Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Welcome to all of you who are coming through from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day post.  I love being able to participate, especially when I remember ahead of time.  Feel free to scroll down to the bottom to see the details of the giveaway!

I'm mostly an art quilter, with a love of crafts and bag making thrown in.  I try to blog as often as I can about my works in progress, and I'd love it if you'd stop in again!  My work in the last couple of years has been broadly divided into two groups.  The first is an ongoing series of quilts inspired by the style of illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy, and depicting parts of the Episcopal liturgy.

In Nomine Patris

Gloria Patri

Peace be With You

The other "category"  is really just a catch all for everything else.  I'm a scientist in my other life, so some of my quilts are based on my research or other scientific themes and some are just whatever I felt like making at the time.

The Dogs

Winter In Lincoln County #1: The Orchard

Ring Around the Mole

And now for the giveaway!

This year I'm giving away two packages.  Each of them contain a handmade ornament, half a yard of Lotta Jansdotter fabric (from the Bella line), a quilt-in-a-cup kit, and a book.

The books are Pat Nickels and Sue Holly's Stitched Raw Edge Applique and Joan Ford's Cut the Scraps: 7 Steps to Quilting your Way Through Your Stash.

The quilt-in-a-cup kits are a super fun project for making your own quilted travel mug.  They contain all you need to make the project except scrap fabric (so you can use whatever fabric your want).

Finally, the ornaments are perfect for your Christmas tree if you're a tree household, and can also be pinned to a bulletin board or wall for a bit of winter cheer if you aren't!  I made them while playing around with my embroidery machine, something I don't do often enough.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite holiday activity is!  Make sure you're not a no-reply blogger or I won't be able to contact you if you win.

Good luck to all, and I'll randomly select 2 winners on the afternoon of December 16th.

Thanks again for visiting and to Sew Mama Sew for hosting!

UPDATE:  Please please please check to see if you are a no-reply blogger.  If you are, I'll have no way to contact you if you win, and two of the first three very kind people who commented are no-reply.  If you aren't sure, check out this post.  If you'd like to stay a no-reply blogger, please put your e-mail in the text of the comment.  Thanks!!  I'd hate for someone to win who I couldn't get in touch with!

Daisy Bag

I decided to make myself a new purse, and I wanted one that was big enough to carry my coffee and water bottle but still not huge.  I have often just made up my own bag patterns, but this time I wanted something with pleats (to add some volume) and didn't want to mess with drafting it, so I purchased the pdf pattern for the Daisy Cross Body bag from Blue Calla Patterns.  In addition to the pleats, I really liked the idea of the fussy cut dresden-like piecing.  I have several yards of the Midnight fabric from Jane Sassaman's Prairie Gothic line.  It's several years old now, but is one of my favorite prints of all time, and it's perfect for fussy cutting.

Here are a few of the designs I auditioned.  The pattern calls for 7 dresden pieces on each side.  I settled on the one with the moths (my very favorite) for one side, and the one with half spiders on the other side.

The pattern was great, easy to follow and understand,  it was pretty much constructed in a standard way and I liked the size/pleats.  It only called for a magnetic snap main closure, but I really wanted a zip top, so I made a recessed zipper for it.

It's kind of hard to tell in these pictures, but the bottom and the underside of the strap are this great dark purple corduroy I saved from a pair of pants I no longer wear.

So far I'm enjoying this bag a lot, although I realized the last time I made myself a new purse, it was exactly the same color scheme, and approximately the same size! That purse is still going strong, I just felt like making a new one, and next year if I make a new bag I'm going to have to branch out away from blue and purple!!

More Animals!

I've been working away on my large quilt, but have gotten behind on posting.  I finished all the animal pictures and have started quilting the first panel.  Last time  I finished with the emergence of land life and the Trigonotarbida.

