Recently in Space Category

I look up from my computer screen,and across the room I see a tumble of colors and swirls under my Juki. It is a variation of our pattern Orcas Swirls. I smile for two reasons....it is beautiful...and, almost finished. I'm sewing on the long binding, and then a few hours of hand stitching and it will be completed. Fortunately, the deadline for an upcoming quilt show was extended just long enough to get this completed and entered.

The LaConner Quilt Museum's Quilt Festival 2012 is in full swing this weekend. Two of our quilts were juried in, Orcas Swirls and Amy's Twelve2. I walked through the show last night and was in awe at the range and quality of the quilts on display. Come by if you are in the Seattle area.

Another happening in the area is the Stanwood Art Walk tonight, September 30, 5-8pm. All the shops in our little town will be open with a featured artist(s) in each place. Our quilts will be on display through the month of October at Snowgoose Bookstore in Stanwood.

I dropped in on Judy yesterday. The first thing I did was check out her pin holder over on her longarm quilting machine. It is exciting, isn't it? There are pins here from the quilts of Kaffe Fassett and Freddy Moran, two of my favorite quilters. This bowl is magnetic and sits on one of the braces of her machine...it is about 6" in diameter. Judy said she bought hers at an auto supply store...I think I have to have one.

There is always inspiration in Judy's studio..she was considering what color of thread to use on a quilt...

There were quilts on her design wall. This one is her friend Dana's work....

This is Judy's...

And this is me quilting on a current project...

After a day of gray sky and rain, I was stunned to look up from my work area and catch this moment of the sun setting over the rainforest of the Olympic Mountains. I grabbed the camera and went out on the deck to record the moment just minutes before it was again covered with gray layers.

Amy posted a photo of her space yesterday, and this is mine on the same day. We are working with colors we seemed to be drawn to, and this, my scrap bin, is bulging with bits and pieces from some of our current work which will become future projects.

Yet another bin of project scraps and pieces which KittyBoy thought was his bed. He jumped in and scared both of us when he and the bin went tumbling to the floor.

And a few minutes later, here he was, nestled in his little bed, sleeping on layers of soft Minkee which cover a heating pad. This is where he is most of the time unless he is walking on the keyboard of my computer or rubbing against the corners of my sewing machine, of sitting on my lap while I'm trying to use those machines...KittyBoy.

Opal tells me this photo could be a shot from her own space. We're working in the same colors right now... familiar and comfortable and bright colors for winter days when rain and clouds dominate both here in the Bay and in the Pacific Northwest.

The colors may be the same, but I know our spaces differ in many ways. I see this photo... and I know it looks chaotic. But when I look at it, I see the order of it. I see the pile of things in the back next to the machine that are either ready to sew or have just been sewn and are ready to iron. I see the pile of strips on top of the pen holder, strips I've put aside for a particular project.

I see a small version of A's Triangles being worked on for an art site. I see the pile of pink and orange strips being used in several projects we have going on collaboratively right now.

I see the proof that there is creative work going on and getting done... even on busy days.

A few days ago I visited my friend Judy in her studio. Judy is a whirlwind and swirl of creative activity and movement. Her barn studio is packed, crammed, and layered with quilts, fabric, books, and threads. It is a feast for the eyes. Just to stand there and take in the symphony of colors and line and textures makes my happy. Judy has a longarm quilting machine which takes up one end of her studio. I find it fascinating to see what she is quilting on her machine. On this day she was finishing one of her own quilts, a lone star design with an explosion of bright colors. Behind her longarm are two walls of shelves with hundreds of cones of threads. There are at least fifty oranges to choose from, and maybe twice as many blues. On one end of her machine is a large silver pin holder which is atop a stand....I always look. The pins tell a story about the quilts she has worked on. I see purple and yellow headed pins today. I look at the bin of trimmings, hoping to find bits and pieces that could maybe find their way into my fiber art.

These days are gray...the water, the sky, the land...tones and layers of gray. I was stunned earlier when I looked out, and then down below the deck, and saw a cluster of tiny orange splashes of color....my baby pink rose bush was heavy with hundreds of red/orange rose hips...I took a quick break and went out to snip a few..to bring the bits of summer color inside to warm my studio.

I live on a small island. We have one gas station, one grocery store, and a handful of other shops. There are two traffic lights. Mostly Camano Island is residential. But, we do have a small treasure that most people know only online. My friend Laura owns and runs Over the Rainbow, an online fabric store. She has converted the barn behind their house into a wonderland of fabric, with bolts lined up in an array of colors, shelves bulging with the likes of which only a true fabric lover could love and wish for. She and her daughter Mandi work in a tiny office processing online orders, and then they cut the fabrics to fill the orders. Laura's mom, "Meemaw" does the bookkeeping. And when Laura isn't in the shop, she is out taking care of her animals: alpacas; donkeys; rabbits; ducks; chickens; dogs; and a resident cat or two.

This is the ground floor, just the front...can you even imagine!

This is upstairs in the loft (that would be hayloft)...lol...and just one section...

When Amy was here a few weeks ago, I knew that I wanted her to see it. And truly, it is overwhelming when you walk in...where do you start? Within minutes, I had lost Amy to the lure of the bins of triangle folded fat quarters...she had maybe 20 of them which had caught her eye.

If you go to their site, Over the Rainbow, you can see photos of the animals on the farm, and photos of her family. Her newsletter is full of news about fabrics they have, and those they will get. They run sales that are to die for. And, their shipping rates are the best..they will cram as much fabric as they can into a Priority envelope. Over the Rainbow was the first shop to carry our first pattern, "A's Strips", and, they have seen the quilts for the next patterns we are in the process of completing. Thank you Laura and Mandi for your support!...

We have a table at the Pleasant Ridge Gallery At Rexville. We have our totes, placemats, quilted wall hangings, pillows, original hand made cards, and Amy's pen pouches for sale. The venue is a grange building, the largest one in the state of Washington. Maybe you don't know what a grange is, like me just a few years ago. A grange is a community center for those living in rural areas. If you live in the area, drop in and see our work in person. But hurry, the show ends this Sunday, the 19th of April.

This is a peek at our Crane quilt which I just finished quilting late last night. Amy designed the blocks. We worked a bit together getting it started, and then each worked separately to finish the blocks. It needs a binding, the final step in the process, and the one I love almost as much as quilting. I'll post a photo when it is finished.

A funeral brought Opal into the Bay Area, and we were able to work together for a few days really unexpectedly. Opal always buys flowers to grace the space while she's in town, and this time, they ended up separated... the orange in one room, the pink in the other. But beautiful. All good collaborations, I'm sure, have such traditions as their underpinnings.