It's fabric, not paint or printed fabric.

These details will help you see that the pattern in the background is fabric that is cut and layered to form the designs. I used the wavy and pinking blades of the rotary cutter to form some of the tiny shapes.

Where have I been?

It seems like ages since I wrote you anything, but it was only because there was this big holiday that got in the way, and my husband had another vacation week, and then the weather got nice, and then I had promised to do my taxes, and there were questions about keeping on topic…which is what now?

OK. I have not been in the mood to quilt. I have been in the mood to paint. But yesterday I had a phone call from a woman who hadn’t seen my latest work and I mentioned it was all on the blog and not yet on my website. But then I had to tell her that she would have to scroll down to find it because, well, you know why.

You can’t make someone work that hard to find your work. It has to be easy to access, and now that I have had sort of a quilt art-making vacation, I realize that I need to get back in the studio and make SOMETHING.

My friend Carol Taylor emailed me that she has won two awards at Quilter’s Heritage in Lancaster, PA, which helps her meet her award winning expectations for this year. I start to wonder if I will win anything this year? Not a chance if I don’t enter!

I will have this quilt in the show in Paducah, A Triumph of Tulips.

I was contacted by a gal from Olfa and since I assume Olfa will have a booth at the big Chicago show (aka Rosemont) I suggested that she might like to have a few of my quilts hanging in her booth. I never got around to entering the actual show. Duh. So I will let you know if she agrees.

So I am off to the now warmed up studio and will attempt a new work. I will come up for air, but really shouldn’t have much in the way of interruptions. Dave has gone to work, and the girlfriends are in Lancaster, so it is just me and my muse for the rest of the week.
Hey, it’s already Thursday!

How to be Creative

After you are done reading all the emails and blogs you usually read, scroll down my list of links in the sidebar and click on "How to be Creative", and then find a comfy spot and a nice beverage and enjoy this guy Hugh's insights.

Spring has arrived and here's the proof.

Crocus, they're tiny but they manage to push their little selves up through the debris of last season's flowers. Don't you just love perennials? The fact that these were planted years ago and have spread somewhat and appear every Spring without any continued attention, is such a delight.

I must put the garden clean up on my to do list. Along with doing my taxes and the famous Monday laundry and studio . Arrgggh.
My house got all cleaned up for my Easter dinner, which I have to say was a bust. I overcooked the salmon, too much distraction, and I ended up actually eating things I was going to pass on. LIKE THE CHEESECAKE. I had a sliver, which contained all the calories I could have eaten til Wednesday.
My brother was not feeling well and therefore did not eat the mountains of food that were prepared for his typical appetite. I worry about him. He looked green. Rose says he may have a bleeding ulcer. Arrgghh. Of course he has no intention of seeing a doctor and has no health insurance. I offered to help, which was ignored.
The cats are eating the dried out salmon.

Easter is my favorite holiday. .

It may surprise some of you to discover that I am one of those Born Again Christians. Not that kind that are making this country into a fascist state, but one of those like Jimmy Carter that loves Jesus and try to love others as I love myself. Myself is winning in this category, but you all are a very close second.

Jimmy Carter, a nice man

I have stopped going to church quite a long time ago however, since I live in the most conservative place north of the Bible Belt. I don't think like my neighbors and you cannot convince me to do so.
This doesn't prevent me from feeling all wonderful knowing that I am forgiven and have a mansion waiting for me in Heaven.

I had a miserable lost and wicked life, well, who didn't in the 70's? And then I saw the light ( believe me this is the very shortest version of this story EVER) and got religion. That was 1975, now 30 years ago. The getting religion part was all about being FORGIVEN, which is like the chief feature of Easter. So I am reminded today about how lost and miserable I used to feel and how happy my life is now.

Some churchy girls who found me when I was waitressing in a honky tonk, gave me one of those tracts and it coincided with another friend in NY state who had seen the light and whoosh! It was a brand new day all of a sudden. This was the thing that got me: Everybody kept telling me that God loved me (just as I am) and had a wonderful plan for my life.
Believe me, I needed a plan, desperately,and decided that I had nothing to lose, so I went for it.

Wanna know what thatplan turned out to be?

