Inspiration at Rat Fink Reunion

Every year the small town south of us, Manti, holds the "Rat Fink Reunion". It is in honor of the late Ed Roth who is famous for his drawings of the Rat Fink. He was also famous for inventing pin striping and printing on T-shirts. Included in the festivities is a car show. We went last weekend, it was fun! This show has a good variety of cars. Stock, restored,chopped, art, in progress and everything in between! I love the emblems on vintage cars! So inspirational! One of these days I need to make a fiber art piece inspired by one of my car show photographs.

Loved this emblem 

One of the issues with taking photographs of cars at a car show is that they are polished within an inch of their lives and it is tricky to try and get a photo without it being a selfie! You can see my squished face in the chrome at the top.

A crown and a rat

Love the metal work on this art car! No doubt this guy is not finished yet!

An Art Beetle

Sometimes they paint it to look like rust! 

Rat Fink

You see a lot of tributes to the Rat Fink on the cars.

Lovely pin striping!

And once again I am in the photograph!

Old fire truck!

It was hard to get all the elements of this in one photograph. There is a ladder with another firefighter skeleton up against the tree rescuing a cat skeleton. There is a dog skeleton on the front of the truck.

In other excitement this week I received a package in the mail.......

Oh, of course it is packed upside down!

Inspired by the National Parks!

My copy of  "Inspired by the National Parks" by Donna Marcinkowski DeSoto! It is a beautiful book with wonderfully written stories from National park rangers. I am thrilled to be a part of it!

Capitol Reef

A couple of weeks ago I was able to reveal my quilt "Fruita View" that I submitted for this book. I love the way it looks in the book!

Brooks River

My good pal, Lisa Chin, did Katmai park. I love the way she used free form piecing to depict the sky, trees and water.

I am linking to Nina-Marie , Emily , Love Laugh, Quilt , Sarah and Amanda Jean's linky parties.

And the Summer Starts off with a Whimper

So many things going on this year and not a lot of sewing or creating art. We have our home up for sale, which means that stuff is stowed away and everything has to be tidy. Not my way of working in the sewing room! A court case involving the family cabin's subdivision and an unethical mayor/city council which has been dragging on for over two years now. And then to top it off my sweet puppy dog, Eddy, had to have surgery yesterday to remove a lump from his right hip. Poor little guy! And I believe that he blames me. I dropped him off telling him that the nice people at the vet clinic were going to take good care of him and then they knocked him out, cut him up and then put a cone of shame on him.  He cried the entire drive home. I need to keep a close eye on him today, make sure that he is healing.

The last blooming iris

I did get a bit of gardening done while Eddy was at the clinic. The last of the irises are blooming.  I did not get out there to take photographs of them this year. They did put on a good show!

Tomatoes

I am only planting a few tomato plants this year. The last couple of years I had an overabundance of them and couldn't keep up.  I planted two Romas and one cherry (not pictured). I hope that will be enough. 

Basil

I decided to plant the basil in a pot. That way if our house sells I can take it with me. I have a perennial herb garden, but basil needs to be replanted every year. I have hopes of dividing the perennials and putting some in pots so that I can start another herb garden at the new house.

Cherry

Three or four years ago we planted a cherry tree. It had a rough start the first year. But came back the next with some good branches. This year there were plenty of blossoms.  But there is only one cherry on the entire tree. I hope I get to share it with sweetie, around here the birds know exactly when the fruit is perfectly ripe, usually one day before I realize it.  The peach trees have a decent amount of fruit.  Hope to beat the birds to those as well.

Two years ago I participated in a summer photography scavenger hunt. It was fun! Last year I missed it, so decided to do it this summer. I will be posting my photographs to my photo blog. It started on the 1st. Still time to join in. If you are interested here is the link to the host of this event.

In my studio

I hope to spend some time in the studio today. I have this piece, started from leftovers, that has been vegging for a couple of weeks. I wanted to try and cut holes into the top, saw the technique on a blog a couple of months ago. I really wanted to try it out and with all the house stuff going on, this is as far as I got.

My off the wall and finished friday post for this week.

Ephraim Quilt Show

Every year the Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend our little town puts on the Scandinavian Heritage Festival. In conjunction with the festival, the local quilt guild stages a quilt show. It is a non-judged show featuring quilts from guild members and also the public is invited to display vintage family quilts.

Debbie and Kate minding the show

Behind Debbie and Kate is this year's raffle quilt. The Horseshoe Mountain Quilters make a quilt each year to raise money for a scholarship to Snow College.

