Abstracts

Three of us in Thermopolis have started a mini quilt group. We are very diverse in our quilting, careers, even our families. I have great respect for these ladies. Tracy is an accountant and is working for the town. Her very traditional quilts are works of art. The colors are soothing, the designs are well executed and I always envy her points and let her know that on occasion. Margie is a retired Consumer Science teacher and usually goes the traditional route with a twist somehow, somewhere in her beautiful work. She is an expert on color and I admire how she can pick out five colors in a focus fabric. I may see three of them, she sees all of the colors. I, on the other hand, am an undecided quilter. My love is art quilting and I enjoy the process and products of so many artists. I probably am an art quilter, but somehow it is hard to label me that when I have witnessed so many works of art by friends in Cody and Billings.

Our mini group decided to focus our projects for the next few months on Jean Well's newest book. If I had the book in front of me, I would certainlly tell you the title. It is a fabulous book, but with my wonderful, crazy summer I can't remember where I put it.

Our project we are to share at our next meeting is to create a design from a photo. I took a photo of a place at the Hamilton Dome Oil Field that has stripes of colors from rabbit brush (we called it chamisa growing up), sage, cattail reeds and other bits of plants in beautiful fall colors. This unfinished piece is my rendition of the color waves of that photo.

This first image is of some of the quilting I have started. I decided the bias edges needed to be calmed down and heavy quilting would help that.

This is an image of the entire little quilt. It is pieced and I like how curvey the sides are. When I finish quilting it, add some beads, I think I'll bind it so that the edges stay the way they are.

I will try to post a picture of the finished quilt and the photo I took in the next few days.

When this entry is posted, I will have shown two unfinished pieces--story of my life!!

Angels

While in Ireland I bought two books that had many beautiful Celtic line drawings with suggestions in each book on how they might be used. I found some beautiful angels in one of the books and decided to use the line drawing to help me make an angel for one of the great ladies that traveled with us. She gave all of us angels to wear to keep us safe on our amazing trip. I always wanted someone to do that, and I am glad that I have that wonderful angel pin from her. I machine embroidered with metallic threads. I put those pesky threads in the bobbin so they wouldn't break. I need to find the measurements of her journal she used while in Ireland so I can make a book jacket for her with the angel on the front. I didn't realize that the Book of Kells was the four gospels copied by Irish monks and decorated with their beautiful artwork. I want to go back to Ireland so that I can see the book, there wasn't time on this trip! I also learned that I need to do more research before I travel.

I am home from my travels. I have been spending time writing down what I saw, felt, and did in a paper journal. Maybe tomorrow I'll add those thoughts to this blog with many more photos. What a wonderful trip, I was always envious of those who traveled abroad, now I want to try other countries!