Yes No Quilts

Jon gave me this lovely little scissor and thimble.

The scissor is gorgeous, like a miniature.  I could use it, but it’s good enough just to look at.

I’ll try using the thimble. I’ve used thimbles before and have had a hard time with them. There is a tiny hole on my right hand middle finger that the needle always goes into when I sew. The last thimble I used had a hole in it and the needle found it’s way through the hole in the thimble into the hole in my finger. After that I started using the side of my finger to push the needle through and that’s starting to get a sore spot of it’s own.  Now I’ll try my new thimble.  It’s a serious thimble and I think it will work for me.

I laid out this quilt yesterday commissioned by a customer. She wanted a quilt using some of the dog fabric she saw on my website. My goal was to intergrate the fabric so the dogs become another pattern, and not he main focus of the quilt. Most of the dog prints are in blues and the customer wanted “natural colors” so I went with blues and brown. I started out with a “Log Cabin” design (a center piece with thin strips surrounding it) and modified it for my purposes. I used velor, silk, cotton and polyester. The different textures add another element. After making so many cotton potholders the different fabrics are a pleasure to work with.

I shipped a bunch of dog and non-dog potholders out today.  I’m working on handbag orders and still figuring the process out.  It’s always slow in the beginning when I’m learning how to do something new.  After  making over 400 potholders I have the process down, (and I don’t even think of the shipping anymore, which used to terrify me)   soon it will be the same with the handbags.

Back from vacationing in Florida. It was wonderful to get away, even though the weather wasn’t as warm as I had hoped for. It’s the hot sun and blue skies that draw me to Florida in February.

So today I was back in the studio. And somehow it seems warmer to me here, even with the snow, than it was in Florida. Maybe it’s the longer hours of sunlight (When I left for work this morning at 6:15 it was light out already which wasn’t the case a week ago) or the smell of the wet earth under the melting snow or that the studio heats up quickly and stays warm. I spent the morning taking care of business and the afternoon creating.

I sent these two potholders off to a customer who requested the design, which comes from one of my quilts titled “Arroyo”. They really captured the idea of the mini-quilt as potholder. Arroyo is the second quilt that I’ve made where the name of the quilt became the name of a design. The other is my “Migration Quilt” based on a Native American symbol for migration.

I visited a friend in Oneonta yesterday and stopped at a thrift store in Stamford and got some great oranges and pinks and some hospital greens.

We’re going on Vacation so I’ll have to wait till we get back to use them.  I’ll be back to work on Monday, March 1st.

I had a great reception at the Crandall Library tonight. So many more people showed up than expected and I greatly appreciated them all. It was a little odd because the food was in a completely different area then the exhibit.  That’s why the photo show people stand around books not quilts.  On stood in the gallery and directed people to the area where the food was.

It really was lovely and at the very end a bunch of teenagers from a local teen art group showed up and I told them a bit about my work. They were great. They were curious and interested and had good questions and comments. Their presence made the night even more special.

I noticed that lots of people were looking closely at the quilts and even touching them. I love that people felt compelled to touch.

My Mom hung out and read in the studio today while I worked. She’ll be going with us to my reception tomorrow for my show “Cut it Up” at the Crandall Library in Glens Falls NY. It’s from 5-7 pm and all the galleries in Glens Falls will be having receptions. It’s a month long show with lots of visibility since the gallery is in the middle of the library.

When I worked at the Hillwood Art Museum on Long Island we used to joke that the only reason people went to art receptions was for the food and wine. Unfortunately the library doesn’t allow wine, but there will be some snacks and a friend said she would bring some homemade chocolate chip cookies which is a fine replacement for wine.

I made this bag today for a customer. I had a hard time getting started, so I made some warm-up potholders to get me going. One of my favorite parts is picking out the button. I chose this one because I like the way it mimics the dogs marking around his eye. I just have to get some velcro for the clasp.

The book “Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts” is my quilting bible and inspiration. Sometimes I just look at the pictures and sometimes I read the stories.

One of my favorites is a few lines from Mary L. Bennett: “Don’t nobody teach me to make quilts. I just learned it by myslef, about twelve or thirteen. I was seeing my grandmama piecing it up, and then I start. I just taken me some pieces and put it together, piece them up till they look like I want them to look. That’s all.”