WIP Wed: Thrift Store Art Project

It's Wednesday, and once again, like I have for the last year, I'm linking up with Lee, at "Freshly Pieced" Blog for her linky party!  She's celebrating her one year WIP Wed anniversary today, and was kind enough to share the love and include me in her blog post today!!  How sweet!  Thanks!  Be sure to visit today, as she's also giving away some fun gifts! 

Several weeks ago, the local art center here in town asked if I might be willing to participate in a fun art challenge they were doing in conjunction with our local thrift store.  The challenge is to buy 5 dollars or less of "materials" from the thrift store, use that, plus anything from your "stash" to create something to display in their store window, on our Main Street.  Here's what I bought:

I'm afraid if you're not from around here, I'll have to explain what it is.  Each year, during the Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo, a group of people, "The Main Street Cowboys", host a huge music, carnival, shopping extravaganza on our Main Street.  They place these awesome green and purple benches all around town, and at all of the stages.  They even find their way to local soccer fields and along parade routes, and regularly make their appearances at other local events throughout the year.  So as soon as I saw this green suit, I knew what I wanted to do!

I fused some fusible fleece onto the back of some of my own purple fabric, as I'm afraid I couldn't find any purple shirts at the thrift store, except for T-shirts.  Cutting the letters out is a bit tedious, but I hope to have it done soon.  It's going to be a kids' "educational toy" that they can use the felt letters to stick to the bench and make up their own words on the bench!  I'm hoping to finish it up by next week.  Thanks, as always to Lee and everyone else for stopping by!

WIP Wed: Another Project Linus Quilt, Summer Sampler and Art Project

It's Wednesday, so I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP wed, and letting you know what I'm working on!

In the box with the striped squares that I used for my first Project Linus Quilt was a bunch of "puss in the corner" blocks that were made up.  I decided to pair them with another yard of fabric I had in my stash to make another Project Linus Quilt.  When I dropped the first one off yesterday, one of the coordinators was in the quilt shop, and it was fun talking with her about the project.  She told me that one of the agencies who gives away quilts also receives many nice stuffed animals to give away, and when the kids are given a choice between a toy and a quilt, they ALWAYS pick the quilt!  Is that neat, or what?  I had already started the quilt, and as I was sewing the rows together, it occurred me that the puss in the corner and striped blocks were originally meant to go together as one quilt... they were the same proportions, same box and all.  Oh well...  That's what happens when you have a WIP for 3-4 years shelved away in a closet.  I'm really happier with the 2 separate projects than the initial one.  So sometimes I guess all it takes to resurrect a WIP or UFO is to split it into a few different quilts...

I also decided to get out my Summer Sampler Series Quilt to finish, now that the weather has turned.  Originally I was planning to add additional blocks to make it bigger, but I found a cream fabric on clearance that was a good match, and now I'm going to make it bigger by giving it nice wide sashings and borders.

Finally, I'm taking part in a local art challenge that's perfect for me!  The challenge is to go to a community thrift store here in town (which raises money for local charities), spend no more than 5 dollars on items there, and create a piece of art to be displayed in their street window.  We can also use items from our own stash.  Here's what I bought yesterday, a $3 polyester/rayon women's suit, and an orphan flannel brown flat sheet for 25 cents.  As a bonus, I found a vintage sheet that was ripped that they gave me for free, and 3 men's silk shirts, all under $3 per shirt!  If my husband won't wear them, I may have to make a quilt from them!  Has anyone ever made a quilt with silk?  Any tips?  These shirts are so luxurious!!

We are finally getting our fall rains here, after many, many weeks without measurable rain, which is typical here.  It's so nice to see clouds and rain again!  Best of all, rain, clouds, and cold means perfect sewing weather!!

Reflections About Art

Last night I got to attend the Open Regional Art Exhibit at our local art center...  I've spent quite a bit of time lately volunteering with this particular event, and it was so nice to finally see the "fruits of our labor".  So many people helped out, and I was just one of many, but oh, what fun I had!  I'm so glad they asked me to help out!  There are over 60 local artist on display.  The exhibit runs for a month if you're ever close to Pendleton, Oregon. 
The above picture was taken while I helped "hang" the exhibit.  Definitely a first for me!  In the deep South where I grew up, we really didn't have a school art program.  I'm so sad to see it get chipped away here in Oregon, and across the country in general.  I can't really say that I ever had a formal art class until I went to college.  So I find myself at the age of 43 for really the first time reflecting on what exactly art is, and what it means to people, how we judge it, and create it.  I'm kind of sad that it took me so long to get here, but glad that I'm here now....

Just one little reflection from tonight is that we each see art from so many perspectives.   It means something different to each and every one of us.  Our individual life histories influence what we like and don't like.  I loved listening to all of the different conversations around me at the art opening tonight... what people liked and didn't like.  It was interesting to see what the judge thought was worthy of award, and what wasn't.  It takes so much courage to put yourself out there and be judged by everyone (at least for me it does... my "New Orleans" Quilt is part of the exhibit).  I can honestly say that each and every piece of art there is something that makes me happy.  What a wonderful thing!!