Meet Dave and get married again
Finish school
Meet friend who shows me her quilts
Buy a house
Start quilting
Meet Famous Quilters and get invited to join art quilt group
Meet Laura and start Artfabrik
Get scholarship to grad school and get masters
Win major awards for quilting
Make a lotta quilts, hand dyed fabric, threads and money
Start Professional Art Quilt Alliance
Teach in US and foreign countries
Make great friends that mean so much to me

When this all started I was not even aware that there was such a thing as an art quilt, or that I would ever switch from being a miserable painter to being a happy art quilter. Who could imagine such a thing? Only the Master Planner I am sure.

Nevermind....

OK I am a moron, but I have had help getting there.
While offline and miserable, my desktop which is anti-Melody and pro-Dave is secretly downloading all my email, in duplicate. I am unaware of this subterfuge but decided to investigate and discovered it all there, unopenable, but delivered. I cannot send and once I open any of the mail there, it crashes and nothing works.
My famous geeky brother Cary will be fixing it (he PROMISES) tomorrow before he has his second beer, or else.

Said Geeky Brother trying to make me forget that it is his genius installation that has screwed up my desktop computer.

And what did I find there on the pile of email I had missed this week?
A contract to teach in

IRELAND

for September of 2006!

I am palpatating, verklempt and thrilled that I found it. Imagine if I went another month without responding? O no, don't imagine. It is too bloody.

Doing Nuthin'

Hello again.
There is something strange afoot. My email now works but for some reason I am not getting my Blogarithm updates. I checked my fave blogs and they are all new, so what gives?
I have been doing nothing creative for the past two days and having a wonderful time. This has got to stop.
I am cooking for Easter and here is the menu. I tried really hard to stay away from Mexican Food. You can see I didn't quite make it.

Baked Salmon with garlic/cucumber sour cream
Chili Rellenos con Queso en Mole
Frijoles Negros Refritos
Whipped Chipotle Potatoes
Green Beans Almondine

For Dessert: Eli's Turtle Cheesecake

My brother Cary and Rose his girlfriend will be our guests and we are going to use Dave's new Ebay purchase, THE GOLD FLATWARE.

There will be pictures.

I rented a dvd from Netflix about a month ago and finally watched it. Rumpole of the Bailey, the Lost Episode. It was actually the pilot for the series. Not as funny as the rest of the series became but important viewing for Rumpole aficionados. I realize I am alone in this club.

You will note in my Wish List that I hope someday to enjoy a glass of wine at Pomeroy's Wine Bar, which is oft mentioned on the Rumpole series. He is always up for a glass of Chateau Thames Embankment which sets off giggles for me.

This is a very rare sense of humor I have been dealt. But it allows me to find you all very entertaining, so there.

I am meeting Laura and hopefully Frieda for coffee at Panera at 8:30 this morning and we will split 150 yards of silk charmeuse for our dyeing delights. O Boy!

Fibermania

For the Love of Quilting May June Issue

On a newstand near you in the near future. I am a cover girl again. Woowooo! I can't wait to see the real color. This is only a preliminary proof. The same quilt is visible on my website on the workshops page.

Bodacious Bloomers

Bodacious Bloomers Workshop Sample

I had so much fun at the Sussex WI Common Threads quilt guild yesterday. They are a great bunch of gals. They started the meeting with a joke that really set the tone for the day and when you start with a big belly laugh you know fun is a foot.

High spirits were necessary because the meeting place was experiencing heating problems, like NO HEAT and just cool air blowing into the room, so I found myself teaching in my coat, with a borrowed head scarf ( hand knit of course!) and we all just plowed on like troopers. It reminded me of my teaching experiences in New Zealand where I was always underdressed for the unheated Spring school rooms. I also taught with borrowed sweaters and hats, and quickly knitted a shawl to cover my bones. Ah, the glamourous life of an itinerant quilt teacher.

I promised the gals that I would post the sample quilt, since it is currently not in my possession. Fons and Porter have it for their TV show. They will feature an episode where they will make this quilt, and then show mine as the 'finished product' even though it isn't quilted yet. I think they also have a finished one. It seems that there are at least three of these quilts floating around the ether, and hopefully I will have them all back in time for my next attempt to teach this workshop.

I'll let you know when the show 'starring' my quilts will air.

I really must get going to my gig...

