Long Beach International Quilt Show!

Friday I took the day off to go visit the Long Beach International Quilt Show. There were so many wonderful quilts to see and even more vendors! I got to see some of my Santa Barbara fiber art pals there, Barbara, Maren and Penny, and had a fun time at the Quilting Arts booth and workshop center where the talented and friendly Ruth Rae and Traci Bautista, fun fellow Artfiberfest teachers were hanging out. Ruth was demonstrating fiber ATC's on her Singer featherweight and we traded a few...the first two below are from Ruth. After her Demo we had lunch together and then went to look at the Quilts...so many...and fun to see with another artist and to hear their viewpoint and ideas.."more burning!" said Ruth.
Quilting Arts had a wall set up for trading ATC's...Penny and I brought ATC's to trade and I came home with some new ones..and that is always fun.
After looking at the quilts and a little more shopping we went back to Quilting Arts and I got to meet Patricia Bolton, the charming editor in chief of Cloth, Paper, Scissors and Quilting Arts magazines. She encouraged me to send more stuff in...and I hope to. I bought the Studio issue and some of those dyed silk cocoons called "Oliver Twists"that I've been curious about playing with. They had a great selection of books, and after some browsing....I found more that I want to add to my ever growing collection. I also got to meet Beryl Taylor who was doing a great Demo on fabric paper. Fun talking to her and seeing her lovely silk books and fabric collages in person. I remember seeing the silk book she made in Quilting Arts years ago and being so amazed...one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. She is sweet and down to earth and I am so glad that I got to meet her and even get in a mini-class. Another fun spot was the ArtGirlz booth. Traci and Allison Stillwell were busy demonstrating and selling their cool charms and felt beads, dressed in funky fiber attire. I have been to quilt shows before but never on this scale. I think the thing that surprised me the most was the huge number of vendors. ...way more than quilts! I'm so glad that I got to see the quilts from all over the world, meet up with friends, new and old, buy a few things for fresh inspiration, and just take a whole day off for myself!

fun new ATC's from the Quilting arts booth....
Here's just a partial shot of the ATC wall of trades....
And the following are some of the wonderful quilts at the show.......these are just a few that caught my eye.....Enjoy!!!!
By Heidi Stegehuis-Ihle
By Elaine Plogman
By Bodil Gardner
By Cecile Trentini
Janet Twinn
Pine Eisfelter 1939
Dianne S. Hire
Diane S. Hire
Laura Wasilowski
Kathy York
Detail..Kathy York
Deborah Kimball
Diane Rusin Doran
See the lizard...? By Margaret Heinisch
Grasshopper on lower left side.... by Margarete Heinisch

Stitching a pin cushion and the kitties..

This is the embroidered top of the pin cushion that I'm working on. I may do a little bit more stitching before sewing it up. I thought I'd show you the simple steps to this point.

Here is the felt that has been embellished with wool roving . I then used my Embellisher to add wool flowers and the green trim.
First I cut out a circle of felt and then added more color and interest by embellishing with hand dyed wool roving. I used my new embellisher but needle felting would work just as well.

And here are the two kitties asleep...

Hubert, the cat boy softie...

Here's my latest softie....meet Hubert!

I am in the midst of a major art studio cleaning and sorting....I've collected mountains of wool fabric and felted wool sweaters and need to really see what I've got and what I can get rid of. I tend to get into a whirlwind of creative energy and love to make stuff but don't always clean up after myself and just zoom onto another project. So now I need to do a real clean up and get the table cleared off and organized a bit before starting too many new things. I've got some hooked dolls to finish up, a pin cushion challenge to do, felted wool softies to send in, and always new hooking designs in the works. Also hope to go to the Long Beach Quilt show on Friday if possible.

Fun evening at Art From Scrap!

Huge inflatable atop the Art From Scrap roof for our Art Event and silent auction.

Wonderful decorations made by Jeanette watched the party from above.
Like big sock dolls...such fun..all made from recycled items from the shop..
Outside on the patio there was a spot set up to take photos by Bob DeBris...complete with costumes and props to play with...everyone had fun with these.
Three heartthrobs!
Young swashbucklers!
Elvis?
Julia Ford's sweet piece for the show. Loved meeting her...always admired her work and nice to get a chance to chat.
Judy Nielsen's fabric flying bird..so fun and funky!
Kathy Snow and me with my piece "Fiber World" behind us.

We had a great evening at the Art from Scrap silent auction event. There was music, food, wine, free photos and lots of artists and community members showed up to bid on the fiber assemblage pieces created as a fund raiser for the non-profit gallery, shop, and educational space featuring all recycled goods for schools and community artists to share in. Holly and her wonderful family were there. Syd, Carol, Penny, Wayne, Jeanette, Judy, Julia and many more came to enjoy the festivities. I stayed to see who would take home my Fiber World piece and the amazing thing was that the high bidder turned out to be someone from my distant past! Kathy Snow, who is on the Art from Scrap board of directors and who has lived here since 1969, grew up in Pasadena and our mothers were friends and in a wonderful circle of artistic women who gathered at the home of Audy Lou Colvin in Sierra Madre where all manner of creative things went on. We had such fun reminiscing about the past and promised to get together again for lunch to finish catching up. And I'm so happy that Kathy is going to put my piece up in her mother's home here in Santa Barbara.