Today I'll start with the pieces that go up the "middle", that is, the right border of the left panel, and the left border of the right panel.  These borders are the narrowest of all, only about 3.5", so each of these pictures is about 2" wide.  This is my dinosaur section, with a Pteranodon (from the late Cretaceous) flying through the top panels, my friend the Coelophysis (from the Triassic) in the middle section, and a Helicoprion (very long-surviving, from the Permian through the late Triassic) swimming in the sea in the bottom.  Helicoprions are actually a type of shark, and are super awesome.  I learned about them this summer on our Alaska trip, and you should definitely check them out.  Sorry the pictures are so dark!  The helicoprion is especially hard to see, but his background is multilayered blues.

Then moving into the Cenozoic era, starting along the bottom edge of the left panel. First up is a a Gastornis (from the Paleocene/Eocene epoch).  It's a giant flightless bird, one of many that arose during the early Cenozoic when mammals and birds really started to dominate.

Next comes a wooly mammoth from the Pleistocene epoch (the last before our current epoch).

Finally we get to people and our current epoch (the Holocene).  The people are sitting at the bottom left corner of the left panel.  The tree panels go up the left side, and to cap out our track through evolution, sitting in the tree are a bunch of "Darwin's finches".  Of course, in real life, they wouldn't all be in the same tree, but Darwin's study of the collection of different finch species found in the Galapagos Islands helped him develop the theory of natural selection.  Mine aren't 100% correct, but I did try to represent a variety of different beak shapes, one of the most obvious distinguishing features of the finch species.  It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the tree trunk lines up in all four panels to provide continuity up the left border.

As with all the other pictures, each one will have much more detail added in the quilting, but so far they're coming along ok.  Next time I'll share the ones that go across the top border, and then I think I'll be up-to-date.  

I'm linking up with the ever-fabulous Nina-Marie today.  Hope everyone is having some time to be creative!

Training for the Triwizard Tournament

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!  I was privileged to spend it with my family in New Mexico, and had a great time with my parents and everyone else.  I love the advent season, and after some gentle reminders from Mike about not overscheduling, I'm going to try to enjoy this year without going crazy.

Ever since August, my sister and I have been training to run a half marathon, and back on November 1st, we actually ran our first one!  It was a huge accomplishment for us both.  I've never been a big runner, and I didn't think I could do it.  We had a good time, and Becky has actually decided to train for a full marathon!  I think I'll stick with the half, and our next one will be the end of January.  It's a bit harder to force myself outside to run now that the weather is cold, but I'm trying.

Being crafty people, we decided to make shirts to wear for the race, and being nerdy people, we decided to make them Harry Potter (yay!) themed.  After looking around online for ideas, I put together this design, and we cut out freezer paper stencils using my Silhouette and then painted them with acrylic paint.  I think they came out really cute!

Here we are right before the race with my sister's friend Diana who also ran with us.  It was raining at the end and we were exhausted, so there aren't any good pictures of the "after".  I was really excited to find bright 80s pattern neon-y running pants (it's the small things...).

My parents came down to watch us and keep the kids while we were running, and my mom snapped this picture of me jogging along around mile 9.  I was pretty tired by then, but still going!

Hopefully I can keep motivated to run through the holidays!

Abiogenesis

I mentioned a couple weeks back that the borders of my current quilt feature several different vignettes and that each one represents a stage in the evolutionary history of our planet.  It was quite fun to read up on the evolution of life, particularly in the precambrian era since I knew little about it compared to later eras.  Obviously "evolution of life" is a pretty big topic to break up into a few pictures, so I just picked things that jumped out at me and put them in chronological order.  Each one will have quite a bit of additional detail added with stitching once I'm into the quilting phase, so for now some of them are kind of blank.

I started with "primordial ooze"- not much to see here. The first organic molecules, polymerization of them into proteins and RNA, and then eventual compartmentalization into the first organisms will be added with quilting.

The next panel shows an undersea hydothermal vent.  Hydrothermal vents are one of the few places where extremophiles still live- organisms that don't require oxygen or light for metabolism and life.  There are some quite technical definitions for chemoautotrophs but the main idea is that they make organic molecules from carbon dioxide and utilize inorganic energy sources like hydrogen sulfide or ammonia.

