This is “Staring at Eternity.” The picture was taken while it was hanging at the Valley Art Center juried art show a few months ago. The piece is back in my possession now.

This is me, wearing the knitted stole I made to wear to the opening.

I designed the stole myself and was really happy with how it turned out. I am trying to knit up various stoles to wear to art show openings, but it is slow goings since I keep having to work on Christmas presents. But now that Christmas is over, I can start knitting for me again.

Actually, now that Christmas is over, I will be starting the commissions I received this summer. I may take a bit of a break here in January and work on a Valentine’s Day throw for Marcus. We shall see.

I have been working very hard on my piece for the 2008 CoCA challenge: Words to Live By. I decided to use Picasso’s quote, “Art is the lie that tells the truth.” I am calling the quilt “Art, Lies, & the Truth.” I’ve always liked that quote. It reminds me of something my friend Mary Urbas, who teachs classes on how to sell your artwork, tells her students. It goes something like, “Art is the ultimate smoke and mirrors because you take something worthless and turn it into something beautiful and precious.”

Here it is thus far, and for some reason, this quilt did not photograph well, so please forgive that:

Obviously, it still needs work to be finished by November 19. It has been an interesting experience making this quilt, partly becuase of the odd shapes, and partly because I chose to use all hand-dyed fabrics, except for black, and with some of the fabrics I have been in danger of running out and since they are hand-dyed, once they’re gone, they’re gone. I am particularly worried about the next fabirc, the dark blue. Guess I’ll have to check my stash again and hope that I either have a little more of that fabric or can make a substitute.

I am extremely please with how nicely the colors are flowing and of course, I love making the crazy blocks. The center of the quilt will be black, with Picasso’s quote machine-quilted/embroidered in brightly colored thread.

I’ll post more pictures are it progresses.

Well, yesterday Marcus had to go in to work for a meeting (usually he works from home) so I decided to have a Sit & Knit Day and watch Gilmore Girls. Actually, I kind of needed to knit yesterday because I need a new stole. (A stole is a rectanglular shawl.) I just found out that one of my quilts, “Staring at Eternity,” was accepted into the Valley Arts Center juried art show. The opening is this Friday night, November 2, from 6-8 pm. Since I usually like to wear something that I have made to art openings, I decided that it was finally time to knit up the Autumn Stole that I have been buying yarn for. I used to have a knitted black stole, the one I wore to the Fairmount Show opening, but I sold it.

This is very exciting because last year, I entered two pieces in the Valley Art Center show, and they were both rejected.

So, here is a picture of the Autumn Stole thus far:

I used a lovely hand-dyed skein of Manos as my color inspiration.

Now, where have I have seen these colors before? Oh, yes! I remember! In the quilt hanging in my living room!

This is “Autumn Whispers.” I made it a couple years ago to be a focal point in our living room. At the time, we were living in an apartment and the carpet was mint green. Actually, the entire apartment was mint green. Let me tell you, it was scary! Now, “Autumn Whispers” looks much better in our new living room, and it is still one of the local points.

Now, I have to go knit some more. Darn!

I know, I know, no blog for over a month.

I have actually been quilting in the past month, not just knitting. I have been working on one of the commissions I received this summer.

The “Save the Children” Fabric (the center squares of the star blocks) was provided to me by the lady who has comissioned this throw-sized quilt. I made her a similar-looking art quilt two years ago and this summer she contacted me again, saying that she really wanted a second quilt from me but that she didn’t have the wall space for another art quilt and could I possibly make a couch throw-sized quilt for her? I was happy to, of course. I am quite pleased with how the piece is turning out thus far.

Here is a picture before adding the border:

And here is a picture of the quilt after adding the border:

What an amazing difference, huh? (Yeah, I know the second picture is a little sloppy. We moved my big design wall and its new location doesn’t work quite as well as the old one as far as photographing goes and I was in a big hurry the day I took that picture and didn’t have time to fiddle with it.)

I have also been working on some bags lately. I got some wonderful koi (Japanase goldfish) fabric from the International Quilt Collection that I am using for the main fabric in this newest set of bags. I’ll try to put up some pictures of those in a few days when the bags are farther along.

Today, (when I finally get off this computer) I will start quilting this piece. I am also going to start cutting out the pieces for the next set of bags. I absolutely love cutting up fabric. That, and ironing fabric. Weird, I know, but it’s true. I love LOVE LOVE to iron fabric, and only fabric. I do not iron clothes. That’s why “wrinkle-free” was invented. To leave more time for important things like knitting quilting.

I have Memoirs of a Geisha on DVD to watch, too, so overall, today should turn out to be a very nice day.

Saturday night was the opening reception for the artists at the Fairmount Russell Art Show. I was very excited to be there, and to have just finished knitting my black stole the night before. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, eh?

I pretty happy about where my pieces were hung in the show. Two of them, the ones that didn’t win an award, were hung in the main room so that was pretty cool.

This is “Stepping Stones.” For some reason, it photographed horribly, so I had to do quite a bit of Photo-shopping to get it to look decent. Even, then you can’t really see the cool spiral paperclips on some of the brown squares or the beading in the center block, which is too bad because I spent a lot of time on it!

And this is “Staring at Eternity.” It has a really cool back, too, but obviously I couldn’t get a picture of that. Lots of people loved the wavy edges. I spent a lot of time on the quilting (kind of of square spirals that fit together like puzzle pieces) but it doesn’t show up very well in this picture. I’ll put up some detailed pictures after I get the quilt back.

