Relaxing Weekend! Part 3

First off this was our group at lunch on Saturday.  We ate at The Bridges Waterside Grille, which was on the water, duh! Really good food!!!  Definitely a place I would head back to just to try another dish.  I had grilled chicken with artichoke/spinach dip, which was excellent!  Very moist and tasty!

(L-R)  Mary, Irene, Me, Tommy, Mike (Tommy's sister - yes all the girls have/had boy's names!) and Gayle.
I'm started another project at Tommy's.  This doesn't look like much but I didn't start making these hex's until Friday afternoon!  I had 2" fabric strips cut but then had to cut the hex shapes and cut the hex papers then make the hex's and then sew them together.  Actually, I am thrilled with how many I did get sewn!  So that was my effort for the weekend.

These are 1" hexes and the piece is around 10" x 6".

Now to see what everyone else did and what the weekend was suppose to be all about!  As Tommy puts it, "get in the sweat shop and let's get to work"!  Gayle and Irene worked their little hearts out!  Of course, Tommy is more productive than any of us so she was busy making another dress for herself and sewing on binding and quilting some quilts!  I didn't get any pictures of her work!  So you'll have to go to her blog and you'll see from time to time what she did!  Or does!

So this is what the others did and some really nice work!!!  

Mary was doing some hand stitching on a piece of her ice dyed fabric

Closeup of her stitching and background.  Beautiful dyeing! Mary only stayed Saturday afternoon and look how much she did.

Irene was a working machine!

Another project by Irene

Another top by Gayle.  She and Irene were racing their machines!!!

A patchwork quilt top by Gayle

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #15

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #15

Be sure to stop over to Lynn's blog to see her latest pattern, as well as others who are 'playing' along!

Relaxing Weekend! Part 2 - the view

So the 'relaxing weekend' continues!  Have to start off with the view from Tommy's house.  It is spectacular!!  And listening to the waves at night is SO much better than any white noise CD you can buy!
 Each of our rooms have a door out to the back area that is right on the lake.  Irene and I shared the 'hotel' room (two queen beds and your own bath) and we kept the double doors open at night.  I really miss sleeping with the windows open and hearing the waves.  Weather was beautiful!!  We didn't have any rain until Sunday mid morning.  Some rain on the way home as well.

Sunset

This would make a great painting

View from our room

So now you can see why it was so relaxing for the weekend!

Relaxing Weekend! Part 1

Isn't she the cutest!!!  Well, Tommy did it again!  Tommy provided five of us another relaxing weekend as well as introducing us to new quilters and getting together with  'old' friends (no, they really aren't old! just old acquaintances!  Is that a better term?).
Tommy always makes you feel you are part of her family rather than an acquaintance!!!  AND of course feeds us so well!!!  I don't even want to get on the scale!
 On our arrival Friday, Tommy provided us  lunch of BBQ sandwiches, delicious cole slaw and chocolate chip cookies, Mexican enchilada's for dinner Friday night along with her delicious apple pie that she made while we all stood around and watched (ok, we did cut up apples, does that count!?).
Saturday we had lunch out (more on that tomorrow as I'm all about the food right now!); lasagna/salad for dinner, more pie!   Then on Sunday Tommy  made us BLT's with her own homegrown tomatoes,and broccoli salad to give us energy for on our way home.
We each got a bag of Tommy's home made famous pesto to take home to boot!!!  
Yes, our weekend included lots of food, drink (not really that much...only Tommy and I!) sewing and conversation!  It was great to meet Tommy's sister, Mike and another fellow art quilter,  Mary  (she has been part of several of the group challenges).  Thank you for another wonderful weekend, Tommy!!

The following pics are self explanatory...more pics tomorrow of our weekend!  I really have to get off this computer...wasting too much time!  Here are some of the show and tell!  You'll have to head over to Tommy's blog to see her work as some of Tommy's new work can't be shown now!  IT IS SPECTACULAR!  The pictures are in my head!

Gayle's work

More of Gayle's art!  Pretty cool isn't it!

Some painting/printing from a workshop Gayle attended

Ditto

Ditto

One of our meals!

Working hard

 And if you don't already know about Tommy Cooks blog, you need to head over there as well!  Great recipes from a great cook!

I'm on the road!

Yep...I should be on the road headed to INDY to be part of a sew-in with four other ladies until Sunday!  I am hoping to get lots of hand work done since I'm not taking my machine.  Just all my hand projects.

So to show some artwork on my blog today, I asked my 'talented' friend if I could post pics of her latest art work from our August fiber meeting and she said "yep"!

Carol has been taking several online art classes...mainly watercolor and she does a great job.  She certainly has the talent for painting and drawing.  In case you don't recognize this 'lady' or 'girl', it's one of the Kardashian daughters!!  I think she does look like the younger one, who I think this is.

 Anyway, enjoy work from one of my talented friends!  I'm so lucky to have so much talent surround me!!!!  I took these pictures as Carol was working on the piece and bringing to our fiber meetings.  This is the first painting we saw a few months ago.

In progress...looking good!!!

And the finished painting!!!  Really nice, isn't it!!!!

So hope to have lots of pics from our weekend!!!  That is if I can put my sewing or drink down long enough to take a picture!

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #14

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #14

 No, it's not February or Valentine's Day!  Just had an itching to work on some heart patterns!  Trying to get a head start on my fiber cards!  I think this year I will be making over 30 cards!  I need to start in September to decide what I want to do this year!

