Monday, June 24, 2019

Asilomar class from Gloria Loughman

I went to Asilomar to attend a 5-day class taught by Gloria Loughman.  This was the 2nd time that I'd traveled to California with some friends to stay in the beautiful Asilomar retreat facility and take a class from a well-known teacher.

What a great teacher and such a great class!  She had us all make a small quilt using her pattern so that we could learn all of her techniques. Then we worked on our individual quilts based on photos that we brought.  Since she makes her living teaching her techniques, I'm not able to tell you everything that I learned, so I'm just showing you some pictures.  If you get a chance to take a class from her - DO IT.  She is wonderful!

Here is the practice piece that I made:



And here are some of us having fun in the evening lecture.


I hope you get a chance to take classes from big name instructors too!

Monday, June 17, 2019

Testing Patterns & Garden Photos

I've been sewing and testing many patterns for Connecting Threads that I can't show you in the blog.  Darn!  It's been really fun to make up all the quilts.  Sometimes I just make the top; sometimes I do the quilting; and sometimes I add the binding.  The patterns are really fun and quite modern.

What this means is that I can't show you my work in progress as much as I used to.  But don't worry, I still have a lot in progress and am staying busy.

It's the start of the walking and gardening season and I've headed outside in between all the stormy and rainy weather.  So instead of showing you quilts, I'm going to share some of the pictures taken in my garden and on my walks.  Enjoy!







Monday, June 10, 2019

Brown Bag Challenge - Final

I'm calling this quilt, "Psychedelic Spots" in reference to the 1972 calendar that was part of the pieces in the brown bag challenge for Vagabonds.  It was really fun to use all of the weird things that I received in the bag, including the black zipper, some silver washers, rusted fabric, slippery satin, metallic thread, thread trimmings, trimming of a finished art quilt, silk ribbon, upholstery fabric, and cotton fabric.  Before I got the bag of stuff, I was certain that I would start with a landscape photo and use all the pieces in a collaged landscape.  That idea was snuffed right away!  I instead opted for a collaged background that was non-representational with circles appliqued on top.

Several previous blogs were written to describe the process.  And here is the finished quilt.  It measures 36" W x 51" H, and was finished with fa acing.

Psychedelic Spots by Joanne Adams Roth

I hope you like it!


Monday, June 3, 2019

Painted bee on flower

I made another painted quilt of a bee on a flower.  In an earlier post, I gave you some choices, and almost everyone picked the green bee on the sunflower.  I took this picture in Walla Walla in September.  The bee really was green, and I found out later that it is a native bee.



This quilt was made to be a raffle quilt to raise money for the Clark County Master Gardener foundation.  It will be raffled off in September at a music/garden party.  I hope it brings in a ton of money.  The ladies coordinating the event asked that I make the bee more apparent.  It was an interesting request, and I think that they asked because the bee had so much pollen on its legs that it was hard to tell where the bee stopped and the flower started.  Here is how I painted it to reflect their request.



After it was painted, I used a lot of different colors of thread to both highlight the piece and quilt it.


After it was quilted, I added the wings, which were made with two layers of organza and variegated silver/black thread.



I hope you like it!

If you're interested in buying a raffle ticket, just let me know and I'll get the information to you, including the date of the drawing.