Apples and Pear

14x17" gessoed Bristol paper with heavy gel medium

acrylics and colored pencils

detail of pencil scratches.

Advice to a Young Artist

I understand that you are at a crux in your career (did you know you had one?) and this turning point is so delicate and important that I am bit verklempt that you came to me at this very moment.
I disagree that you need a critique group. I loathe that confrontational model and think that generally we do our best work and move on and can always tell with a little time what is wrong or just fabulous. However, it is nice to show our work and listen to heartfelt reactions, which is why we have friendly little art gatherings.
I like it when specific people take the time to point out something I have brought in. No-one makes them say anything but if the work makes them remark about it, then it is worth its weight in gold. Moreover, a critique only has value if you trust and respect the person giving the critique. That is the most difficult part. That’s why my two artist friends and I see each other once a week or so, to show each other the work we are making and to get honest responses. I have seen one’s work improve
every year since 1995 and the other one manages to consistently
produce her best. A-mazing. Imagine my frustration when they always seen to have their own work to show and I am producing some derivative piece of schlock ( don’t argue with me, it IS schlock 90% of the time) and only very occasionally will I bring in something fabulous…which I know is fabulous.

My advice (should you choose to take it) is to stay away from all outwardly motivated assignments. Wait and listen to that tiny voice within. Get alone, stay quiet, and make a lot of work. (that’s the hardest part)
Play with your fabric and make what the fabric motivates you to make.
Feed your muse. This cannot be overestimated. Look at lots of art, in books, magazines, galleries, online, and not necessarily quilts. Look at jewelry, and surface designs, like wallpaper, area rugs, window displays, anything that excites the eye. Take pictures and look at them for composition or shapes, or value.

Think about what you liked the best.

Have a sketchbook and even tho you said you can’t draw, you can make diagrams, I know you can. These are really layouts or mental notes about what you liked in a piece of something. I will attach a dumb drawing/great diagram and you will feel better. You will look at it and wonder why I had to draw this before I made it? I could have just made it. NEVERTHELESS, it was important to work out the idea first so that I could relax and know where I was heading. Not all good work is made this way but it helps sometime. Other times I have been just playing and accidentally something good has fallen together, something good enough to make deliberately again. This time with EMPHASIS.
Every design looks better if its main idea is EMPHASIZED.

Make a list of the ten things that make your work recognizable. It may be early days for this, but it helps to see what it is that you have done and what you want to concentrate on bringing forth in the future.
Gather all the pictures of your work, line them up, and view them as a body of work. Disparate parts? Yup. I have been there. I have had this crisis so very recently. The only fix is to make more work. Since you know how to fuse, you can crank out some stuff in a heartbeat. Set goals to make a piece a day, small of course. But in a week, you will have five to seven pieces and begin to look differently at your work. Then you can evaluate and regroup and make some more. Soon you will have a storage problem. How lovely. Remember when you saw something that famous artist
made that was like #57 in the Series. That was the one good one…the rest were rehearsals to getting there. Nothing wrong with that. It’s only fabric.
Not everything has to be finished, which is why I love the escape hatch finish. It makes the work look finished before it is quilted, and then I can get back to it later, if it is worth finishing.

It is never too late to take yourself seriously. Look at Mary Jo Bowers, nearly 70 and really coming into herself. And Janet Steadman who is winning everything these days including Houston and is over 75.
You are a baby compared to them. But don’t waste another moment on challenges and crap like that. Your own work is the only thing to be making, whatever that is. So you don’t know what it is yet, but if you make it you will know.

PS. Only make stuff you ENJOY making. No point in having a career that makes you miserable to produce.

#2 Painting for Monday

11x14" acrylic on gessoed water color paper






gooey paint

My husband likes this one better than the previous one but I disagree. I do however like the fact that I was able to get that richer painted surface on this one. The way that happened, is that I loaded the brush with paint and went from one color to the next schmushing it into each other without overblending.

I likey.

Now I've Got IT!

Bristol Paper 14x17" Acrylic

I am delighted to announce that I have satisfied myself. This IS the look I wanted!!!

It turned out to be easier than I thought. DUH. Just make a loose sketch, paint on some allover color and then block out the areas of the background so the figure is visible. Then paint some large chunks to define areas of color and quit before adding anything that 'fixes' the lines or shapes.

