Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, I've already broken a NY resolution... 

but I've been busy making things while I've been off-line. 

headbands, bags, quilts to name a few things.

Meanwhile, we are surrounded by babies on our street! 

Just this year, two new arrivals one boy and one girl.  

Both super cute and healthy.

To celebrate we are making some quilts.  

 We'll have a few tutorials and show the finished projects soon.

 

For Joey... a sweet baby, new this week!    He was born Monday.  I attended my monthly quilt guild meeting and we had a guest speaker, Kathy Loomis.  She has some AMAZING art quilts.  I came home inspired and when I found out Joey was born that evening I just had to get started on a quilt with Kathy's quilts as inspiration.  Here's the fabric we selected for the back...

 With the fabrics for the top.

 I cut a strips in various widths and sewed them together randomly.

 I am still tring to decide exactly how I want this to look.  But this is as far as I got Monday night.

 Also, Allie created an adorable giraffe... from start to nearly finished!  

Here's the initial muslin she sewed together using her pattern.  This looks a little more like a horse.  That's why you should always sew a muslin first, I explained to her!

 

I helped her expand her pattern to lengthen the neck using the same principles of lengthening any clothing pattern.  I am recreating it in this photo as I didn't stop to snap the photos while she was working.

And voila, a super cute, one-of-a kind giraffe stuffed animal.  She embellished this cutie with some vintage buttons for the spots and the eyes.  I think she was inspired by Robbie Porter, a fellow guild member and participant in Arts Alive a few weeks ago.  The giraffe isn't quite finished... but it's close.

 I love fabric flowers... I search on-line for ideas all of the time... love them.  I have tried my hand a few recently... here's a few of my attempts.

Muslin

ribbon and button

cut off from upcycled shirt 

home dec fabrics

 I just received a box of vintage buttons in the mail today.  Perfect for a gray, rainy day.  I have some sorting to do to put into the jars... Can wait to get started!

 

Enjoy!

copyright salmonalley 2011

Arts Alive

I just finished the most amazing week at my daughter's school.  Every two years they have a celebration of the arts.  (The alternate year is all about science.)  As I am an art consultant by day, I felt I could take on the challenge of finding artists for the week.

For some it is their first real introduction to art.

 Beautiful dancing by the Cincinnati Ballet... really beautiful!

Allie and the dancers... she had her pointe shoes with her and they gave her a signed pair! 

I hired dancers, musicians and singers as well as fine artists.  Everyday during the lunch, we had entertainment on the stage and artists in the lobby demonstrating their art. 

In addition, early in January, the art teachers had the students complete the Chuck Close project I envisioned.  The principal was a good sport to agree to be the subject of the painting.  A talented photographer on staff took the photo which I had enlarged to accommodate the 800 squares.  

We wanted the painted to be large enough for the Close impression.  I had calculated that 25 columns and 32 rows would maintain a nice proportion to the photo and allow for 800 individual squares.

Next how to make it happen:

After consulting with a co-worker, I decided to make this painting more like a quilt. 

- cut muslin into 4 1/2" squares and gesso-ed the center 3 1/2"

- enlarge photo to the full size and cut it into 3 12" squares

- label each square with a letter and number (row and column) to be able to reassemble

The teachers helped the kids paint their respective squares.  

Once I received all of the painted squares, 

I assembled the quilt one row at a time, 

similar to the way I taught my daughter to quilt.

The finished result is better than I had anticipated.  

The painting resembles the principle 

and is very impressive as a school project at nearly 10' tall. 

Enjoy!

salmonalley 2011