Then follows the great oxygenation event, and the rise of cyanobacteria.  This panel depicts stromatolites (a type of cyanobacteria) which are still currently found in a few isolated places.  This period was especially critical since prior to the development of photosynthesis and the ability of photosynthesizing organisms to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, there was virtually no oxygen in earth's atmosphere.  To me, this is really really nifty- the idea that all the oxygen that we take for granted and that supports most life as we know it was spewed forth by billions of tiny bacteria over billions of years.

The great oxygenation event (among other things) paved the way for the Cambrian explosion which is marked by the proliferation of vast diversity among organisms.  This panel shows several, including a trilobite (I feel like they're sort of the poster children for this era), an opabinia, a hallucigenia, and a couple other things I don't actually know the names of.  This image is the bottom right hand corner and marks the turning point into what I'd think of as more "normal" life forms.

Next up is a Eurypterid, a type of large under sea scorpion.  Eurypterids were key predators and though some species were in the 15 inch range, others grew up to 6-8 feet.  They thrived for a long (long) time from the Ordovician through the Permian eras.  He's swimming along with a jawless primitive fish from the Silurian period (which is partway through the reign of the eurypterids).

During the Silurian, the first terrestrial life appeared, and ferns first appeared during the Devonian period (right after the Silurian).  The fern is accompanied by an early terrestrial arachnid from the order Trigonotarbida.  Although they were small, they did feed off other arthropods, and after the giant under sea scorpion, I was ready for something that would eat bugs....

Here's where I'll leave it for today, and more animals will come along later this week!

Peace Be With You: Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's time once again for the fabulous Blogger's Quilt Festival. It's always a great opportunity to find new quilty bloggers and see everyone's lovely work.  Many thanks to Amy for hosting it!

Peace Be With you is my entry in the Art Quilt category, and you should click through to see all the other great entries.

I worked on this quilt for most of the spring and summer, but was unable to show final pictures of it because I entered it into a special exhibit called "Festival Gallery of Quilt Art: Just Sayin" at the International Quilt Festival in Houston and they had a rule about not showing the final quilt before the show opened.  Well now it's opened, so I can finally share it!!  For anyone who's able to actually go to the show, you can see it there in person.

Peace Be With You, 48" x 50", c. 2015 Shannon M. Conley

This piece is another one in my series of liturgical quilts, many of which are stylistically linked to illuminated manuscripts or texts.  The composition of this one was inspired by a really glorious piece of Arabic calligraphy.

It started with four tiles I designed earlier in the spring while at a workshop with Jenny Bowker. Once I settled on a composition for the whole piece, I made two more partial tiles to fill in the gaps.

Designing the text to fit in the circular piece was fun.  It's a bit hard to see at first glance, but there are two interlocking rings of text.  The outside of the circle reads "Peace be with you" while nestled along the inside is the response "And also with you".  This is the greeting parishioners exchange with their neighbors during an Episcopal worship service.  The letters are all cut from different synthetic gold fabrics and then appliqued down using a tiny zig zag.  While quilting, I then couched down the Ricky Tims Razzle Dazzle thread to give a little more definition.

One of my favorite parts is the border around the circular/tile parts.  I foundation pieced it using all my shiny gold fabrics and between the foundation (a leave in stabilizer) and the seam allowances under the piecing, it really puffs up nicely.

The background fabric is some sort of slightly stretchy heavyweight polyester apparel fabric, and up close it has a really nice sheen.  Unfortunately, the stretch made it a bit difficult to work with while squaring up/quilting.  The quilting was done free motion, but I did mark some of the patterns first, especially those along the very outer border an in the bottom.  In order to echo the dragons hiding in the tiles, I quilted a dragon in the bottom part.

