Aches and pains and a peony!

The aches and pains were really worth the effort

Almost back to normal- and not before time!

We have done it! Bruises and aches and pains aside, the  the living room is livable and the dining room awaits diners- or, in my case, a quilter! I am going to start a new piece very soon. Cannot WAIT! I have really been suffering withdrawal.

This is the peony photo I am going to work from. It was a small piece of this picture that I used for my little foot square piece of just the centre. I kept looking at it and thinking the whole ( or MOST) of the flower would be fun to do now. I have no time just yet but soon. Meanwhile, I will need to do some more dyeing. I need LOTS of pale pinks and a few more yellows and I think I will do a bit of velvet for the centre bits. I am SOO excited to be starting to work again. Right now though, dinner beckons so I am off . Hello to everyone. I have neglected my Blog for a bit but I am back now. It feels great!

Before I get too carried away though, I must do some more housework- mainly dusting EVERYTHING! It is covered in plaster dust! The garden looks horrible too so there may have to be a bit og gardening done as well. I can think of worse ways to spend a few days or parts thereof!

Award of Merit

The information is now posted online with pictures of the other beautiful and varied winning quilts as well. My award was one of four Awards of Merit, specifically , for Colour and Design.  I still CANNOT believe it but I am humbled and very grateful for the very kind recognition . You can find the list and photos at Grand National Quilt Show 2013. Enjoy! Eventually a catalogue of the entire show will be posted . I am looking forward to seeing that. 

A MAJOR shock!

Meet my Mum ! My Mum is the WORLD'S BEST FAN!  She is full of unconditional love and supports her kids, her grandkids, her great grandkids, her siblings, her sons and daughters in law ,to the nth degree! Everything any of us undertakes to do is supported fully by Mum! She thinks the best of everyone and is SURE that everything will work out- ALWAYS! That said, I have a small story to tell.

You know that this was the opening of the Grand National today and Mum was over the moon that I had had two pieces accepted. So was I, make no mistake. However, Mum was bound and determined that I would surely win an award. I tried to explain that for me , just getting my work accepted was prize enough and then, to have my one piece chosen for the invitation ...! Enough for me . However, Mum hung fast in her belief and faith.

So, on to the ceremonies this afternoon. It is a lovely show this year- a LOT of gorgeous work and , given the theme of Local Colour, a very colourful show. It was a sunny day so the little gallery room was hottt! It was crowded, noisy and there were a lot of longish speeches- you know the ones:-) As the awards were being given, the award itself was announced followed by the name of the recipient. Being totally sure that I was NOT in the running , being VERY sore from a long stand having just spent three days up a ladder painting, I was blackberrying in my mind , not paying much attention until I suddenly heard my name being called. A woman beside me said, "that's YOU" and sort of ushered me forward. I was totally flabbergasted! I was flabberghasted to the point that I accepted the envelope, the smiling handshake and stood for a photo or two- and to this point, I have NO IDEA what I got it for? Apparently the list will be posted very soon online so I expect to find out exactly what the honour was really for and shall let you know asap! It was for my Smoke Bush Leaves piece. Thank you, Friends of the Grand National!

Grand National Quilt Show

Tomorrow afternoon, 21 April, 2013, the Grand National Quilt Show opens in Kitchener, ON at Homer Watson House and Gallery. I was fortunate enough to have both of my entries accepted for the show and will be attending the opening. If you look carefully, you will see that I also had the honour of having my quilt, Red Iris, chosen for the photo on the official invitation to the show! This was hugely exciting for me .

There are over fifty works in the show apparently, from all across Canada illustrating each participating artist's "take" on the theme, "Local Colour". I am really looking forward to seeing what others did. You know me! I am a literalist and a realist so my two pieces, Red Iris and Smoke Bush Leaves are both representations of the glorious colours I am surrounded by so close to my home.

If you are in or near Kitchener, ON, DO drop in and see the quilts. The show runs till 23 June, 2013.

YAY!!!

I rarely make really personal references in my Blog posts , but this is a red letter day! After five years of waiting and putting up with, I have FINALLY gotten my wish - SEVERAL wishes! We had a very bad roof leak years ago and had to rebuild our roof and as a result of the leak, there was nasty damage to our ceiling in the living room . TODAY, our wonderful contractor has come and put new drywall on it , removed the wretched light fixture and is preparing to finish the mudding and sanding, put crown moulding around the edges and paint it for us . Am I an happy camper? You betcha!!