I had to ask myself what I was doing wrong and tried think of it as like homework. What could I do different? So I looked again at Skip’s painting and really studied the look and analyzed the design aspects and saw that I was thinking too literally. I was stuck on subject matter which is what my painting teacher always said to me and yet never explained.

I have to see the figure as merely shapes and not a person and then I can use the figure as a base for my DESIGN which is what I want to be painting. Not pictures but DESIGNS.
I knew there was a link between my quilting and painting but therein lies the mystery.

Now the mystery is solved. BOTH ARE ABOUT COLOR, LINE AND SHAPE. Not a picture but a design.

Notice how the hands read as hands and yet are not delineated into painted fingers. You can see the pencil lines, which, funnily, I added later.

Note the lack of facial features that I would normally have included.

I am dancing on the ceiling.

This has been a big week for little ol' me. In addition to getting back to painting, I discovered that I have been hired to teach a week at the very same art center that my fave painters are teaching at! Only I am teaching in 2006 and they are teaching this year. Perhaps they will all be back next year and I can meet them.

The site is the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops and usually they do painting workshops but are going to start doing quilters next year. Isn't that way neat?

Let's Analyze This Painting

Braced by Skip Lawrence

Three figures, high horizon, loose brush strokes, not hemmed in by local color, no facial or hand details. Great Blocks of color, chunks of line against big expanses of color.

Have I mentioned color? Mud and clear with high contrast and just peeks of pink with black and white adjuncts.

I can do that. I can DO that. I CAN do that. I must do that.

I have found my own figure to paint and will start right after breakfast.

Not loose enough if you ask me

click

18x24" acrylic on watercolor paper

I can't seem to leave out enough and couldn't resist getting a few facial features in there. In my opinion this is too laboured.

I like the cropped version better and the colors are fine but comparing it to the loose quality of the Skip Lawrence painting below, you will see where I was aiming and how far afield I got.

This painting I would hang in my living room but mine is too explicit and looks more 'naked' than his. arrgghh.

I am not happy like I was. However I am not giving up. Working larger made it easier to get those details in, so I may go back to large brush/small paper and force the issue. Stay tuned.

Saturday's Paintings

click

All are 11x14" and acrylic

I bought three huge fashion magazines that had tons and tons of models for my paintings. Unfortunately they are all wearing clothes, which I didn't want to paint. I liked the pose of this model and removed her fashion statement and tried to paint what the figure might have looked like, and had to just guess. I was trying to get bold color and high contrast. I am only medium happy with this one.

This Wonder Woman pose is too funny but I like the colors and the background and am willing to overlook the dopey pose. One of the things that stumped me in previous figure painting that I did in my college days was dealing with the backgrounds. I didn't find the realistic scenes much fun to paint and didn't have the idea of not including them at all. I am looking at the paintings of Skip Lawrence now and see the designed background that I really like.

I got lost on this landscape and just stopped painting, I went for color and splattered dots ala Edward Betts. I have always loved his freedom and riotous colors.

This is the first one that I painted Saturday and is the most directly taken from the magazine picture. However it still maintains the looseness and gooey paint look that is my new fave technique. I guess this is an ad for a purse?
Anyway, I had fun and did my laundry at the same time.

I used to be a painter...

15x20" colored pencil and acrylic, 1981

This is an example of my earlier work. I painted this from my own photographs which I did in undergraduate school. My BA is in Painting and Drawing and once I graduated, I stopped painting and started quilting. It's a long boring story, trust me, but the essence is that I was painting to please others and because I thought being an artist meant being a painter.

This detail shows that I was meticulous, and that this painting is really just a painted drawing. I couldn't bear to leave any detail out. Every stinkin' piece of rattan had to be accounted for. The face had to look exactly like the model.

There was no joy in mudville for me when I was a painter. O yeah, it looks good but I hated doing it, and that proves it was not what I ought to have been doing for my life's work.

But through a series of spectacularly spooky events, I have made a new friend and her little self has opened a big crack in my hate for painting and made me see the possibilities of trying it again and actually having fun with it. This new friend is Sonji Hunt and it was she that contacted me, to get more info on quilting!