Though I struggled a lot with this piece (from a practical-accomplishing-it) standpoint, I'm pleased with how it turned out, and I hope the message can serve as a reminder, to me at least, to reach out with kindness to those around me.  I feel like society at large is becoming increasingly polarized, and that my life in particular has been filled with stress and conflict, so that a little patience and peace might serve me well.

Thanks again to Amy for hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival, and make sure to click through to see the other entries!!

Ring Around the Ranch: Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's time once again for the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  Many thanks to Amy for doing such a great job hosting it!  You should definitely check out all the other entries.

This is my entry in the original design category.  It was a commission from a couple in Texas who saw my previous mammal mandala quilt at a show in New Mexico.  They loved all the circling animals, that had animals that were meaningful to them.  The center features the brand for their ranch, and the quilt is called "Ring Around the Ranch."  They love it, so I consider it a job well done.  

After the central ranch logo comes a ring of cardinals, one of squirrels and rabbits, then one with deer, horses, and longhorns.  The deer/horses/cattle interlock with rings of chocolate labs and armadillos, and then each corner is finished with a different bird:  the red-tailed hawk, a blue heron, an owl, and a crested caracara.  Finally, the border is flanked with catfish.

One feature I really like is the secondary patterns in the quilting.  You can see them a little bit in the overall picture, but also in some of the detail shots.  Th large nine-pointed star and nonagon in the center (around the robins), and the large arcs that frame each corner.

Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Here are a few detailed shots of the large corner birds.  I had a good time with these birds.  They're one of my favorite parts of the piece.  I think I like the crested caracara (bottom turquoise one) best, but the owls are a close second.   I accidentally melted a couple holes in the solid white background piece, which was a total nightmare, but I was able to patch them with the bo-nash powder and quilt over them.  In the end  you really can't see them at all.  They're right above and below the beak on the left heron.

All the animals have beaded eye or face details.  On some of the larger animals it's more than one bead (to give some shape) although they're quite hard to see in the photos.  My mom said the stray green threads kept catching her eye but when she'd reach up to pluck them off, she'd realize they were catfish whiskers....

Blue Heron Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Red-tailed hawk detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Crested Caracara detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Great Horned Owl detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Here are a few shots of the areas with most of the overlays.

Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

 And finally, a couple of pictures of the center.  The logo in the middle is their ranch sign/brand.

Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Detail, Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

And here's a picture they sent me of the quilt hanging in their home.  I love the way it looks on the rock wall, and the warm colors in those two brown birds go very well with the bench!
 

Ring Around the Ranch, 2014, 57" x 57" c. Shannon Conley

Many thanks to the Kanetzky's for supporting my work, and to Amy for hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Progress on Eucharistic Prayer C Quilt

Things have been a bit challenging lately and I've been feeling simultaneously unmotivated and quite busy, which has contributed to a lag in creative accomplishments, but I have been making progress on my next big quilt.

It's not really "next" since I started it back at the beginning of the year and then set it aside for the spring and summer, but I'm back working on it now.  The middle sections feature the text from one of the Eucharistic prayers in the Episcopal prayer book (prayer c for anyone who's interested) and is really an exploration of the intersection of science and religion.  It's another one of my illuminated-manuscript style quilts, with several historiated initials and large borders filled with vignettes.

Each of the initials is about 6" square and features a famous scientist surrounded by things indicative of their field, but in somewhat medieval garb to keep with the illuminated style.  I'm terrible at faces, but I hope the suggestion is good enough.  These have lots of layers and I wasn't sure how easily I'd be able to quilt them, so a lot of the stitching has already been added.  More will come later hopefully. The edges are currently floppy since the aren't stitched down to anything-  I need to get them attached to the quilt soon or I think the little letter curlicues are going to be permanently messed up.

Here's Galileo in an A

Here's Louis Pasteur in an H

Here's Marie Curie in an L

and Barbara McClintock in an A

I actually made these before my break this spring and they've been patiently waiting their turn to come out of the WIP drawer.  Lately I've been working on the border vignettes and I'll share some of them next week.

Linking up with Nina-Marie and hoping you're having a creative week!