Thursday, February 26, 2009

traveling

Tomorrow we'll be heading north for the weekend-- first to Manteo, NC to visit with our talented friends at The Silver Bonsai (and to talk about the wedding rings they'll be making for us). Looking forward to the visit, and hoping our Lucy behaves herself....


Then it's up to Norfolk, where I'll be dropping Rob off and heading to the Hampton Convention Center for the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. While I'm always interested in the exhibits and the competition entries, my focus this time will be the Superior Threads booth. I've completely fallen in love with their threads, especially the Nature Colors, which is what I'll be stocking up on for that commission-- more greens, browns, and nice wheaty yellows. The color range for their products is fantastic and I'm looking forward to being able to pick and choose in person. The website has a lot of information about needles, thread types, and troubleshooting... which I'm finding helpful now that I'm paying a bit more attention to what needles I'm using instead of just grabbing the same package every time.


Saturday night is Open That Bottle Of Wine Night, and we'll be spending it with dear friends and long-time wine drinking cohorts. I don't know what we'll be opening, but it's going to be good.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A great end to the day...


...includes a tasty treat. I'm usually looking for something sweet at the end of the day, and while sometimes a cup of tea or cocoa will do the trick, tonight it's homemade pecan pie. My current favorite is from the cookbook St.Louis Days, St. Louis Nights.

Today started with taking measurements for covering a daybed and some throw pillows for a client of a friend of mine, an interior designer here in Asheville. It is with HUGE thanks to her that I'm preparing to create a very large piece of commisioned artwork, the biggest art quilts I've done yet. I'll be tracking my progress on that project here on the blog in the coming weeks.
I'm feeding my creative beast -- and trying to make a little space in my studio-- by working on a few other pieces in the meantime.



A few fabric sketches...












And a swirl that I made while taking a class at http://www.quiltuniversity.com/ several years ago, and have finally found a home for. I think.


And the best news, today saw the sale of 2 pieces...


Small Iguana, 5x7 mounted on 8x10 board




Iguana, 14x10, stretched on a wood frame and finished in cherry



and a detail...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

welcome


Everything has to start somewhere, so this is my beginning: I've decided to start a blog for my artwork, in part to have a place for sharing, but also to give myself some motivation to keep pushing forward. It's easy to get sidetracked with other projects, or stumble over making decisions on where a piece should head next, so this is my attempt to add a little more focus.


Thanks for taking a look, and if nothing else... the wheel is spinning now.