When we met, only last week, we instantly clicked and she revealed that she had taught art in college, so with lump in throat I blurted that I used to be a realistic painter and stopped painting in favor of quilts and had a desire to go back and do some painting every now and then and was at a loss at how to begin and didn't want to do realism anymore but to do abstract painting and didn't have a clue how to start. All in one breath.

Luckily, she talks like this too. So we decided to mentor each other and within days I was at her house in WI and saw her paintings and more of her fiberart (both are really original and great) and knew it was kismet. After showing her some work I did in 2002, she encouraged me like crazy and yesterday I jumped in and painted the following two pieces.

click

both are 11x14" and are acrylic

Of course these are just the beginning, but I can see that I have cracked the code, and had fun. I didn't worry about every little detail, yet you can still see that they are figures in an environment.
I am really happy.
I don't have to please anyone but myself with this stuff and don't have to worry about grades or a competition or approval from my family or other adults, or even ever having to justify anything about them. This is totally unlike any of the feelings I ever had with my paintings before.
Thank you Sonji.

Update on Portable Design Wall

Lindi kindly sent the following answers concerning her portable design wall which I pictured here a few days ago. Note: I misrepresented the covering as fleece when in reality it is white felt

There is a pvc pipe across the bottom about 4-6 inches from the floor. It is attached to the sides with a t-connector. You can't see it as the felt is over it. The insulation sheets have been slid down from the top between the c-clamps and rest on the bottom pvc pipe. One sheet just sits on top of the other. One can cut the top one shorter to make it the desirable height. All the pvc pipes are glued to the connectors EXCEPT the top pieces. That way, if one wants to change the insulation pieces eventually, if they get gouged up, you can just remove the top of the frame, slide the insulation out, and slide in new sheets. Also, I covered the insulation AFTER the design wall was assembled. I just pinned it to the top and sides and slid it under the c-clamps. Hope this helps! It is hard to put into words what pictures and demos can show! I'm so excited that people are interested. Maybe this will inspire other quilt artists to have great design areas! Lindi

See, now I was certain the sheets were vertical instead of horizontal. I must learn to think more imaginatively.

Portable Design Wall

Isn’t this a wonderful portable design wall? It was designed and constructed for Lindi Kuritz of Green Bay WI by her very clever husband Jay. It is lightweight and easily moved around her studio, which, by the way, has a floor of gorgeous blue ceramic tile. The wall itself is made from two 2” thick pink Styrofoam insulation sheets, each measuring 4x8 feet, and it is then covered with fleece. The frame is 2” PVC ( or the next size larger) and pretty sturdy if you ask me.

However Jay says if he were to make it again he would add a third leg in the center. The PVC is glued together of course, but the real genius is the edge bolts that hold the Styrofoam in place. These large U shaped bolts are then covered in a clear plastic tubing softening the sharp edges of the bolts.

Lindi needed a design wall in her glorious studio, but there were too many windows and not enough wall. This room was previously the hot tub room (!!!) but after many years the hot tub lost its seal and started leaking. After it was removed Jay suggested to Lindi that she take it over as her studio! I am telling you, she is the epitome of the name Lucky Lindi.

I had a wonderful time up 'Nort' in Green Bay workshopping with the Women Who Run With Scissors. We met in an old church in Denmark WI and it had been turned into a VFW hall. The smart women who plan the workshops have lunch catered in. That makes everything so much nicer.
Of course the best part was the enthusiasm and artistic nature of the participants. It makes the teacher look fabulous when the students are as talented as these gals.
However, in the spirit of honesty I must confess that I am a dodo. In Mapquest I entered the address of my destination as Shady Lane when it should have been Sandy Lane and I ended up on the other side of town, completely befuddled and embarrassed. Duh. It's always something!

See you later

I am off to teach a weekend workshop with the gals from Women Who Run With Scissors in or near Green Bay WI. Isn't that a fun name for an art quilt group? I am soooo looking forward to working with these gals and think it is such a great thing that like minded artists can find each other and share the work, language, successes and struggles involved in the creative world of art quilting.
I'll be back on Monday afternoon and will no doubt have wonderful works to share from these gals.

Fusing 101

Hi Melody,

I have a burning question about the fusing on your Matchstick pieces.

