Don't Look Anne!

Do you ever get stuck in the design phase? I am stuck right now. Big time. My friend, Anne and I are doing another challenge. We did one 2 years ago, check out the results here. I really enjoyed it and it was a good stretch for my artistic side. So we decided to do it again. Anne got to set the rules this time.  We swapped two fat quarters, one had to be hand dyed by us, the other could be dyed, but also needed some sort of surface design on it. I was able to do my dyeing late last year, scroll down on this post to see the fabric I sent to her. It also shows the 2 pieces that she sent me. They have been auditioning on my wall ever since. Our original due date was September, Anne moved it up to July so that we could enter them in the Springville art museum's annual show.

Progress? or is it?

I had an idea right away, but could not work on this piece for a while. I still like my idea, but the last couple of weeks I have had trouble getting my idea to work. Yesterday I actually cut fabric. That is when I found out the stamped FQ was 18"x16". So I need to revise my border idea. Today I need to work the shop, so maybe tomorrow will bring actual work on the project.

Some of the fabrics that have been auditioning for the challenge piece.  

This is my Off the Wall post for this week.

Dyeing Class

leftover dye dump

Orange

another leftover dye dump

from the baggies

over dyed a previous dye project

My Tree

I over dyed this piece, added the yellow.

I had a great deal of fun in the Dye class at Quilt Fest!  Anne and Lisa are a great teaching team.  I had brought a lot of my previous hand dyes to over dye.  I like them much better after the over dye.  Anne usually has an extra piece of fabric ready so that the little bits of leftover over dyes can be used up.  She just dumps them onto the fabric and lets it set.  I saved one of my pieces so that I could do it.  I love how it turned out.  I also dyed another tree.  It is going to be my series.  I have 2 others that are in the quilting queue.

Reveal of the Collaboration quilts

The top that I created.

What Anne did with it.

Anne's top.

What I did with it.

At the show with our quilts.

The big reveal of the collaboration quilts!  I didn't recognize the piece at first.  Anne had sliced and diced the top that I had made, added more strips and over dyed it.  Then she added the silver lizard.  It is titled "Shiny Lizard".

I had trouble figuring out which was up on Anne's top.  When I first turned on the ceiling fan this summer, it blew the piece off the wall and I put it back up and it was right side up.  I was inspired by a sunset photograph that I made at the Crossroads campground.  I cut the curves using a free form technique.  I added the strips of orange and turquoise and decided that it needed the black to define the edges.  It is titled "Crossroads".

Crossroads campground on the Colorado river.
 December 29, 2011

Check out the other artist's Off the Wall posts this week.

Lecture at the Springville Art Museum

A Teacher's Dozen

Anne beside her prizewinning quilt.

Zinnias in the museum's garden.

I drove up to Springville to hear a lecture by my friend, Anne. The lecture was in conjunction with the annual quilt show at the Springville Art Museum.  It was nice to see her and her talk went very well.  I had given her one of my quilts, A Teacher's Dozen, and she showed it in her trunk show.  Back in the day, I tried to get her to add quilting to some of her wonderful batiks.  She resisted.  Until she saw the quilt I had made for my daughter who had just earned a teaching degree.  The apple quilt is done using my Dice and Splice method.  I had made a replica of my daughter's quilt and finally decided that it belonged to Anne.  I am hoping to get the pattern for  A Teacher's Dozen revised and put up on my Craftsy shop in the next week or so.