Projects Recently Finished

I am a slow quilter/embroiderer/seamstress.  Slow, slow, slow! :-)  But I finally get things done.  When our nephew and his wife announced they were headed to the wife's kids for Christmas and New Year and wouldn't be home till Jan 6th, I realized I could send their Christmas gift late.  I hadn't gotten it done in time to mail it before then.  Our nephew used to live in Alaska, and would send me pictures of bears he came across.  I've never met his wife (they live in CA) but had been told she loves owls.  So, this is the set of placemats I made:

The bear and owl are done with my own version of "thread painting"...a combo of applique and thread painting that I am enjoying lately.

Before Christmas also we heard that a dear friend back in Virginia had had another stroke (her third) and was in rehab.  I decided to make her a bed jacket.  It isn't much for someone who has done so much for us, but I wanted to send her something.  She loves Japanese motif since she lived there for several years, and I had some 5" squares with Asian designs on them, plus found some beautiful screen printed panels (the larger rectangle you see below is one) that I bought from etsy and wanted to use:

Tucson Quilt Guild January Meeting

Sadly, I missed our December Christmas party.  It's always wonderful!  But, this month's meeting was great, as always....our speaker was Rose Hughes (her website can be found HERE).  Her presentation was fascinating, but before I go there, let me share a few of the "show & tell" items and a couple of views of our wonderful raffle quilt for the 2016 Tucson Quilt Fiesta on February 19,20 and 21! (To check out our website about the show, click HERE)

The raffle quilt was held up for all to see.  Many of our members contributed to its creation, as is the case every year.

A closeup of some of the beautiful quilting stitches

Here is "Diamond Deco" in it's full stock photo

Now for a couple of fun show and tell items....

A yo-yo quilt made in the 1930s.  Gorgeous!

This is only a small section of this beautiful and large ampler quilt.

Now on to Rose Hughes....

She gave a very interesting presentation about color.  First, she asked for volunteers to represent the color wheel.

She talked about our fear of color, and about the need for help in choosing color for our quilts that work perfectly.  I have always had somewhat of a knack for choosing colors, but I know that is a stumbling block for a lot of people.  We particularly have issues with analgous colors (those that touch each other on the wheel and are similar) and complimentary colors (opposites on the wheel).  It was a fascinating presentation.

Her use of color is rich and she makes her wall hangings from silk with lots of embellishment techniques added.  This saguaro panel was hanging up and of course appealed to us all because we live with saguaros every day!

Here are a few of her other wall hangings...