Animals...

Here is my latest hooked piece for our group challenge in August. I thought it was finished but after taking the photo I now see some spots that need a little changing.
Got in a fun visit to the Art Clinic in Solvang yesterday. Loved seeing what Syd and Carol are up too...new paintings, mannequins, ATC's, jewelry...always new inspiration and fun conversation. We hope to have the "Fairy House Class" on August 21, a Thursday or August 18, Monday...at the Art Clinic!
Now back to the many other art projects that I've started and are awaiting my attention. And I hope to get in another swim in the ocean this week....the water is warm and refreshing and always makes me feel like I am 10 years old!

Hooking again!

I got started on my newest hooking project last night. This is a small piece but I want to do a 'real" rug with more animals on it. I'm not sure yet what color(s) for the background...and if I like the outline on the animals...they almost looked better before I hooked the dark wool outline...so we'll see what happens....I want it to have a sort of primitive contemporary feel to it...whatever that is!

Birds!

This embroidery is still a work in progress...so just a little peek...
and these hooked birds finally got their legs attached. I seem to work in stages....finishing up one part and then letting it rest for a bit. I then come back and complete things when I get a picture in my mind of how I want it to look. I just drew up a new hooking project for our next group challenge.."Fauna" and can't wait to get started on it. I also started a new cat softie last night and will show him soon....

In the Redwood Forest

Justin took this photo of me inside of a burned out, but still alive Redwood tree at our campsite.
Looking up at the redwoods....
Wild berries growing along the creek as we hiked the "6 Bridge Trail"..
Large ferns growing on the forest floor....
Old trees covered in moss...
In the Nature center...a bird diorama...Murrelet feeding her chick.
A Bobcat....
Owl..ready to pounce on its prey....

We just returned from our little vacation. These are just a few pictures of our time in the beautiful old growth redwood forest and Butano State Park just a few miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and not far from Santa Cruz, Ca. There is something magical about being in a Redwood forest.There is a sense of awe as you stand and look up and realize how many hundreds of years the trees have been there and will be there when we are long gone.
We got to take a nice hike through the forest and ended up at the nature center and learned a little history about the area. We hiked back to our campground a different way and picked wild berries along the way and listened to the many birds chirping in the woods. I got to read another book by Alexander McCall Smith, who wrote "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency"....love his writing and will have to read more of his books this summer. I also started a new embroidery project called "Forest Tea Party" that I hope to work on tonight. It feels good to be home and the fire is mostly contained (75%) and that is good....and the kitties seem happy to see us...so back to the many art projects that await me and the garden and laundry and all the other things that are awaiting my attention.

dolls...

Three funny dolls.....are they sisters or different generations? We are off on a little trip up North...back Saturday! Have a good week!

Update!

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers during the fire. Things look much better today although it is really smokey outside. I went down the road this morning to check out the fire area and could only see a few plumes of smoke going up. We had over 1000 fire fighters working in our area and they have done a fantastic job getting things under control so far. We had our evacuation order lifted and can now go freely down the mountain. Hopefully we can still go on our little vacation that Dennis planned this week. For some reason this sign caught my eye....I really wanted to post the 3 dolls that I am working on but they still need their hair!
will try one more post before we leave today or tomorrow!

the wind....

has picked up this afternoon and is fanning the flames again...if you look closely you can see two airplanes flying through the smoke. They are trying to keep the fire from coming over the ridge by dropping fire retardant on the thick brush.

Fire...

We are keeping a close watch on the fire that started on Tuesday over on the ridge across the way. Today we have helicopters and the bombers flying overhead and fire fighters from all over up here in the mountains to help out. We are not directly threatened right now but they did put our little community under a mandatory evacuation. Most of our neighbors are still here, but they told us that if we leave our house to go down town we may not be able to return...so we are staying put for now. We have met many new neighbors as they come over to our road to get a better view of the fire. At night it casts a strange orange glow and we saw 3 power transformers blow up and then our power was off for several hours. I do hope that they can get the fire under control soon and no homes are damaged.

I Love Lucy!

This is Lucy. I love Lucy! She comes from the creative imagination of Ms. Tara Ross and now lives with me! Thank you so much, Tara! Tara is fairly new to rug hooking and look what she has created! I love every thing that she creates!!!
Well, you've met Harold before and he let me know that he's been wishing for a special girl friend to keep him company....and look who showed up! He is introducing Lucy to the Big Cat.

Monday night Rug hooking at Pepa's

A wonderful old punch needle pillow at Pepa's new home where we had our meeting.
Katie's lion rug for her son...coming along nicely...wish I could remember what the Latin says...I was too busy taking pictures....
Sue made this for Pepa....a hand holding 2 hearts...
Penny's bright baby present for "Dylan"...
And Carol is working on the edge of her Liberty rug....love that background and what a great eagle!

Mixed media

A very small (4"x 4") collage I finished up yesterday....
and here is the "Jane" rug as of last night. Barbara has offered to take it home and work on the letters in the center. We took turns working on the black background last night at our monthly rug hookers meeting at Pepa's art filled home.