July, After FestivalSouth2023

I offer sincere thanks to all who came to my FestivalFibers exhibit during FestivalSouth2023, June 3-30. I was asked to keep my exhibit up for an additional week, through the end of June. This allowed for several more visitors and my chance to meet with people to describe and explain the works. The winning bidder on Prelude came to take pictures in the Downey Gallery. I was especially honored that Mississippi Arts Commission's David Lewis (Executive Director), Maria Zeringue (Folk & Traditional Arts Director), and Kristen Brandt (Arts Industry Director) met me at the exhibit for a tour. Three pieces found new homes, and the others are back on my walls or in my closet. 

Taking down the exhibit

The guest book

Meanwhile, life at home has been chock-full of adventures. A ginger mama cat and her four kittens (two ginger and two black) moved in under my shop building and I agonized over what to do about them, finally deciding to trap and get the kittens to Southern Pines Animal Shelter for fostering and adopting. When I trapped the mama cat I had her spayed and brought back to my yard. She can live outside but Elizabeth makes it clear that she is not welcome in the house. 

Elizabeth will not tolerate any new cats in the house,
watches the yard from her cat tree

Cello player Ameni Zouehid, my houseguest 

My meager but delicious cherry tomatoes

Storm broke section of a huge tree

No damage to the house, but close

Broken tree was red maple (also called swamp maple) 

House wren built a nest on a shelf in my garage 

Five baby birds 

Ready for takeoff

What Happened to July?

Where did the month of July go? It’s been a whole month since I posted about my Rise

and Shine, Inner Quilt coming home. It’s been fun seeing it on the guest bed. Rah-Rah wanted to sleep on it, so I added a fleecy to take care of cat hair. Of course, it lost its charm and she moved on. 

I 'm taking care of two little foster kittens from Southern Pines Animal Shelter--solid black,  just like Tarbaby when he was a kitten. They live in the garage and quickly learned to escape the fence, meaning they have a large place to run since my car stays on the driveway. They were frightened and hissing when I got them. It's amazing what a soft voice and canned cat food can do. Now they run to be picked up and loved, purring before I get them up.

 

I submitted my Round Robin Pathways quilt to the Smoky Mountain Quilters 2016 show and received a 2nd place and an impressive red rosette ribbon. It is being entered in the Old Man River Quiltfest in Vicksburg next month as well as our PBQ October show. This quilt won “Best Quilt by an Individual” last September in Jackson.

Our Pine Belt Quilters show is fast approaching--October 7-8-9 will be here soon. I have my entries ready and am busy contacting possible sponsors for our awards as well as businesses who will advertise in our show catalog.

I have grieved over the tragic loss of lives I see and hear on the news. Some days I prefer not to turn on the TV for fear there will be another senseless act of violence. It troubles me to wonder, “Am I doing anything to change things? If I am not helping with a solution, I am part of the problem.” These thoughts encourage me to be patient, seek the good in others, and treat others as I want to be treated. Sounds so simple. And it’s not a new message.

As much as I love making art quilts, recently I have been enjoying stitching some colorful Log Cabin blocks.

At the Greater Jackson Quilt Celebration

Five guilds in central Mississippi hosted the Greater Jackson Quilt Celebration September 11-13, 2015 at the Mississippi Craft Center in Ridgeland. I was proud to have three entries there, and especially delighted to receive "Best Quilt By An Individual" award.

Pathways Round Robin, 64" x 70"

High Rise received a 3rd place ribbon.

Hi Rise, 39" x 37"

Croton Leaves was also in the show.

Croton Leaves, 20" x 20"

It was a beautiful show, and Pine Belt Quilters had lots of winning quilts there. We're already looking forward to our next Pine Belt Quilters show October 7-9, 2016.

Foster Kitten Update:  I have been taking care of four little orange tabbies for Southern Pines Animal Shelter. for several weeks. Tiger was adopted last weekend. He's the darker orange with the short tail, one week older than the K brothers. Kaiser, Ken, and Keller had their snip surgery this week and went to PetSmart today for someone to fall in love with. 

Tiger stretching; Kaiser, Ken, and Keller dozing

Kaiser's sweet face

Tarbaby finally letting Kaiser eat with him

I will miss the little furballs, but it will be nice to move my car back into the garage.

Midsummer Heat, Tomatoes, and Kittens

Where does the time go? Just keeping a few flowerbeds alive has been difficult in this near 100-degree heat in South Mississippi. I had high hopes for cherry tomatoes after my neighbor's vine climbed up and over my fence last year, giving me dozens of tomatoes. I planted one this year, and my huge vine finally produced a total of four tomatoes, which grew to tennis ball size. When they began to tempt the birds I picked my entire harvest and used them for paint subjects.

I'm enjoying an online botanical sketchbook painting class with Val Webb--just for fun. Drawing and painting have been a favorite pastime for me for years, and I love to be involved with some instruction. I rarely share these with anyone, so if you're looking, understand that I realize their limitations! I learned to stain my heavy watercolor paper with coffee, tea, mud, or pigment. Then we painted an undercoat of gouache and added Prismacolor pencils for shading and highlights--a totally new technique to me. The tomatoes above and the peppers on the right below are gouache with Prismacolor pencils. The peppers on the left are only Prismacolor pencils.

This month I finished a piece I had started in 2009 from a Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry pattern called Square Dance. Making this pattern is actually what introduced me to her Applipiecing technique and caused me to take her four-day Beyond the Grid workshop at her studio in Paducah--a dream-come-true experience! After making one block back then, I finally made the other three, added borders and quilted in a circular design. So the name became Circle Dance.

