The Friday art quilt group chose the word “Balance” to do as a 12″ x 12″. Here are a few of the results:
The next word is Emergence!
The Friday art quilt group chose the word “Balance” to do as a 12″ x 12″. Here are a few of the results:
The next word is Emergence!

I had the wonderful opportunity to teach Sydney quilting this summer. She is the most amazing 7 year old that I have ever known ( save my own kids at 7 years old!). We made quilts for her stuffed penguins of which there are many…all with names, of course. Some of the penguins observed us at work and two lucky penguins were tucked into her socks so that they could help her push the pedal on the sewing machine.
We made this quilt using a package of Bali Pops. I sewed the short ends to the wrong side of a yard of fabric being sure to switch between purple and green fabric strips. Then Sydney wove fabric strips across repeating the mantra: over the color it is, under the color it isn’t. We pinned the strips to the backing fabric and sewed across them with curvy lines to hold them all in place. Then we trimmed the excess around the edges and sewed all four sides down. As you can see, she and the penguins are very proud of their accomplishment. It makes me so sad that she is back in school again. Where did the summer go?
I know that I disappeared for a few weeks but I was very involved in my friend, Jayne’s wedding. You can see me here as the maid of honor helping the 3 year old flower girl down the aisle! It was a lovely occasion despite the fact that unbeknownst to me, I was battling strep throat!

In the meantime I have been trying to finish up projects including these flowers. I began them as part of my Spring/Crop Circle series but they wanted to be more Spring than Crop Circles so I let them have their way. I have entered this quilt in the Bits and Pieces Show as well as the earlier one. This time I used the silk chiffon to create flowers and I love the airy feel of the fabric.

Here is a close up of the quilting:

I have created a 12 x 12 quilt for the SAQA online auction by playing with my fabric. I collaged a bunch of great fabrics together and then pulled some of them apart and inserted hand dyed silk. After quilting like crazy, I asked Marni what she thought that I should call it. 
She thought the green piece looked like an abstract of a man on his knees ready to roll the dice and since the number 7 is about the only legible thing left from the collage, it seemed appropriate to think gambling. Hence the name.
My favorite part was doing the hand quilting across the green area. I just love doing that hand stitching.

I am having a hard time believing that half of the year is already gone! In honor of summer I thought I would post a small quilt that I did a few years back with the help of my friend, Jayne Wangen. She drew the design and I made the piece. It is available as a pattern or I am selling the whole quilt on Etsy at Karenworksart. Check it out…and enjoy these sunny days.
And if you are in the vicinity of Ashland….don’t miss the Rogue Art Quilters’ Purple line show at US Bank. It is wonderful.
This quilt was begun as one of my crop circle quilts and it languished for a long time. I finally was re-inspired by a call for entries entitled “Bits and Pieces”.
I had already collaged the background with batiks so all I had to do was quilt it! What a laugh….it took many hours of intense machine quilting to hold everything down.
Then I added the circles which are made out of silk chiffon that I dyed. I am very pleased with it.
I recently took a class from Sue Spargo and had a wonderful time playing with felted wool. I picked up this sweater for $8.00 from Deja Vu and went to town on it. I love the way the thread called Seagrass highlights my pieces.
My Friday Critique group…that doesn’t have a real name although we have been meeting for two years…just put up a show at US Bank in Ashland. Every couple of months we come up with a word and everyone does a 12″ x 12″ piece to depict the word. Sadly I can’t seem to upload pictures so you will have to check out the show yourself before the end of the month.