I like #330

 I haven't done an I like post in a while.  It's been a rough and tumultuous summer with some family health challenges and stress related to fires, but things are settling down.  I'm going into fall crazy time at work, so I'm not sure I can keep up with weekly I like posts, but I will try my best.  

So amid the chaos, what have I been liking over the past few months?

I love getting to spend time with my family.  We had several family get togethers this summer, the best was 4th of July weekend at my parents' place in New Mexico.  Among other things my mom organized a wonderful family mountain olympics with seven different events and five teams (mostly sibling pairs).  My sister and I won, largely I think because we won the costume contest and won scattegories.  Our efforts at lawn games were mediocre at best.  But it was such a wonderful time.  My dad was the referee and he definitely kept us all in line!

I love getting to hike and explore outside.  In July I took a road trip to Colorado where I met up with my mom and dad for a few days.  Mom and I were filming an episode of Quilting Arts TV, but along the way I visited and hiked in Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, Clayton Lake State Park (with fossilized dinosaur footprints!), Capulin Volcano National Monument (very cool volcano), Red Rocks Park, and Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Beautiful native prairies at Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (Oklahoma)

Clayton Lake State Park (New Mexico)

Dinsoaur footprints!!!!

Capulin Volcano National Monument (New Mexico)

Trail along the volcano rim.

Red Rocks Park (Colorado)

Beautiful green rattlesnake we saw in the trail at Red Rocks park.  Luckily we had good hold of the dogs and just watched him slither across with no problems to anyone.

Great Sand Dunes National Park (Colorado)

Hot and sweaty hiking on the dunes.

Drenched and sweaty and swarming with mosquitos hiking in the mountains.  But such a beautiful trail (also at Great Sand Dunes National Park).

There are many more things to like to catch up on, but for now this is enough.  I did get to blog in the past couple weeks about some catch-up quilts I hadn't yet shared, so take a look at them here and here.

I hope there are things to like in your worlds now!  For more things to like, click over to Lee Anna's.

New Quilt C. Bauri, Feathers or Scales

 In the ongoing effort to catch up on blog posts,  here's a new quilt I made close to the beginning of this year in preparation for this summer's 3D exhibit at the New Mexico State Capitol (which just came down last week).  

This started out as some weird upholstery weight kind of scratchy stiff fabric that was sort of beige with orange and brown flowers on it?  I had a fairly large roll of it that I inherited from my sister's mother-in-law (thanks Mary!) and was determined to use for something.  I decided to paint it and quilt two layers of it together with no batting and see what kind of 3D thing I could make.

I decided to try to make a vessel, and so I trimmed it into this weird shape and sewed up the corners, but it really just wasn't working.  It was too floppy and too open and really just not coming together like I thought.  So I unpicked all the stitches and since the Capitol show was coming up I decided to smock it. 

I went looking for a new smocking pattern and found an article from a computer science journal on 3D modeling of predicted pleat patterns/smocked patterns which very much delighted the nerd in me.  I'm not sure if anyone has ever smocked these patterns in person but I decided to try one of them.  Unfortunately now I can't find the paper- if I ever do I'll link it back here. I wasn't sure how it would work since it was cut to such a weird shape but I thought I'd give it a try.

It turned out pretty cool- this is the first time I've made a smocked pattern that goes horizontally rather than vertically.  And the shape reminded me of the shape of an arrowhead or a scale.  The scale vibe is what led to the title of the piece,  C. Bauri: feathers or scales.  C. Bauri is my beloved Coelophysis, the carnivorous theropod that has shown up on my quilts before.  I think historically we always thought of them as scaly, but I think current thinking is that they were feathered!

I like the way this came out, I like that the shape is different from others in this series, and I love the blendy earthy colors.

C. Bauri: Feathers or Scales, c. 2024, Shannon Conley, 43x50x5

New Quilt: Self-Portrait

 Well, this isn't isn't a new quilt at all.  I'm sorry to say that I'm so far behind in blogging that this was a quilt I started in a Katie Pasquini Masopust workshop in spring 2023 and finished shortly thereafter.  It's already been off to a touring around SAQA NM show and will be coming home soon.  Craziness.  I really do like to have a record of things on the blog though so I'm going to try to get caught up.  

The workshop was do do a grid style abstracted piece from a photo.  Most folks in the class were doing flowers or still lifes or something and while I took several pictures to start from, I really wanted to try to do a self-portrait.   

This was my starting picture, and the grid and pattern I drew are right below it.

