flying saucer on the roof

I've had a semi-productive day today. First off, no headache! Woohoo, shouts of joy. Got my haircut, this time without the phone call reminding me I was supposed to have been there five minutes ago. Washed a load of fabric and ironed it all out. Read blogs... Okay, kinda pathetic as a list of productivity but what can ya do? That is really boring. I will try to do better.

Bonnie, one of the new fabrics I got is a pretty good match to my purple pin sheet (Bonnie loves that color with the reds, yellows, pinks, and oranges I've been working on lately). Maybe I'll add some of the new purple into my Terms of Endearment. Assuming I ever get back to sewing on it again.

Laura (who I hope likes my alien house block) has been playing with houses recently. New blogger, Barb, has got a pic of a finished liberated house quilt and several mentions of Gwen Marston... Hmm, I'm intrigued. If I haven't mentioned it lately, I should say that I learned how to make houses from Gwen's book "Liberated Quiltmaking" which very sadly is now out of print but remains my all-time favorite quilt book.

You know how I love to play with threads, making a picture with my quilting? (If you don't, you can go take a look here). Well I thought I'd show you how I doodle a picture, before I draw it onto the quilt.

One of the houses on my current project Space 4 Rent has a nice big roof suitable for something fun. Since the theme of the quilt is aliens and houses, I could have one of the aliens coming to visit, and what a great landing pad there on the roof. These are my doodles of an alien in a flying saucer. Please notice this takes no drawing skill whatsover. We're talking stick figures here.

I doodled until I had an idea of what I wanted and then I drew a similar doodle onto the fabric with a purple disappearing pen. Didn't like it, made it disappear with water, and redrew it the next day. And this is what the little guy looks like quilted:

Down in the purple ground I have the word "Greetings" quilted. By the way, I've decided that I prefer using chalk to the disappearing pen. I can rub it off and immediately get to work without having to fool around with it. Plus, the chalk line is so big and squishy - it gives me more room to manuever.

So if you like this technique, try it. Seriously. Doesn't take drawing skill and it is so easy to undo. Even if you quilt it and decide you hate it, it can be ripped out. Don't be afraid of trying something new. Play. Pretend you're 8 years-old and a great artist.

Across Australia

Hey ya'all. Hope everyone is doing well. I've got yet another headache (big cry baby, that's me) but went to the doc today, so hopefully a change in my allergy meds will do wonders. I was almost very foolish this morning - I considered backing out of an expedition cuz I wasn't feeling great. What a mistake that would have been.

Two friends and I went up to Zamalek to see an art quilt show called "Across Australia." Not only did we get to see beautiful quilts, but the curator Dijanne Cevaal (who is visiting from Australia and has some gorgeous photos of Egypt on her blog) and Jenny Bowker even came over to walk through the exhibit with us and talk about it. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've certainly never been so lucky to have this kind of an experience before.

Here are a couple of quilts that really caught my eye. This first one is "Dreaming" by Beth and Trevor Reid of Gowrie:

This landscape is inspired by the Australian outback, but it makes me think of Mars. I love the colors in it. Jenny pointed out that several of the Australian art quilters do their quilting first and then put the applique over the top of it. Makes it easier (to not have to stop and start), but it also gives an incredible ghost impression. On this quilt, the appliqued areas were then quilted again.

And this one is "Corrugated" by Helen Gray of Mawson:

I bet you're surprised that I picked this one - certainly not the colors you usually see on my blog. But the material is a gorgeous hand-dyed silk and then Helen hand quilted with large stitches that are incredibly textural.

After the quilt tour my friends and I had lunch at my favorite Lebanese restaurant (woohoo) and now I'm back home again with my sick husband. I know he's really sick when he stays home from work. Poor guy. I just hope I don't get whatever it is he has.

Thought I'd show you a peek at the new fabric I got in the mail:

I bought them for different projects, but I'm actually scaring myself with how much I like how they go together. No, no, I refuse to leave my comfortable little box - I don't want to explore new color combinations.

more houses

I started making a house quilt last spring. I wanted it to be pink and chartruese green, but soon discovered that just wasn't going to work - I needed a third color. So yellow was it. I only made a few houses before getting distracted and moving along to some other project. That happens to me a lot. I don't stress about it and go back to projects when I'm ready to work on them again (or recycle parts or give blocks away, depending on how I feel).

This next house is fairly boring, even tho it has a slanted roof and an angled door and window. I like the chimney - I angled that one well.

This next house is one of my favorites, even if it is a bit hard to look at with the wild sky. The best part? The extra long chimney that's sliding off the roof.

My husband sometimes looks at these houses and says, seriously, "you know that's not structurally sound." Uh, yeah.

By the way, if you're looking at these pics and thinking, hey in the house tutorial Tonya put the chimney in the big sky piece, you are right. I was experimenting with these blocks to see if it worked better to put the chimney on the smaller sky. It doesn't - it's worse.

Got a nasty headache this morning which I am not at all happy about. I'm afraid it's spring already starting to attack me. It's time to change my allergy meds - think the ones I'm on just aren't working anymore.

My sweetie and I watched "L.A. Confidential" yesterday and I managed to get some quilting done. Slowly, slowly.

Alien House with Saturn

Wow, found some more groovy houses to share with you all. It's a blast to see what kinds of houses people are building. Make sure you check out: Kathie and Nancy (who also created a tree) and Carolyn. Quilt Pixie has now added a great free-pieced wonky car to her village.

And on the theme of improvisational piecing, Kate has created some awesome ladybugs.

This is the first block that I've completely quilted from Spaces 4 Rent. It's slow going, esp since I'm doing stupid stab stitch quilting. Don't ask me why, I know it's not the lazy option. I just love how it looks when I quilt 1/8" from the edge of the seam, even when it's thru multiple layers of fabric so I can't do a running stitch. This block (and the entire quilt) is being done with size 8 perle cotton or 3 strands of embroidery floss.

I went out to lunch today with friends. Wow, that's three days in a row - what a social animal I am. Gray and nasty again outside and a bit chilly, but at least it didn't spit rain drops at me like it did yesterday. I ordered some more furniture from the amazing craftsmen who made my mashrabiya screen. These won't be mashrabiya and won't be nearly that elaborate tho.

I have gotten very little done lately, what with the socializing online and in person. And being lazy...

flat roof

I've really been enjoying wandering around the blogs and seeing some houses under construction. I know Finn and Cher have posted one each and Quilt Pixie has done a couple. Pixie accidentally sewed the sky sections on in the wrong order and ended up insetting a seam. Aaaghhh.

Let me tell ya, this lazy gal ain't gonna inset no seam. So here's a solution to that problem: whack off the top of the house. I just cropped on Picasa, so I have a straight line across the top, but it could certainly be more angular.

You could also take it even further down for an even flatter roof:

Here are some of my flat top houses. Did I make them deliberately or were they "accidents" - there's no way to know.

And Finn has been yearning for tall houses, so here's one for her: