Meeting with Maggie

I do have one of the best jobs on the planet. For my work the other morning, I met with Maggie Bonanomi to see the projects she plans to include in her next book. We do this for every book (this one will be our 7th book together). We meet and she shows me each project, talks a little about how it works and how it fits into the theme of her book, and how we want to present it. I take a photo of it for future reference.

Well, I can't show you any of those photos but I can show you this! I am always impressed by how unafraid Maggie is to just pop a little patch onto a spot in a project that has a hole or a flaw. The rest of us would probably NOT use that fabric, but Maggie sees that as an opportunity for creativity, a little spot to pop another cool fabric.

So what about this! I noticed she did the same thing with a favorite shirt she was wearing.  Look at the bottom edge of her shirt - yes, that is a patch of green silk, covering a hole!

Maggie graciously modeled the backside of the shirt - another patch, to reinforce the front one. Way to go, Maggie! Her creative well never runs dry, be on the lookout for a new book of her exciting work this fall.

Surprise! Shirts Quilt by Elsie

Our guild speaker this month was Elsie Campbell, the award-winning maker of many tasteful quilts. She gave a wonderful talk - I was especially impressed by a brief little video she showed of how she hand quilts. That little film was worth a million words, it was so interesting and helpful to see how she quilts.

When she showed the quilt above and mentioned making it from shirts, of course, everyone turned and nudged me. Look at this great quilt (apologies about the classic guild meeting shot, I was in the back of the room - Elsie is the blur at the left)! Elsie proclaimed she is not a purist, meaning she collected shirts she liked, not necessarily all cotton shirts. She made this from 47 shirts, some even had a bit of spandex. Her opinion about that was you just need to notice what you are working with and make sure you treat it appropriately (don't stretch it).

Elsie sure makes great quilts. She also said, "There's no law that we have to finish what we start."

Kansas, Land of Mythical Birds

What a bird! My friend Georgann just gave me this dishtowel, embellished with a very fancy Rooster created with bias tape. I've posted pictures of bias-tape birds before but this one takes the cake. What a fancy tail, it is fantastic!

Hmm. Do you notice the feet on both these birds? I see similarities ...

                                                   

 Happy MARCH!!

Yoshiko Jinzenji

I apparently am a latecomer to knowing about the wonderful quilts made by Yoshiko Jinzenji.

Her quilts are on display now through May 18 at KU's Spencer Museum of Art - along with Jean Mitchell's of Lawrence (more about Jean later).

Yoshiko was here in February. She is tiny, with a mop of beautiful silver hair. This isn't the best picture, but it also shows part of her work, one of four large pieces in her Code Series.

It seems to me Yoshiko's work could have inspired many of our modern quilters. She uses a lot of solids, with heavily quilted white backgrounds. Her work was inspired by Amish and Mennonite quilts four decades ago.

At a gallery talk, Yoshiko showed photos of rag patchwork called Kesa funzoe. These are right up our alley. They were made of scraps/rags donated by parishioners and given to their priest in the 18th century. They were improvisationally pieced. Her example was lovely - I googled it and couldn't find any photos to share with you, but I will keep looking.

She dyes her work - at her place in Bali - using bamboo dye. Here are a few detail shots.

Detail from Code Series

These slices in another quilt are tiny.

These pieces are also tiny - it reminds me of Seminole piecing. This is one of her Ribbon Tape quilts.