I've done a bit of fused applique but I've always stitched the pieces down to stop them peeling off the quilt later. I find the stitching causes unsightly fraying though.

Am I right in my assumption that you just fuse with no sewing? If so, do you use a special, extra strong fusible? I imagine it would require particular care when packing to send to shows etc.

Cheers
Claire
(little fish)

I use only regular Wonder-Under as my fusible. I only use hand dyed fabrics and that is why I am able to leave my edges free of stitching. Commercial fabrics have a factory applied coating like Perma-Press or Wash and Wear, or some such name, which acts like Teflon to the fusible. It peels up eventually or sooner. Hand dyed fabric (cotton or silk) has no such factory finish so the fine fibers of the fabric are open to receive the fusible web and will remain fused until you try to scrape them off with your nasty fingernails. Please do not test this on my quilts!

I have had very good success over the 10 to 12 years that I have been making fused designs. I found yesterday when I showed my art quilt group Matchstick Moons #2 that a few slivers lifted and when I got home I re-fused them with a pressing cloth and hot iron. I did rush out without that final pressing since I was just then finished applying the 10 zillionth matchstick.

One more thing. I apply the Wonder-Under with a hot dry iron, ironing as though I were just trying to smooth out the wrinkles on a piece of fabric. Then I let the paper/fabric cool and then I peel off the paper. This is the big secret. I NEVER CUT THE FABRIC WITH THE PAPER STILL ATTACHED. I use very sharp scissors or rotary cutters to cut my designs. I feel that I am drawing my shapes with the cutting.
That way I needn't peel the paper off which causes fraying. The paper is saved and is referred to below as release paper.

I am not against fraying. Fraying distinguishes fabric from paper. If your fabric frays then make it really fray and make that a part of your artistic statement.

Commercial fabrics can be fused, but need to be either quilted down or edge stitched in order to safely remain attached.

I also am aware that some hand dyed fabric such as heavier cottons or cottons with different weaves such as jaquards or twills will fray considerably even if I am very careful with my cuts. I love the look of sateen, but find that the twill weave is quite frayable. So I use silk instead, which give a good sheen and shows off the quilting nicely.
Since I fuse my fabrics together without using a base fabric, the trick is to use the release paper as a construction base. Using two fused fabrics, overlapping the edges just enough, say 1/8th inch, will produce a 'seam'. The release paper is reusable over and over again, until it gets dry and crackly. Then I will resort to using the teflon pressing sheets.

When the quilt top is complete I will fuse it directly to the batting. I only use Hobbs Heirloom Cotton 80/20 (Mr. Hobbs, this is a plug. How about sending me some free batting?) because it has a very smooth and nice finish and won't show on the top, especially with the fused silk.

I don't recommend using this method with Warm and Natural or White and Natural or other batts that have a noticeable texture. Disaster will result.

1. Cut the fusible to the width of your fabric.

2. Iron the fusible with a hot dry iron, moving the iron as though you were just ironing out the wrinkles.

3. Trim off the fabric selvedges or any fabric that isn't covered by the fusible web, unless you want to go back and patch that part later.

4. Pay close attention to fusing the corners, as they are the place one first peels off the paper. If the fusible isn't sticking to the fabric, then iron it again.

5. Bubbles may appear on the right side of the fabric but will disappear when they are fused after the paper is removed. Sometimes spots may be left without getting fused. Just patch the spot with another small piece of Wonder-Under. Make sure to cover the area being patched with the release paper so that nothing gets on your iron!

Better Pictures

At last Hello and Picasa are behaving and I can post better color pictures of the new piece. You realize that this was agony not to be able to show you, Dear Reader, the real color.
The ego is such a stickler for this sort of thing.
I am now breathing a sigh of relief.

Title: Matchstick Moons #2
~56" x 42"~
The quilt is shaped as though it were being loosely hung from two nails. I like that flowing look, but it makes accurate measuring impossible. The left edge is 44" long and the right edge is 43", while the center is 42" long.

True Colors

click

The Lucious Detail

The darling husband did the quick breath intake bit when he saw this last night. It is not easy to impress him. Frieda Anderson gave me good ideas for the next two in the series, so I don't have to come up with anything from my fried brain at the moment.

