Finished–Birds at Play for Talya Renee

I’m glad to say that I finished my quilt for Talya. I’m hoping now to get some pictures with her on the quilt, but alas, she is off traveling.

I quilted most of it at our Heatwole Sewing Retreat and added the last 2 forgotten lines today.

This is my finished goal for February at

Hosted by: Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts
andMelissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs

And now my goal for March is to get my “Spring Storm”  wall quilt made and finished.

 

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Can it be 5 years already since Kirby was born? We were invited for supper to Quintens to celebrate …

… and visit with the Lee side of his family.

Kirby let the other children help open the birtday gifts.

En Plein Air Quilting

My artist niece, Coleen (Claire Bleu), as we call her accompanied me home from sewing retreat in SC. I was so glad for her company for the 9 hr. drive home. She had a hankering to do some en plein air (French for in the open air) painting, and in this case fiber art painting. I was eager to learn from her with fabric so we worked together on separate “paintings.”

First she sorted my fused fabric scraps and snippets by color.

She drew her outlines onto her fabric canvas and I photocopied my picture to get templates for my picture.

This was supposed to be a 3 hour project, but it ended up being more like 3 days of fun, not work!

Claire’s picture depicts our farm including the hog barns, shop & pump house, and grain bins. Somehow she made it beautiful, just beautiful!

I’m anxious to see her project with the thread painted on it and all finished up.

During the day, Claire Bleu painted on this portrait until 5:00 when it got too dark to see good. She worked on the fabric painting in the evenings and at night.

All too soon it was time for her to go home. Her brother Gabriel was going to GA for the weekend, so she went home with him.

Be sure you check out her website Coleen Barnhart. I think you will like her paintings.

Romania (4)

My sister Coleen summed up our trip to Romania in a wonderful post on her blog. Read about it here.

The shape of this building in downtown Alba is fascinating to me.

Visiting with Christian friends who speak limited English witout an intrepreter is a challenge.

 Their home is a 2nd story apartment in this building.

We came home by way of the Frankfurt Airport in Germany.

Color

I've enjoyed watching all the different projects coming together this week.

Stack's Pancake Quilt

Mother treated us to brunch this morning at Stack's Pancakes.

Our waiter was a jolly fellow who kept us laughing. He wanted a picture of our group so we decided to make the picture into a small quilt.

Polly cut and sewed squares for a border.

Barbara helped her.

Jolene took care of getting the picture printed.

 June prepared the backing.

Emily cut out the binding.

 Polly sewed the picture into a sheet protector.

Barbara added the borders.

June cut out the backing.

Coleen glue basted and  prepared the piece for quilting.

 I machine quilted it.

Coleen squared it up.

Emily sewed on the binding.

Sheila hand stitched the binding to the back.

Mother signed her name on the back.

Javonne and the rest of us signed it.

The finished piece.

The happy waiter.