Circle Dance, 26" x 26"

And now for kitty news--Southern Pines Animal Shelter put out an urgent plea on Facebook for foster help with an influx of kittens. I picked up three little brothers who had been found and rescued. They had just been introduced to canned food and they looked like they had been rolling around in it! I bathed them and dried them--two solid white ones and one cream-colored with brown ears and tail.

I think they had lost their mama too soon and had been hungry and were food insecure, because they ate just like they kittens nurse--pushing with their feet and fighting for space. They were fun to watch and take care of (needing another bath in a couple of days!), but another shelter saw their picture and wanted them, so they were transported about 300 miles away after less than a week. It's nice to know that they had homes waiting for them once they grew enough. Meanwhile, my three grown cats are happy to be the only cats again.

 

Tarbaby

Rah-Rah and Elizabeth

Kittens Up for Adoption

These last 10 weeks have been joy-filled and entertaining. As the foster kittens grew and I enjoyed them and laughed at them and fed them, my friends constantly asked, "How can you give them up?" They remarked, "I'll bet you keep them." Well, my three grown cats (who were fosters a year and a half ago) have felt very invaded and frustrated, actually downright frightened of these little fur balls, so it wouldn't seem fair to them.

When the kittens reached 2-1/2 lbs. I took them for their neuter surgery, and then Southern Pines Animal Shelter microchipped them and delivered them to PetSmart yesterday for adoption.

George Clooney, Josh Groban, Christopher

Christopher

George Clooney

Josh Groban

Trying to share a chair with Tarbaby

They will make wonderful pets. I will miss them.

Pathways Program for Pine Belt Quilters

I enjoyed giving a PowerPoint presentation program on Pathway designs at our Pine Belt Quilters May 13 meeting. This is what I call several "pathways" crossing a background. I have been in love with this type of design for many years from admiring Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry's remarkable quilts. Of course, hers are intricately challenging pieces, but I began trying some simple designs in 2008 when my niece in Colorado asked me to make a 35" x 55" piece for her wall. She had no specific design in mind--but I knew from her professional photography skills that she loved brilliant colors. I made "Marilyn's Pathways" and she was delighted that I had captured her admiration of the mountains and Canada Geese she saw on her morning walks.

Marilyn's Pathways,  2008, 35" x 55"

Later I purchased a pattern from Caryl called "Square Dance," which taught her Applipiecing® technique for joining curved pieces, and realized this technique was the answer to many of the challenges encountered in Marilyn's piece. Then in 2009 I attended a four-day "Beyond the Grid" workshop at Caryl's Paducah studio where we learned to draw and construct our own designs. I will be ever grateful for Caryl's inspiration and generous sharing. Her website contains a wealth of information and I encourage quilters to avail themselves of her patterns, articles, and instructions (www.bryerpatch.com). Learning from her was a dream come true I will always remember.

The piece I started in her workshop and later continued and completed at home, Galaxy, is one of my favorites. The background is Caryl's gradated fabric, with the blue pieced pathway of hand-dyes by Mary Nell Magee and the two solid pathways my own (one-time foray!) hand-dyes.

Galaxy, 2011, 37" x 24"

Since then I have made several other quilts I could not have made without her marvelous Applipiecing® technique. Sharon Shamber and perhaps others use a similar method but I have only read about these.

Ribbons of Change, 2010, 25" x 29"

Ribbons of Change was made in 2010 and donated to the AIDS Services Coalition auction, and you can see Caryl's influence on my color choices of the mountain/valley pathway. She often gradates the mountain peaks and the valley peaks in the opposite direction (one from light to dark and the other from dark to light).

My guild has recently purchased a camera and projector, which makes it much more possible for members to see and enjoy a program featuring items that we no longer own.

I'm looking forward to teaching a Pathways workshop in two weeks and helping quilters make their own design, thanks to Caryl's Applipiecing®!I have drawn four designs that quilters may choose from. These can be oriented different directions, and everyone will decide on her own pathways and fabrics, so no two quilts will be alike.

Meanwhile, my foster kittens from Southern Pines Animal Shelter are seven weeks old and running to greet me when I go into the garage. They love to be picked up and purr loudly; they are getting near their required two-pound required weight for their surgery and adoption. My house cats are still terrified of them and will be glad for them to find forever homes!

Old Quilt Repair and Growing Kittens

I finally finished repairing the old quilt I agreed to do back in November. My goal was not to make it look new--just secure or replace the loose patches and stitch and/or quilt to get the quilt back to a usable state. It is a dear and precious piece made by the owner's grandmother and it had cotton tumbling out and ragged places from years of loving and use. It was more difficult than I anticipated because the cotton was hard and packed from washing and knotting. Luckily, the original quilting design was straight lines or L-shapes about 2" apart, so there was a minimum of quilting needed.
Here are some "before" pictures (click to enlarge):

After the repair, I didn't want the owner to be able to tell my work from her grandmother's. A few patches were added to hide noticeable dark stains. She did not want the fraying edge replaced, so it got a few stitches just to prevent further damage. Here is the quilt after repair and washing:

 My foster kittens from Southern Pines Animal Shelter are three weeks old now and beginning to walk about. Mama has moved them again, to a shelf away from the side of the garage. I think a thunderstorm caused her to want to move away from the windows, so I put a fleece blanket under them and she seems content. She gets nervous when they don't stay with her, but in a few days they will be all over the garage. I've already begun leaving my car outside!