You know Andy Warhol once said that he would love it if someone else would make his artwork, and he did have a group of pals who did the silk screens in his famous factory. He signed them and that was enough to warrant huge sums at sale. I would be delighted if someone would take up my tweezers and fill in the places where the matchsticks should go.

I am not holding my breath.

Previews + an explanation at the end.

I have about two more hours of mindless fusing to do on this quilt. Thank heavens it is already quilted! It is still on the table and even I haven't pinned it to the wall to get the full effect, so it may have a few more changes before the final product. It measures 57" by 43"ish so you are only seeing narrow portions in each of these shots.

The main difference from #1 Matchstick Moons, besides the background layout, is that on this one I used 85% silk for the matchsticks, and in the first one I used all cotton. I think.
And this one has a lot more moons. And a LOT MORE matchsticks.

This is the view on the table, and it shows the use of the really light values of silk shantung. They glow in real life.
They will be carting me off to the boobie hatch when this is done, so see you when I am declared no longer a threat to myself or others.

To answer the question of why is this quilted already and then the matchsticks are fused on afterward:

With the first Matchstick piece I considered how I would quilt it after it was all done. That posed the problem of stitching between or on top of the matchsticks and that I did not want to do. So I ended up hand quilting the whole thing. Not wanting a repeat of that endurance test, I decided to quilt the top, outlining the suns and having radiating quilting lines coming out from each. Then the fused bits could go where they may without having to worry about where the stitching would be. In the second piece, Matchstick Moons #2, you will not see many stitched lines, except for the lines between each panel. I carefully covered the quilting stitches with matchsticks so that nothing showed but the surface.

The quilting is visible on the back. It is not heavily quilted. I wanted a smooth surface so the matchsticks would be most reflective.

The Chicago School of Fusing Faculty

Our picture for the yearbook

Saturday we had a faculty meeting, which as you may guess is just an excuse to get together to eat, drink coffee and show off our latest new work ( including knitting). We laugh like little girls and talk all at the same time and make nice noises at the artwork shown. From the left we are: Laura Wasilowski, Dean of Corrections and author of the fabulously successful Fusing Fun. Next is our hostess, soon to be published author and Dean of Technology (Her Geekness) Frieda Anderson. On her left is Emily Parson, mother of three under five, who is the only one of us to sell a major work this year, and is Dean of Diapers. Then there is moi, chronicler of us all, and Dean of Music.

We look so well behaved.

Sunday was the last day of Dave's vacation and it turned out to be the first really nice day of almost Springlike temperatures. The snow is all melted and the sun was blazing, so I left the work in my studio and sprung him from his permanent spot in front of the computer and we took a walk to the end of the block.
At the corner we stopped at the coffee shop for a cup to warm us on the way back and sat and drank it on the bench in front of the bank. Across the street is an independent butcher shop/wine store and we decided to check out their counter when we finished our coffees. This is a favorite pursuit of ours dating back to our early courtship. Dave has been a meat cutter for over 31 years and started in an independent shop in the city at age 15. He has lots of opinions about the business.
We bought some filet tips to grill and he opined as we strolled back home. I listened intently and held my breath as I realized something special was happening.

This is a big deal.

He walked all the way to the corner and back without an incident!!! No freezing or cramping or tremors of any kind! This new medication is really working, if he remembers to take it. That plus a stressless week at home made him the old Dave again. Wow!
I didn't say anything until we were having our dinner. He had to admit that he didn't even notice that he was OK for the whole walk. It was really like being on vacation from his illness. Again, wow!

Y'know it is the simple things that make the best memories.

Lookin' Good in a Poncho!!

West Virginia, the spa stay of the stars, definitely did a world of good for our gal Martha. She is looking like the superfantastic millionairess we all know and love. Really nice boots, eh Manolo? Can you forgive her for the poncho? I am sure the look was conceived to give her credibility with the hoi polloi, and it certainly has given my closet a boost. I am getting out the needles and adding a scallop border asap.

I heard on NPR yesterday that the two new shows she has coming up will restore her reputation and will increase it, in fact. That she has voluntarily done her prison stint, all the while fighting her conviction, is supposedly going to make us all love her more... is it possible to love her anymore than I already do? I must renew my subscription to her magazine and buy more K-Mart stock.

Now Martha please write the New W VA Prison Diet so we can look as good as you Babe!