to go make something, I felt like giving up. And that was  after I had been published in those very same magazines! Now it's blogs and even Facebook.   The others  are there, too, happily showing off all they have accomplished this week, today, or even in the last 5 minutes. Not only are they doing ...

I'm getting ready for my sister to fly in tonight to visit me for the weekend.  I'm so excited.   And at the same time I am getting ready to teach next week at the Utah Quilt Guild Quilt Fest. Why does it seem that getting ready to teach 3 half day classes is just as intense as getting ready to teach 3 all day classes?   "I know! I know! Pick me, pick me!" It's because I still have to schlep the same amount of stuff! I've been making lists in my head for weeks and I finally started getting them on paper last night.  I'm thinking I need to buy some serious containers to pack all my supplies. Look how pretty: I could really arrive to class in style. I'd be the cool teacher with all the awesome supplies contained in beautiful boxes. Why isn't there a Container Store in Utah? I guess I'll need to think practical: But if I am really thinking practical I will need to keep within my budget: So whatever it takes, I'm getting ready and gettin...

Two little journal quilts. . . I was having a rough week and my friend suggested I make a quilt with a bag to put all my troubles but I decided I needed flowers.  I love flowers.  Flowers make me happy. "There are always flowers for those who want to see them" Henri Matisse I pieced the background from scraps and then painted the flower on with FW Acrylic Inks. I then hand quilted the 6" square with black pearl cotton while I watched my daughter play volleyball. My next journal quilt was made using citrasolv to transfer an image I created using a cut out from a newspaper photo and some words from the newspaper. (see how to do it here) I'm calling it "the elephant in the room." It is quilted on the machine using King Tut threads.