This annual quilt show, going on NOW - March 18 thru 20th, 2011-  exhibits the best quilts out of the 500+ membership of Quilters Anonymous Quilt Guild http://www.quiltersanonymous.com.

Also on display are featured artists and guild members Bunny Johanson and Maurine Roy, special exhibit Migration, an international quilt challenge between Washington State and South African quilt makers.

The membership challenge features small wall quilts about a foreign country. See the creativity of the quilt makers, how they stitched into fabric lots of memories with all imaginable forms of embellishments!

(Photpgraph © by Eva Stoerch)

 This picture shows exactly what I’m trying to explain to many aspiring artists: Shadow during daylight is BLUE – here is the proof!
The color of the sunlight is not very visible to our human eye, but it is sligtly orangy-yellow in winter, ergo the shadow is the complimentary color.

Deadlines, lurking in the future, some still far away, some are drawing dangerously close to the point of delivery. Avoiding the upcoming panic feelings, writing down a plan, track life line is probably a good idea.

Pecan Squares

Dough
160 g Flour
80 g Butter
1 tbsp Sugar
1 Eggyolk
pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Icewater   ——-> put all ingredients together quickly and chill for 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 350°F  (300°F convection oven)
Cut a square of baking parchment paper to line the bottom of a 9″x9″ square non-stick baking form. Roll out to cover the bottom of the baking form. Prick with a fork to avoid bubbles while baking. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
While it’s baking, prepare the nut filling

Nut Filling
50 g Butter
5 tbsp Dark Molasse
100 g Brown Sugar
100 g Whipping Cream
1 tsp Vanilla Extract ——–> mix in nonstick skillet and cook for 3 minutes while constantly stirring.

400 g Pecan Nuts (can be substituted by or mixed with walnuts)  —–> add nuts and cook for 3 more minutes

Pour nut filling on top of the pre-baked dough, smooth out with a spatula, return it into the oven and bake for 8 – 10 more minutes.

Let cool entirely.
Take the whole piece of cake-like bars out of the form and cut into 1″ squares with a big, sharp kitchen knife on a cutting board. The knife tends to stick to the nut filling, – rubb the knifes’ blade with a little bit of vegetable oil. You can also use an electric knife.

Tip: Substitute regular flour for gluten-free flour. This works well, since the dough is basically a pie bottom.

Tags: Cookie Recipe, European Christmas Cookie Recipes

Swiss Anis Cookies

(Anisbrötli, Chräbeli, Springerle)

4 Eggs (230 g – 250 g weight including shell)
450 g powdered Sugar
pinch of Salt
2 tbsp Anis Seeds
1 tbsp Kirsch Snaps  ——-> mix all ingredients until light yellow mass

550 g – 600 g flour   ——–> add to the batter

Roll out dough beween 2 SaranWrap sheets to 1 cm (5/8″) thickness and use pretty cookie cutters of 2″-2.5″ size (look for uniform and compact shapes).

Place on baking sheet lined with baking parchment paper, and let it dry for 24 – 48 hours. Look at the bottom of the cookies, if  the bottom edges are getting a white rim, they are ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 280 F and bake for about 25 minutes, keep oven door a crack open with a wooden spoon.
Advice from my Swiss husband: watch the last minutes of baking, when they look done, it might be over-done.

This type of dough can also be pressed into “Model”, a - wood-carved relief form, or just cut into strips and cross-clipped with sissors (Chräbeli).

Tags: Cookie Recipe, European Christmas Cookie Recipes

Most of my quilts grow like a plant.

It starts with a seed, an idea, a snippet, seen something somewhere…

Freezer Paper Template

 …a little sprout pushes upwards and after some time…

Pieced together

…colorful matter unfolds…

Slicing strips and stitching it back together

…until it reveals all the beauty nature has to offer.

Plant Life

More plant matter in form of lots of stitching

Plant Life (detail)

Credit:
 ”Plant Life” is loosely based on the book “Convergence Quilts” by Ricky Tims.

Tags: Art Quilts, Judy Robertson's hand-dyed fabrics, Quilts from and-dyed fabric

…has been juried into the next CQA Exhibit at University House Issaquah.

Water, wind and fog, passing by. Or are we the passerby's?

The reception is Saturday,

March 13, 2010 

 2:00 – 4:00 pm
I hope many of you will come.

Detail in hand stitching and beading

Tags: Art Quilts, Judy Robertson's hand-dyed fabrics, Quilts from and-dyed fabric

Now on exhibit
at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center/Seattle:

 Beyond Convention

This spring, CQA offered the opportunity to make a quilt based on a poem, written by cancer survivors at Cancer Lifeline Seattle. Being a cancer surviver myself, out of about hundred poems this poem by Jean Joder is my personal favorite:

Untitled

A poet writing, rewriting!
Sweeping up life’s energies;
Recording the breath of time.

A poet steeped in language.
Which language?
It makes no difference.
Words and images flow
From the artist into the world.

Can I see, hear, taste or touch?
Everything moves;
Nothing is the same.

When I first read this poem, the words …writing and rewriting …remained lingering in my mind, also …language, which doesn’t make a difference…
My work started with cutting and recutting fabric, sewing it back together, working with abstract text and old German hand writing.

Tags: Art Quilts, Jean Yoder, Judy Robertson's hand-dyed fabrics, Poem Quilts, Quilts from and-dyed fabric

…which is still unorganized, but I decided not to get distracted by clutter and not yet perfected furnishing solutions. If I’d wait for the perfect studio, that might take a loooooong time.

Now, I’m making silk scarfs, beautiful scarfs, and small items like baggies and mini-pouches. Some of my silk scraps, kimono silks and second hand garments will fall victim for these projects. It all comes down to texture, color, pattern combined by threads. I feel revitalized and excited by the possibilities.