Here is what we had !

Lovely, EH? YUKKK!

And, although messy and not yet finished, here is what we have right now :-D

The floor is covered in gunk, the sofa is dusty, Heaven KNOWS what state the piano will be in but we are making progress!I am VERY excited.

This is a work in progress for sure. No art, but we have this to show for ourselves. I hope I can still post this to WIP Wednesday on the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com NOPE! Well, anyone who sees this can rejoice with me but the but the WIP Wednesday  crowd is on their own this week . Too bad, just too late. Have a look over at Needle and Thread Network anyway. Always nice stuff there!

A Week of Surprises!!!

This has been an interesting week! A few weeks ago, I submitted three pieces of work to two quilt shows- two to the Grand National in Kitchener and one to the Wee Quilt Challenge in Cambridge. The GN was in touch very smartly to say that both pieces I submitted to them had been accepted- YAY! BUT, I heard nothing from McDougall Cottage in Cambridge. I waited patiently, surprised that they did not even acknowledge receipt of my entry form , and then called them. I was told I SHOULD have gotten an email , but that I would be informed as to whether my work was accepted or not. More waiting. Deadline for entries came and went and I just put it out of my mind. No prob! BUT, two nights ago, just at supper time, I got a call from them asking when I would be bringing my quilt to them??!! I was flabbergasted, to say the least. To make a long story short, I WAS accepted but the emails had been sent to an incorrect address. Easy error to make, I guess. Anyway, patient DH drove me to Cambridge yesterday with the quilt so now three of my babes are out for public scrutiny!

Last evening, I got a lovely surprise from Remy, one of six really FUN ladies from Guelph ON who took my Urban Cubes class last fall, with a nice attachment- see below- of her finished piece. It is so nice I really wanted to share it with y'all.

Didn't Remy do a lovely job!

This is not a pattern , per se. I taught them how to make each of eleven cool, 3D blocks and then they arranged them as they liked. Remy chose the hexagonal shape similar to the one I used as my teaching sample. It is on my blog somewhere I think. The blocks are a combination of ones by Sara Nephew, Maxine Rosenthal and Joy Pelzmann. Great fun to do and a very effective little wall quilt.

The pieces I submitted for jurying into the two shows are Red Iris, Smokebush Leaves and Tangy Glen Bluebells. See below...

Smoke Bush Leaves 

Red Iris

Tangy Glen Bluebells

The top two are at the GN , this year's theme being Local Colour, and Bluebells is the late arrival at the Wee Quilt Challenge.

Now, here is the last nice surprise. I have JUST learned that the Red Iris has been chosen to be used as the photo advertising the opening of the Grand National - 21 April at Homer Watson House and Gallery in Kitchener,ON. The Wee Quilt Challenge opens 10 April at McDougall Cottage, Cambridge, ON. Maybe we shall see you there? 

Samples and things

Thread clippings on Solvy and net, overstitched and washed, Organza stitched and then burned off over a cotton print and another sample to demo

Tomorrow is the second in my three session class on multi media/ embellishment. I do NOT travel light, as you saw last week. We went over a lot of techniques and materials and tried out a number of tools and I HOPE people come tomorrow with some fun things done, ready to start creating a masterpiece of interesting textures . I made this sample board to refresh the memory on some of the things we did last week. Thought you may be interested, but I am pretty sure you have done all of these and more besides.

Dryer sheets collaged and painted and overstitched 

A very bad GelliArts print on Cotton , painted and some quilting done

Not part of the class but I THINK this is ready to bind now. I am very happy with the texture!

From top left in a clockwise direction- melted, painted Tyvek, melted biscuit wrapper, painted, stitched bubble wrap and melted beaded Acrylic felt

A good and a bad sample of Angelina Fibre. Hard to see. The bad one was ironed too hot! Makes the sheen disappear:-(

On the left, heat transfer foil, on the right, Texture Magic

Heavily stitched in thick cotton threads  on acrylic felt, then burned with a heat gun

Heliographic print of garden leaves on cotton painted with Setacolor Transparent paint

The whole collection on the display board

Melted Tyvek painted with Lumiere paints

Shiva paintsticks over rubbing plate on cotton, quilted

I am going to link to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com and hope you will nip over there to see what's up this week.