Several people wondered why “Staring at Eternity” didn’t win anything because it is so striking. The only thing I could come up with is that it isn’t quite as flashy as “Wildflowers.” I received quite a few compliments about all three of my art quilts so that was really nice.

Here I am, wearing my new knitted stole, standing in front of “Wildflowers.”

And how could I forget Marcus? He drove in all the way from the Memorial camping trip at his parents’ farm to go to the opening with me. Mom also came down to go to the opening with us, but I forgot to get a picture of her. Too bad, because she looked really cute. My mentor, Mary Urbas, also came to the opening. Anyway, here is a nice picture of Marcus and me, all dressed up, which doesn’t happen very often anymore. He cleans up good, doesn’t he?

This is a picture of Barbara James, another member of CoCA, and one of the pieces she entered. I just this piece! Just gorgeous! And Barbara’s blouse was beautiful, too. She shibori-dyed it herself.

So, very nice opening. Already Marcus and Mom are telling me to get busy on next year’s entries, preferably award-winners.

I entered three of my fiber pieces in the Fairmount Russel Art Show and tonight I received the phone call from them saying that not only had all three of my pieces been accepted, but that “Wildflowers” had won second place in the textile division!!!!

Last year, I recieved an honorable mention for the piece I entered, “Ice and Shadows.” I sold that one last fall but “Wildflowers” is still available for sale.

So I guess next year, I guess I’ll just have to work really, really, hard to get a first place!

I had a wonderful surprise this morning. I called my Mom around 10:45, only to discover that she was less than 5 minutes from my house!

Now, this did present a bit of a problem, since I was neither showered nor dressed, the sink was full of dishes, the guest room was full of Marcus’s computer boxes, and the dust bunnies were staging a hostile takeover. (I’m sure none of you can tell that I find playing down in my studio much more enjoyable than housework.)

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s the positively amazing amount of things that can be done when one is given an impossible deadline. By the time Mom entered the house, Marcus had done a quick vacuuming job and I had dressed, washed my face, my hair was more or less presentable (And by “presentable,” I mean “not likely to frighten small children”), and I had done a quick stash and dash of the house.

*”Confounded Relatives” is part of a quote from Mom’s and my favorite movies, The Lord of the Rings. The quote, spoken in its entirety, is, “Confounded relatives! Hanging on the bell all day, never giving me a moment’s peace!” I always say that to Mom when she comes to visit. We are actually watching The Fellowship of the Ring right now. When Mom and I are together, we usually watch either The Lord of the Rings or Gilmore Girls.

Here she is, knitting away on her Einstein coat from The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. Tiffanie, Mom’s youngest lil Maltese, is unhappily sitting on her lap. Poor Tiff would much rather be at her house or at least upstairs here barking at the flag across the street. (Tiffanie has “issues” with things that move, things that don’t move, and things that may move at some point in the future.)

Mom will be staying until Tuesday and we will sit and knit and knit and watch movies and of course, go shopping. It was a very sad day for Marcus when Mom and I discovered the Pat Catans (craft store) that is 5 minutes from my house. Such beads! Such yarn! So little space left in my fabric room!

Speaking of my fabric room, not to be confused with my studio, I thought I would post some pictures of it. My fabric room is a 10′ x 10′ room off my studio (which is about 12′ x 25′) and is where I keep most of my fabric and now my yarn as well. It is three walls of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cubes shelves. Now, before anyone turns too green with envy, we did buy this house because of the studio and did have to sacrifice a bit to get it. Like the fact that the kitchen only has 1 drawer (yes, that’s one. Uno. ) and being so small that we have to keep our pantry in the guest room closet. So don’t be too envious of me.

This is my yarn wall: (Yes, I know that it is very cruel to say “Don’t envy me” and then flash about pictures of my stash. But what can I say? I never said I was nice.)

About half the yarn was acquired in the last few months due to the the closing of my local yarn shop. It is mostly novelty yarn and non-itchy stuff but there is some wool, mostly stuff I have spindle-spun. Quite a bit of yarn for someone who claims to be a non-knitter, as my Mom would say.

Avert thy eyes, O Fabric-aholics! For the following pictures have been known to cause intense fiber lust and an overwhelming desire to knock off the owner and claim her stash for themselves. Look, but beware:

This is a very sloppy Photoshop job of splicing together the two pictures of my main fabric wall. (I can’t stand back far enough to get the whole thing in one shot.) On the left are my batiks, and on the right are my regular cottons. To the far right, which you can’t really see, is a stack of plastic drawers with sorted leftover strips of fabric ranging in 1/4″ increments from 1″ to 2 3/4″.

This is my second fabric wall. This holds my large pieces of fabric for the backs of bed-sized quilts, my flannel fabrics, WIPs (Works In Progress), Christmas fabric, quilt tops to be pinned up and quilted, and pinned up quilts that still need to be quilted. On the top of this wall is my spindle stand that holds my beautiful drop spindles. The bottom cubes are full of my wool to be spun into yarn. (My as yet unspun silk fiber is in the large red hamper on the top row of the yarn wall.)

So there it is. My fabric room. Three walls of fabric, yarn, and spinning fiber. And beads. There is also another shelf next the yarn wall that holds my beads and some other odds and ends. And that doesn’t even include my silk fabric and angelina fiber.

Don’t hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric. Hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric and am willing flaunt it.