Artistic Artifacts Open House

PGFiber2Art (that's Elizabeth and me!) will be participating in Artistic Artifacts Holiday Open House this coming Saturday, Dec. 1.  From the website:

"If you are in the vicinity of Alexandria, VA, you are invited to join us on Saturday, December 1 for our Annual Holiday Open House. We’ll feature class and technique demonstrations, a make & take activity, light refreshments and other festive fun! We’ll be open 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, so please stop by!"  Here's the link to the store site in case you need directions: http://www.artisticartifacts.com/about_us/events.htm

We will be demonstrating thermofax screen printing and will have some new screens available for sale. The new screens are not in our Etsy shop yet, so you can get them first at the Open House!  Want a sneak peak?

We have a few graphics and more nature items - plants, insects, and sea life are some of the categories.  Hope to see you there!

November VCQ Meeting

Last weekend I attended our Virginia Consortium of Quilters meeting in Martinsville, VA.  In the previous post I showed some quilts from the Piedmont Arts show we attended Friday evening.  Our meeting/workshop day was held on Saturday and I took a class called Gift Bags Plus taught by Abby Geddes.  This was a fun class!  In the 5 hour class period, we made a gift bag, a zipper pouch, a notebook cover - actually, we finished all 3 of those before lunch! After lunch, we made some bonus gifts - a gift card holder and a coaster; I made 2 of each.  So it was a very productive day!  All quick and easy, but it was so nice to end the day with finished projects!

One of the other classes was focused on our VCQ charity project, which is making pillowcases for foster children in Virginia.  42 cases were completed that day.  A large number of foster children are boys, so the focus was on making cases appropriate for them. 

Piedmont Arts Show - Art of the Quilt: Celebrations

Every two years, the Piedmont Arts Center in Martinsville, VA, mounts an "Art of the Quilt" show curated by Linda Fiedler.  This year's theme was Celebrations.  It was a very colorful show and included a group of challenge quilts "Inspired by the Masters", from some famous name quilters, including Mary Stori and Georgia Bonesteel.  Here are a few of my favorites.

How Do You View Time?

This was the topic of the latest postcard exchange, and above is a finished card. I started with a piece of rusted fabric cut into 3 8 1/2" x 11" sheets that I ironed onto freezer paper so that I could print text on them.  I created a page of sayings about time in various fonts, and then in order to get  3 cards out of each sheet with the printing reading horizontally on each, I turned the text into an image that I could shrink and copy with the opposite orientation on one end of the page, as shown in the pictures below.

The next step was to stencil with a clock stencil that contained several different clock images. Then I cut the large sheets into 3, 4 x 6 " pieces.  The focal point for the cards is an image from a book of African designs, one that I felt was representative of infinitiy, having no real beginning or end.  That image was screen printed in the center of each piece.  After fusing each piece to timtex, I machine stitched the central image.

  A card stock backing was fused to the back of the cards and they were finished off with a machine satin stitch on the edges.  Then mailed off to the rest of the swap group!

Baby Gifts

These ribbon blankets are a quick & easy baby gift.  Thanks to Quilting Adventures of Richmond for the instructions.  They are soft, cuddly minky fabric on one side and flannel on the other.  They are going to co-workers expecting new babies; for a change, the gifts are ready before the shower is scheduled!

Cleo

Our cat Cleopatra went to kitty heaven this past week.  She'd been with us almost 15 years.  She was really my daughter's cat - she picked her out at the Humane Society when she was going into 6th grade.  But children grow up, go to college, move out, and leave the pets behind.  Not that she wasn't still attached - pets don't work out so well in apartments. So she adopted my husband as her best buddy.  She wasn't a cuddly cat - only on her terms.  In fact, she could be downright mean at times.  She didn't like strangers and let you know with hissing, growling, and swats.  But still, she was part of the family and she is missed.  No more food dishes at the bottom of the basement stairs.  No meows in front of the refrigerator.  Doors that have stayed closed for 15 years don't need to be closed anymore.  I know we'll get used to it. Right now its just hard.