Penguin Cheer, My Granddaughter, and A Fairy Garden

This weekend I have been busy working on a couple of my blocks of the month. I did finish my new Penguin Cheer block.

It is nice to take a little time from "serious work" to do something fun.

I got a little behind on my Country Threads block of the month blocks. This weekend, I worked on last month's blocks and this month's blocks. I haven't gotten them all finished yet. I'll take a picture of them when they are done.

I have also had company and have done some traveling. The first week in July, I had company and went from home (in southern Indiana) to drop my friend off at the airport in Nashville, Tennessee. From there, I went to my sister's house in Memphis. We both traveled to my son's house in FAR western Arkansas. We had such fun visiting my little granddaughter.

She turns one on July 23rd. I just can't get enough of her! Then it was back to Memphis for us. After a couple of days, I went back home to Indiana. It was wonderful to visit with my friend of over 36 years (Irene) and to spend time with my sister. While at my sister's, she made a terrarium (a little fairy garden) for me.

I just love it. I know you can't see everything from the picture, but there is a little "Home Sweet Home" rock beside the door of the house, a little teeter totter with a frog and turtle on it, a couple of birds, a turtle, a mushroom, some teeny tiny terra cotta pots, and lots of moss and plants. I'm just hoping I can keep the plants alive.

Needless to say, I haven't gotten as much work in the studio done as I would like. I am diligently working on my "extreme embroidery" piece and have even made a few hexagons for my hexagon quilt. I must say, though, that my right hand has enjoyed the time off from hand stitching. I have been having some pain and purchased a brace for my hand (which I wore while I did all that driving). Between the brace and the time off, my hand has felt pretty good; and stitching hasn't seemed to bother it the last few days!!! Yeah!!!

 

 

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SAQA (Indiana) Meeting

I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with several members of the Indiana division of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates). Cathy Franks was kind enough to host the meeting at her beautiful home. A big plus to that was that we also got a tour of her studio.

The program consisted of several members presenting surface design products and tools with which they are familar. We saw presentations on Versatex screenprinting inks, extenders, and Thermofax screens by Judy Ireland. Mary Jane Keys showed us some of her batiks and discussed batik waxes, dyes, and tools. Kate Lenkowsky discussed block printing inks, Blick's Golden Cut "linoleum" for relief printing, cutting tools, and Golden varnishes with ultra violet light stabilizers. Cathy Franks showed us how she uses breakdown printing with Procion dyes and Jacquard's pearl powdered pigments.

I didn't even think about taking pictures until I saw someone else doing it. (Duh!) When I finally "got on the bandwagon," I took pictures of a couple of the presentations and of Cathy's studio.

Barbara Triscari showed us how she uses Tsukineko and printer cartridge inks and iron powder.

Mary Ann Vansoest showed several ways to finish fiber art work including the use of stretcher bars and gallery wrapped canvases rather than a binding or facing.

At the end of the meeting, we got a tour of Cathy's studio. She has LOTS of thread--stored vertically...

and horizontally.

These two pictures show just a SMALL portion of her thread stash! (Cathy does long-arm quilting and a lot of thread painting.)

She also has a really nice fabric stash and big cutting station. She uses old chest of drawers for her cutting table base. She stores thread in the drawers. She covers her fabric with the white curtains to protect it from the light.

Here is another view of her studio. As you can see, Cathy has won numerous awards. (That's Cathy in the blue shirt.)

It was SO nice to spend time with these talented artists. I really enjoyed the day and wish to thank Kate for organizing the meeting and Cathy for hosting.

 

 

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