The blocks are foundation pieced and all the fabric came from my shiny/textury stash.  It's a blend of silks, velvets, shiny polyesters, microsuedes, and maybe even some brocades.  I finished piecing and quilting all the blocks while I was at the workshop-- it was an Empty Spools session at Asilomar so I had several days to just put my head down and focus.  It was kind of hard to see in the beginning, especially with all the raggedy blocks, but after quilting them all and squaring up I was thrilled that the portrait part was starting to emerge.  The face and the hands were most challenging and was so excited with how they turned out.

After I got home I struggled to figure out how I wanted to finish it.  I was originally thinking of some 3D approach, but in the end decided on just an openwork treatment with about 1/2" of space between each block.  It's finished sort of like my Prayer of St. Chrysostom quilt.

Self Portrait, c. 2023 Shannon Conley

I'm so so thrilled with how it came out, so much better than I expected.  I sent it off to the Personality Plus SAQA regional show pretty much as soon as I finished it and am kind of looking forwad to having it back soon to hang in the house.  The Empty Spools workshops really are an amazing opportunity to just really put your brain to the work and get stuff done.

I Like #329

 Two weeks in a row to get my post up seems like a huge acheivement after being away for so long.  My sister and her daughter Anna were up this weekend so there were definitely things to like.  We did a lot of game playing and walked around the Paseo Art Festival, and went to a painting excursion, and had a spa evening.  It was really a delightful weekend and so so wonderful to have them.  

One of the most practical things we did was that my sister helped me clean up/out my garage,  the impetus was that we were expecting severe weather and needed to get both her car and mine into the garage.  Luckily the severe weather passed us by and now I have a much tidier garage!

Here we are on my wonderful porch with our foot masks on.  It was fun to do the foot masks and a face mask (I'd never done one of those) and a sugar scrub and then paint our toenails.  We used up every towel in the house!

Becky has just finished having her house painted and Anna's room is a new color so she wanted to make some new pillows to go on her bed.  Of course my fabric stash was filled with fun things to use for that, and she made four pillows.  I love using stuff I already have.  And it was great to use up a bunch of fiber fill I'd inherited from someone (Mary I think?).  The cross hatch blue is a silk I dyed over Christmas.  And the big white one has blue velour on the other side.

The garden is going along,  I harvested the first three zuchinni and cut the first bunch of flowers.  They're dahlias and zinnias so far, mostly small pom pom ones, no large
ones yet, but still pretty.

And of course the pups are good.  No good pictures of Spooky this week, but here's Blue to tide you over.

Hope there have been some good things in your week!  For more, click over to LeeAnna's.null

I like #328

It's been over two months since I've posted and lots of stuff has happened since then.  Lots good and lots just very very busy and stressful.  And every time I sat down to write a post the idea of trying to catch up here was just overwhelming.  So I decided this week would just be for this week.  Maybe I'll get caught up on stuff from the last couple of months or maybe not, but I'm starting for now.

The last few weeks have been filled with work in my garden.  I expanded the garden quite a bit this year because the new porch ate up some of the old garden and so I sort of restructured.  Hopefully I can get a whole post up about the new porch and garden at some point.  The garden went in in stages this year and I think in general it's not going to be a great garden year, but it's all in and some stuff is growing well at the moment.  I love going out to look at it.

On a related note, I accidentally mowed over this burrow of adorable baby bunnies in the front yard last Monday.  Apart from being traumatized by the noise I think they were all ok.  I've seen them in the last couple of days hopping around the yard.  I'm torn between loving suburban wildlife/thinking their adorable, and desperately hoping they don't go into the garden.

Luckily my wonderful pups are doing great, although if I let them in the garden they immediately pee on the vegetables.

Last week we celebrated Pentecost at church, and I got this wonderful picture with two good friends from curch.  It's such a wonderful community!!

Speaking of friends,  last weekend the OKC Phil did a semi-staged performance of Tosca and Brett and I went.  It was just fantastic.  Really good.

I even got to spend a little time in my studio last weekend and got started on a new illuminated manuscript quilt.  It felt so so good to be doing something creative for a chage.  And I love all the colors.  Definitely in the very early stages but it feels good to have something going.

And finally I made a delicious cherry pie this week.  I decided we need to eat the good homegrown cherries in the freezer and it was so tasty.

I hope this is the start of more regular posting, and I hope you're all having some good things to celebrate.  For more good things, head over to LeeAnnaLeeAnna's!