Be sure to stop over to Lynn's blog to see her latest pattern, as well as others who are 'playing' along!

Where is it????

Yep, I've lost it!  And I have looked all over but still no luck in finding it!  What is it?  TIME!!!!!  I am a fairly productive person but lately I feel like I just can't find the time for everything!  I am not one to just sit around watching TV or even just reading a book all afternoon (which sounds like something I would love to do!)  BUT...I always seem to have so much to do and don't want to waste time!  UGH...hate this feeling but life goes on so.....

I was hand stitching my hex horse #2 but after I did the stab stitch next to a circle I decided I don't like it!!  So....I'm thinking of removing the stab stitches in the one circle (on the right) and just keeping the other circle as is.

This coming weekend I, along with two others, will be headed to Tommy's house for a weekend of stitching!  We did this girls weekend two years ago and that year I took my sewing machine and worked on making a hum bug bag....you can see the post here.  I also did some hand stitching too which I forgot!  I was starting on my peacock, which is now ffinished.  We'll have show and tell so I will make sure to bring that piece along with some other small quilts.    I am bringing my hex horse piece to get feedback on the stitching.

 Anyway, this year I'm just bringing all hand work.  Seems that's what most of my projects consist of is hand stitching.  I love machine quilting but for some reason hand work seems to fit the last few art quilts.

This may look like a lot but the top part (bottom pic) is all hand projects (3 of them!).  The blue plastic bag are my quilts for show and tell.  It all fits in one carry bag.  Easy packing this year!

It should be an interesting weekend for Bob as he'll be home ALONE with the girls!  Just hope he survives and I don't have to return early!  YIKES!

Throw Back Thursday - in Art Work!

This week we received back our art quilts that have been showing for the last 2 or 3 years.  We're working on a new collection for a February 2016 opening with all new artists (Dr. Seuss, Tiffany, Ugo, MaryAnn Beckwith, Rich Loudermilk, Peter Max and Blue Dog/George Rodrigue).

The quilt exhibit is based on our interpretation of any or all of the  master artists.  For this past exhibit we had: Hokusai, Hunderwasser, Mucha, Frankenthaler, Klimt, Beadersley and VanGogh).

Here are 3 of my pieces based on two of the artists.  Next week I'll show some more!  Good to document your art work (yes, I forgot what I had done!).

For all of these pieces I painted Tyvek Fabric that was quilted onto a 'quilted' background, then I burnt the edges or entire piece with a regular iron or a soldering iron. 

My Interpretation of Hokusai (based on his 'Wave")

My Interpretation of Alphonse Mucha

I love the Art Nouveau era so I ended up making two quilts for this artist! 

For this piece I used a soldering iron to burn around the painted Tyvek image.

For this piece and the "wave" I just used an iron and pressed up and down on the Tyvek to burn away sections.  Scary but fun to do!

If you haven't played with Tyvek yet, you really need to try it!  When you receive mail that  is in the white Post Office envelope(s), save them!  You can cut them open and paint over the letters on the front or paint on the back of the envelope.  You can also purchase Tyvek fabric (last I bought some was from Joggles).  

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #13

Weekly Pattern Wednesday #13

Be sure to stop over to Lynn's blog to see her latest pattern, as well as others who are 'playing' along!   I know Lynn is on #12 but for some reason I'm at 13!  Go figure.... 

Keeping busy!

Yes, I try to keep busy...although, lately the dogs are keeping more busy than my normal life!  Poor Kalee had another pancreatitis attack this weekend so off to the vet today.  She's doing fine now but we just are not sure what set this one off!  I did change from her canned ID food to ID kibble...so, we will go back to the canned food.  Poor baby!  Hate when they get sick.

I finally removed all the hex papers and attached my horse onto the hex background over the weekend.  I machine stitched around quite a few of the hex's to keep the piece stable because I'm now hand stitching circles...guess I'm on a circle kick right now!  I played with other designs but like the circles...at least so far but you know how much I love to unsew....so who knows!

And I also stamped some more fabric to use in the binding.  I think by using different colors strips for the binding will pull in the horse color.

I plan on hand stitching the horse in the same patterns as my original hex horse background.

That's my intent!  Monday was our fiber group meeting which is always fun.  I forgot to ask my friend if I can post a pic of her artwork.  I'll have to send a note and post if she says it's OK.  It's always fun to get together monthly to see what all we've worked on or what we haven't worked on!  Either way it's a great time for chatting and talking art work!

More Birthday Fiber Cards

My DIL's mom, Nancy, has a birthday coming up next week.  She always makes the best cakes for any of the functions (she bakes other items that are good as well!)...but we love her cakes.

She also gave Kalee a couple of outfits to wear!  One is a bathing suit and the top is even padded!  I'll be taking pics when Kalee makes a visit to the Assisted Living home this week.  She also gave us another one that has a cute little dress with a vest!  I think it's smaller so it should fit Gigi!!!  So cute!

Anyway, I made her a BD card this week.  I started with some fabric I painted last summer and quilted the background.

It was too dark  for a BD fiber card so.....what to do!  Paint!  I tried different paints but ended up using a Stewart Gill Alchemy textile paint called White Mist.  It actually goes on with a blue sheen.  I think it was perfect to brighten up the background.  I just painted the feathers I had quilted.  

I use Solvy iron on interfacing that I've colored with pastels that  brush with water.  I iron this onto a piece of printer paper and feed through the printer.  Works for me!

I was going to leave Nancy's address so 'ya all' could send her a BD card but thought better of it!