Balancing Act
103" x 46" 

Here is the result of many months of work by our group!  We are all so pleased with the results and were so happy to have it juried into World of Beauty at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  You can see more of how we made the quilt if you scroll down, but I am sure you will agree that it has grown a lot since it's first formations!  It took many hours to arrange all these rocks, and then sew them on.  We also added shading to the rocks with ink, and what I thought would be really scary (to start coloring on these AFTER they were on the quilt), was actually fun and pretty easy to do.  Susan jumped in and showed us how, and we followed her lead! 

Art Quilters: What Happens Behind the Scene

Hello, thought I might give you a peak at our art quilt group meeting! We are the Austin Art Quilt Bee. Pictured from left to right are Leslie Tucker Jenison, Susan Storey Lewis, Connie Hudson, Sherri Mc Cauley, Barb Forrister, Natalie Jenison and Kathy York. Most of us live in Austin but we also are fortunate to have Leslie from San Antonio, Texas and Frances Holliday Alford from Grafton, Vermont. We gather together to work on group collaborations. This is an amazing group of women and although, we do not meet on a regular schedule, when we do get together, we are celebrating the holidays or are in high gear working on our next project. Each of us have our own unique style that we bring to the table and yet somehow we are always able to blend our work together to come up with some pretty cool compositions. This year is no different, We are working on a rock quilt and are now in the design stages. The background has already been quilted and pieced and the rocks have been created. Now comes the fun part; the design process. Pictured below is our third revision of the design and still, it may not be the end product. We will move and rearrange things until we come to a general concensus that we all find pleasing to the eye. Once we conclude the design process, we will address how to finish the edges. This quilt has an irregular edge on the bottom which I believe allows the eye to move freely around the piece and adds interest. This week, we will meet up again to reinforce the seams on the background and hopefully come up with the final design. The most wonderful thing I have experienced working as part of the group is that we are all committed to creating art collaborations and supporting one another in our own personal and art endeavors. That is a very unique and endearing aspect of which I am blessed to be a part of.

Rock On

My portion of the background is finished. Can't wait to see it fit into the rest of the pieces. I quilted following a rough outline, then trimmed it after finishing the quilting. Next up to work on are my rocks. I may have to pull out the airbrush tools to try and get the effect that I want to see. After climbing up and down our lake "canyon" (use to be our deep water cove) today, I'm seeing rocks everywhere and unfortunately they're all cream colored Texas limestone. Must get some color in here somewhere. No photos yet!