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This annual quilt show, going on NOWMarch 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!

What color is your shade?

(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.

If you could take the same picture in the midst of high bright-yellow summer sun, the shadow would be much more purple.  
Experiments with light in a dark room will show you the same result. Use a projector and slides in primary colors yellow, red, blue and a object to cast a shadow on a white background. The object will show the shade in the complimentary color.
Try it, you’ll be surprised.

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.

Recipe of the Day #2

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.

Recipe Of The Day #1

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).

Plant Life

Most of my quilts grow like a plant.

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

How to plan your Convergence Quilt

Freezer Paper Template

 …a little sprout pushes upwards and after some time…

How to plan your Convergence Quilt

Pieced together

…colorful matter unfolds…

How to make a Convergance Quilt

Slicing strips and stitching it back together

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

Convergence Quilt

Plant Life

More plant matter in form of lots of stitching

Convergence Quilt

Plant Life (detail)

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

Pattern and Color

Diamond shaped natural stone floors in beautiful neutral colors. I wonder how much thought the craftsmen, who built the Asam Kirche (1733-1746), had put into the layout, – or more likely - nothing whatsoever, like grabbing snippets out of a brown bag.
Which proves the point that there is always the danger to “over-think” the creative process?  Let randomness pair up with excellent material and a sense for good design, a pleasing result will always fall into place.
 

http://www.mytravelmunich.com/asamkirche-image.html

Solnhofer Kalkstein Floor at Asam Church in Munich/Germany

Golden Gate…

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

Show dates: March 8 – July 11, 2010
22975 Black Nugget Road, Issaquah
Water, wind and fog, passing by. Or are we the passerby's?

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 view of hand stitching and beading

Detail in hand stitching and beading

Breath of Time

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.

Breath of Time by Lisa Jenni
Breath of Time by Lisa Jenni

 

The quilts will be exhibited from January 16 thru April 3, 2010 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center/Seattle. 

 

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.

Breath of Time
Breath of Time

The hand dyed fabric shows it’s most delicate side by changing the orientation.

I’m back in my studio…

…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.

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