Medical Lab Quilt FINISHED!!

It's done!!  I'm so excited!  I finished it up last night, and dropped it off at the art center today.  It will be in our fun-a-day reception on Friday night!  I also agreed to allow it to travel to neighboring communities.  Cool!  I did not agree to put a price on it.  How do you sell your work?  I really could use the money, but this quilt is pretty special to me.  I'm thinking about making some "duplicates" to sell though...

I love seeing pictures of where other people live, so I took a few pictures when I dropped it off.  Here's the art Center.  Behind it is a mostly residential part of town...

The art center sits right next to the Umatilla River, which flows into the Columbia River.

Across the river is the rest of our Main Street.  I happened to get a neat old car driving through town when I took this picture!

Enjoy!

Fun-a-day 10: Urine crystals

We got a lot of the white stuff yesterday, about 4 inches, enough to cause a 2 hour school delay this morning.  With so many tiny snow crystals out there, I thought it'd be fun to put a few urine crystals on my quilt.  A few of you have asked what I'm doing here.  I mentioned in this post that I decided to participate in a January "fun a day" project, through our local community art center (the Pendleton Center for the Arts).  It was started by the Art Clash Collective in Philadelphia as a way to be creative each day for a month, then get together as a local community and share your projects in February.  I think it's such a fantastic idea!

So today I tried to "draw" a few of the most common urine crystals that we see in the lab.  Since urine is such an easy and non-invasive sample to get (ie., pee in a cup), a urinalysis is a very common test ordered by the doctors.  It's amazing what information can be learned from a urinalysis.  It involves 2 parts, a chemical analysis, usually done by a "dipstick", and a microscopic part, looking once again at a "wet prep".  So once again, no pretty colors, but the crystals that we sometimes see are incredibly beautiful.  I'm learning that painting with thread is really a poor substitute for what we see under the microscope.  The light comes from below, and some of theses crystals are 3 dimensional, which refracts the light, making them just glow from within.  If you do a Google image search for "urine crystals", you'll get a better idea of what they look like.  The square "diamond" crystals are calcium oxalate, the rectangular ones are triple phosphate, and the flat ones that look like a Dairy Queen sign are uric acid.  Normal urine is a clear liquid that is sterile until it leaves the body.  The chemical make up can change quite a lot in patients with kidney problems, but also in many other organ diseases and infections.  Of course a urinalysis is also what we use to detect a bladder infection.

And even though I'm not a big sports fan, there's no escaping the fact that the University of Oregon plays a really big national football game tonight (Go Ducks!), so I decided to stitch some green and yellow "O"s into the background!!

Sometimes crystals can be seen in the urine because of kidney stones, but they can also be seen as a normal precipitate that forms as the urine cools.  You'd normally never see more than 1 or 2 different types of crystals in one sample, so this quilt block is just a collection.  Different ones are present in acidic urine, vs alkaline, or basic urine.

Finally, some people have asked how big these are, and how it's coming together.  I made the blocks 8 inches square, with a 5-6 inch diameter (soup bowl-sized) circle that I ironed then appliqued on, using "wonder under" fusible interfacing.  I plan to use binding to join them all together.  I've never done this, so any tips would be much appreciated!  I did some trimming, and this is what it looks like so far.  Enjoy!

January Fun-A-Day

I recently saw an invitation in our local newspaper to participate in our Pendleton Center for the Arts "Fun-A-Day" project.  It's a community art project where you spend a little time each day working on a creative project during the month of January.  Then in early February we all bring our projects to the art center to share, display and view them!  What a neat idea!  It was started by the "Art Clash Collective", a group of artists out of Philadelphia, and has spread West.  I singed up right away, and started thinking about what I'm going to do.

Since it starts on New Year's Day, I decided I want to do something to help me get better at a skill, or do something new.  I've been trying to learn free-motion quilting, and have been getting better and better at it.  So I'm going to do something with free-motion quilting, or "thread painting".  I certainly don't have to create a different project for each day, but I like that idea.  I also hope to try out the "quilt-as-you-go" technique, where you quilt each block, then sew them all together after you finish.  I have an idea of what I want to do, but don't quite want to say what it is yet.  But tune in January 1st and hopefully I'll be able to share each day's creation here as well.

Feel free to join in the fun!  I have no idea how to make a "linky party", but this would be a perfect opportunity for a more technologically-savvy blogger to do one.  If I find any others out there, I'll try to mention them here.
Until then, here's a small table runner quilt that I made just for me this Christmas using scraps of fabric I have.  Another goal of mine in 2011 is to make a bunch of scrappy quilts, as my scrap bins are starting to overflow!!  I tried to do a different free-motion design in each "block" of my table runner quilt.  If anyone hasn't seen Leah Day's blog, "Free Motion Quilting Project", go over there and check her out.  I've been very inspired by her work! 

I hope all of you have a great New Year's celebration!!!