Show Announcement: Beyond Tradition

Hi all, I just wanted to pop in to say that I have several pieces in a SAQA New Mexico regional show called Beyond Tradition.  It's being held at the Hubbard Museum of the American West in Ruidoso Downs, NM and runs from April 5-September 1.  If any of you are traveling through southern New Mexico, you might check it out!

I'm privileged to have three pieces hanging in Beyond Tradition: Winter in Lincoln County 2: Sierra Blanca, Winter in Lincoln County 1: The Orchard, and Ring Around the Mole.

Concurrently hanging at the museum are A Walk in the Wild and A Color Runs Through It, so you can also see Seymour the Coelophysis, Taming the Gorgons, and Black and White and Read All Over.

Many thanks to Betty Busby who has worked really hard to make this happen, and also to everyone else who helped including my super Mom who has been the local contact for it.  

Finished! Taming the Gorgons

I'm so excited to share this recent finish.  It was made for a black and white and one color show to replace my disastrous first attempt at the identity quilt, and was previously glimpsed here and here.  I have actually gone back and done another quilt based on that original identity concept which I hope to share next week.

The design was based on Greek architectural elements and is constructed out of a variety of gold apparel fabrics (the background is cotton).  I used cutaway trapunto to make the gold elements stand out and give the quilt dimension.   The background quilting is done with metallic silk thread as well as regular threads.  I love the curviness and sweeping arcs in the central design and tried to echo those in the quilting.  It's finished off with gold piping and a black and white binding that matches the quilt background.

I named the quilt "Taming the Gorgons" because the large sprouting feathers at the top reminded me of a calm, civilized version of the snake haired Medusa, one of the three monstrous Gorgon sisters of Greek myth.

I love the sparkly shiny nature of the gold apparel fabrics, for more on how I work with them, you can check out my previous posts.  Just keep your fingers crossed that it gets accepted into the show!

Taming the Gorgons, c. Shannon Conley 2013, 18" x 24"

Linking up with TGIFF, Richard and Tanya Quilts, and the unparalleled Off the Wall Friday over at Nina-Marie's

Actual WIP Wednesday

I thought I'd just give a status update-WIP today, as much as an action-item list for me as anything!

For anyone who doesn't care about my random to-do list, I'll just share this (sad iphone) picture of the quilting I just finished on the black and gold quilt!

QUILTS

Black and White and Gold Quilt
I finished quilting this and got it blocked/sqared up.  The next step is to make the piping (need to buy piping cord) and do the binding, pocket, and label.

Winter in Lincoln County #1: The Orchard
I made great progress on this week, got it blocked, square up, and bound.  The pocket is on and the last step is to sew on the label (which I printed this morning).  Final reveal on this on Friday (hopefully).

Winter in Lincoln County #2: Sierra Blanca
This is the mountain quilt that has been on the design wall incubating since April.  I've decided it's time to finish it.  It's blocked and squared up, but I think I'm going to try to embroider/thread paint/stitch some trees in the foreground before adding the facing.  I hope to get to it this weekend.

Ahhh Star
The next step on this is the piano key border.  I've pulled the fabrics for this, but haven't actually started it yet...

Black and White and Red all Over 1 and 2
These are the two thumbprint projects.  I did a bunch of coloring on the one that I hated so much which helped some, but not necessarily enough to make me love it.  I'm thinking about trying to quilt up the other one though.

Still Life
This will be the next quilt, but it's still in the early designing phases (as in, still in my mind and very rough sketches) so it'll be a while before there's anything to show on this.

OTHER PROJECTS

Crocheted Scarf
This is a scarf I was making for my aunt out of the yarn from her alpacas.  It's finished and blocked, I just need to get some good photos (not sure how to do that for a scarf) and then write up a blog post!

Crochet Flower Blocks for Afghan
I think I have enough of these for an actual afghan I just need to get them all blocked and laid out.  It's kind of overwhelming to me since there are about 100 of them and they're not all the same shape and I've never assembled blocks of crochet before.  However, I think it's time to bite the bullet on this too; I'm tired of them sitting unseen in a drawer!

Chair Cushion
I have a very traditional rocking chair with a very uncomfortable back.  I have fabric to make a cushion for it, but need to get the foam.

Birthday Presents
Two family birthdays are coming up and I need to get on the secret presents for those!

Linking up with Lee as always and hoping you're all making progress on those WIPs!

WIP: Replacement for Identity

In the aftermath of the wretchedness that was the thumbprint quilt last week, I decided to put that whole idea on the back burner.  I did get some helpful suggestions including painting it and/or leaving it as is and pretending it was a werewolf scratch (which made me giggle).  My favorite was my dad's comment- he said it was like the old bad joke, what's black and white and red all over?  Answer: a newspaper (or in this case over 100 black and white books).

While I let that simmer though, I started working on another quilt for the black+white+one color challenge.  I decided to move away from pink and use gold as my color instead.  I found a small drawing in my sketchbook based on a Greek element in "Styles of Ornament" by Spelz.  As an aside: for anyone who doesn't know about it, this book is filled with wonderful design elements from over three thousand years of art and architecture. There are lots of used copies for pretty cheap on Amazon, my grandfather had a copy from his days doing stage design and my mom has it now.  So many of the designs are great for quilty inspiration.

Anyway, I elaborated my sketch, got something I liked and made it into a full size paper pattern. I pulled out all my gold silky/brocade apparel fabrics and backed them with fusible on which I'd traced the shape of the peice.  After cutting each piece out (with scissors) I sealed all of the edges with my woodburning tool so they're smooth and not ravelly.

After assembling everything, I decided I'd do some faux trapunto so I put a layer of batting (no backing) and quilted around the gold motif with water soluble thread.  Currently I'm working on putting some quilting on the gold sections (just on the first layer of batting) prior to trimming the excess batting off and layering for regular quilting.

I'm already so much more excited about this than the thumb print project, even if it doesn't turn out perfect, at least I'm enjoying the process!

Linking up with Lee and Nina-Marie as always.