A theme quilt

Last year Jessica designed and made a quilt for the show. She was awarded one of the scholarships from Horseshoe Mountain quilt guild a few years ago.  This year her quilt is just as fabulous as last years! I was unable to get a better photograph, the piano was in the way.

Some views of the show.

Debbie with her quilt

Close up of the quilting

Debbie is a fabulous long arm machine quilter! My photo does not do this quilt justice!  It just glows! The fabrics were well chosen and the quilting designs really compliment the piecing design.  She does quilting for hire, check out her website.

Sanpete Sampler

Brenda of Pie Plate Patterns designed a sampler featuring things related to Sanpete County. I think she did a wonderful job finding blocks that represent the county's history!

Row by Row experience

There are quite a few of our local quilters that have been participating in the Row by Row Experience. All four of these quilts won first finish at local (well, Utah) shops. They seemed to have a blast gathering patterns and visiting shops.  I might try it this summer.

Attic Window

I like this idea!  What a fun way to use a scenic panel!

Karla's tie quilt

My flash distorted the color, the red is more of a burgundy red. This was made with silk ties and silk fabrics. It is featured on the Scandinavian days website.

Art Quilt

The stitching on this piece is wonderful!

Me and my quilt

I chose to display my Utah Centennial quilt. I started it in 1996 (Utah's Centennial) but didn't complete the quilting until almost 10 years later. It is hand quilted.

We had several Lone Star vintage quilts entered into the show. The one on the left is made with satiny fabrics.

Vintage Courthouse Steps

Close up

This was lovely! Made from ties.

This is my off the wall and Finish up Friday post (Only finish of the week is helping hang the show)

HMQS

This week is the Home Machine Quilting Show in Salt Lake City. I was excited to attend, the Inspired by the Beatles exhibit was going to be there. Since I have a piece in the exhibit and I have not yet been able to see the quilts in a show, I made sure to go to the show this year. I volunteered to white glove in the Beatles area on the opening day.

Twist and Shout, upper middle quilt

It was very exciting to see Twist and Shout hanging with all the other wonderful pieces from this group!

Up the nose selfie

A bit better selfie

I tried to take a selfie with my quilt. Hmm, my selfie skills leave a lot to be desired. I tend to try and look up into the camera and end up showing off my nostrils. Then I try to over correct. Still not good. About that time a friend stopped by and offered to take a photo for me.

Much Better!

So much better!  Thanks Cindy!

Helen and her Cathedral Windows

After my volunteer gig I hooked up with my friend Helen.  We wandered the show and I did not take many photographs, but did take one of her with her Cathedral Windows quilt. My former group in the Salt Lake area had a display and her quilt was with those.  Along with my other friend, Lisa.

Two of Lisa's pieces

On the right is Andrea's wonderful piece from a guild challenge a few years ago, Make a banner. The middle and left are Lisa's quilts.  She had told me that she was submitting Takeaway and SWR (Sylvia was right) to the show. The one on the right is SWR.

Not Takeaway

But the one in the middle is not Takeaway. She had gifted me Takeaway for a birthday a couple of years ago. Last summer she was presenting a trunk show and I had lent back to her several art quilts that she had given me. She still has them (too long a story).

This is Takeaway

This photo is from her blog, this IS Takeaway!  The name came about because she had made it with the intention of giving it to me and then the surface design group was having a show at a gallery and she needed something to hang in the show. And it needed to be available for sale. So she Took Away the quilt from me! Lucky for me it did not sell during the exhibit and I was able to take it back. It had been hanging in my studio until I lent it back to her last summer. I hope she gets a kick out of this, but I can't harass her about it, she is in the midst of her son's wedding this week.  

This is my off the wall and  finished Friday post for this week. And Emily's Moving forward Monday!

Reveal!

Last year I finished an art quilt for the Inspired by the National Parks challenge. Donna  De Soto is again heading up a wonderful book project.  I was thrilled to be able to make a landscape of one of our Utah parks. I was lucky to get the park nearest to where I live, Capitol Reef.

Ready to quilt

I did not take very many in progress photographs. I was too excited to get started! I had chosen to depict the Fruita Cliffs near the barn. I wanted to do a mosiac, so cut tiles of hand dyed and prints that had fusible web. I had drawn lines to designate the placement of the horizon and grassy areas. I used a solid background with the color name of Espresso. It was a very dark brownish black. I thought it gave the other colors a better contrast than solid black. I fused the tiles down to the background and then pin basted for quilting.

quilting on the back

I quilted the areas with what I thought would mimac what each section of tiles represented. I did take photographs of the back showing the quilting. I had previously written a blog post about my finish, but without showing the front.

backing

I miss calculated and miscut my backing fabric. I really wanted to use this John Flynn Artifacts print from my stash. I thought the piece was large enough, but I cut it in the wrong direction. So I added a bit of the background fabric to fill in.

Adding the sleeve

I sleeved and labeled it and it went on its way to Donna. 

Fruita Views (or Cliffs)

The finished piece!  I didn't know what to the actual name of the cliffs was, so I titled it Fruita Views. Labor day weekend, Sweetie and I took a camping trip to Capitol Reef. It was fabulous! At the ranger station I found out that the cliffs were actually named Fruita Cliffs! I let Donna know, it was late in the game and I am not sure which title the quilt received in the book.  But the book is due out soon! Donna has received her author's advance copy, I have my copy on order! The exhibit has already started to travel. Check the schedule here.

This is my off the wall and Finish up Friday post.

Also linking to Emily's Moving it forward.

Bowl city

I love making fabric wrapped clothesline bowls!  I get carried away and make way more than I can use. I have the excess for sale in my Etsy shop.  A couple of weeks ago someone bought a yellow bowl. She said she was thrilled to find one in yellow! I realized that it was the only yellow bowl in my shop. So I cut strips and made a couple more. Of course I got carried away and made a couple others as well.

Four bowls!

They are all different sizes and shapes.  I just let the bowl turn out however it feels like growing.

Daisy print

This is a cute little guy. I had this daisy print on a pale yellow background. It did not photograph well, but is a bit darker than pictured. It is the perfect size to put on your nightstand for jewelry, chapstick, etc. Or I use bowls this size next to my sewing machine as a thread catcher.

Bright Yellow

This was a bright yellow background with tiny red, green, blue and white spots!  It is a larger size, big enough to use as a knitting bowl, to throw the mail in, or display fruit.

Flannel scraps!

I had some leftover strips of flannel that I took out of someone's trash at the retreat last month. Along with a few yellow and green flannel strips that I had in my scrapbag I decided to try making a bowl with them. I hadn't used flannel in making bowls. It turned out really charming!

Total scrapbag

I am a scrapaholic. I can't throw out usable strips and squares. I cut my scraps down to the largest size possible and then sort them into boxes of like sizes. Yeah, I save 1 inch strips. I have this idea of making a crocheted rug out of them.  One day.  So anything that is about 1/2"-1" wide gets thrown into another bag and I use those for making clothesline bowls. Sometimes I sort them into piles of colors and other times I just grab strips out of the bag and let it happen. This big guy is a fun shape. A very wide bottom and not very tall.  I can't decide if I want to keep him or not.

I will worry about it next week when I get the yellow bowls listed.

This is my Finish up Friday and Off the Wall post for this week.

April Fool's Day!

Finished Swap Blocks!

I finished the swap blocks that I was working on last week! Yay!  A real finish! I need to check with Diane, make sure she is not out of town before mailing them off to her. Nice to be able to cross something off my to do (sew) list.

Newest Sweet Sixteen

For my March Sweet Sixteen personal challenge piece I am making a fern. I was able to get my swirl cut out, and now I need to do a bit of research on fern leaves unfurling.  I ended up with an alternate swirl, so I decided to make a second piece, not for the sweet 16 project, just for fun.

Leftovers

So of course, instead of working the official next on the to sew list, I start quilting on the leftover piece! I am going to FMQ some swirls in the background. I got out my practice piece to try that out today. We will see how that goes, swirls are within my FMQ skill level (which isn't very high, but I keep trying) Hopefully this will be next's weeks finish.

Treasures from Trash

Sweetie's favorite Beer

At Sweetie's workplace they buy bags of rags. Sometimes he finds treasures in the rag bags and brings them home to me. I turned one of them into a Sock Monkey challenge for my friends. Read about it here. The reason I did the challenge 2 years ago was that I dislike Sock Monkeys, they are a bit creepy. So since Sweetie was so thrilled about finding treasure in the rag bag, I felt I had to do something with it and so conned my buddies into a challenge. There was quite a variety of projects.

This time he brought home this Guinness Stout piece, looks like it was cut from a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. I am keeping this piece for my own use. Not sure what it will become, but I am sure it will be fun to work with.

This is my off the wall and finish up Friday post for this week.