Bollywood for AQATW

    This is the first blog for the Art Quilts Around The World I have published in quite awhile.  Every other month, a theme is given by various members and I have missed the last three... "Macro", "Art Noveau", and "Song Title". I hope I can make up at least some of them, but meanwhile...I do have the newest theme..."Bollywood"!  I had a great time making this little quilt..and here is is and how I did it.

Bollywood

First, coincidentally, I occasionally  do a Facebook entry with "Journal 52" and a few weeks ago, the topic was "Creative Hands"...thus my entry.

Creative Hands on paper/black ink

So I decided to do my "Bollywood" in the style of the popular Henna tattoos...but this drawing was not large enough for my quilt...thus I drew an extension!

Extension on paper/black ink

Then downloaded both to my computer...did a little editing with color...making sepia color copies of both.

Sepia editing

Then I printed both off onto fabric, put fusing on the back, ironed them together to a hot pink background, added borders, quilted and add bangles with beading....another popular Bollywood fashion.

Closeup of quilting/beading

And there you have my step by step "Bollywood"!!! Be sure to click on the link above to see every one's fabulous entries!!!

Memory Monday #59

     Whoops!  I forgot all about doing a memory Monday last week!!  Busy! Busy! Busy!

     So this week, my memory is focusing on Memorial Day because that is what today is.  When I was a kid, we would go visit all the family gravesites and put flowers on them....always fresh flowers.  Usually the Sunday before, we would go to Missouri where my dad's side of the family are buried....it was a lovely cemetery overlooking the Mississippi River.  My grandmother would lead us around and have stories to tell about all the family members.  We would always have a picnic in a park also overlooking the river...somehow the thought of my grandma's fried chicken and coconut cake always outweighed the interest in her stories!  I wish now I had paid closer attention because now there is no one left to remember them!!

The Mighty Mississippi (a fall picture)

     And now I have another cemetery to visit.  The ashes of my husband of 50 years is in a niche at the National Cemetery in Texas.  My daughters and I visited it on two different weekends just recently....the last visit just a week ago when they were preparing for the Memorial Day Service by placing flags all around.  I won't be going there today...I am sure it will be really crowded, so we enjoyed our own private moments of memory by going to week before.

     I am so pleased with our decision of burial place for him.  It is such a lovely place, so serene and well taken care of.  He served in the Air Force for four years, but anyone who served in the military, regardless of length of time is eligible for a spot in any of the National Cemeteries. That is one thing our government did get right!!

Meeting of the Crones-May

     My wonderful fiber arts group, studioQ, met last Monday at Wendy's.  As always we had a great time...Wendy has such a lovely home..and she fed us!  The best chicken salad I think I have ever had! And a fruit salad and a crunchy snack cracker that I hope to make.
      We had our showing of our May Color Chip Challenge...

The Picture from which Rhonda got her color inspirations

Top row...color chips/ Bottom row..my fabric choice.

My CC for May-"One of These Squares Is Not Like the Other"

Bethany's CC for May

Beth's CC for May

Kay's CC for May

Rhonda's CC for May

Wendy's CC for May

    

      And we had a few other "show n tells", too.

Bethany has a large collection of "Grandma's Flower Garden" blocks and she is using them in a more Modern Quilt fashion with plans to make several to give to family members.

Kay used her hand dyed fabrics for a quilt start

Front side of a quilt by Kay 

and the back side of Kay's quilt

Rhonda is learning to do wool applique

Wendy finished her hand quilted silk

A closeup of another silk start by Wendy-hand dyed silk

Wendy's abstract

More of Wendy's silk quilt with her hand dyed fabrics

     Such a talented group!!!  This bunch has been very responsible in helping me stay grounded during periods of sorrow!!! Between them, my family, and neighbors...I am going to be OK!!!!

Our Beautiful World-Clouds

     This week, Our Beautiful World, a blog of photography, has selected the theme "Clouds".  I have been a cloud watcher for most of my life....from a little kid lying on a hillside in the park, seeing a wonderful world in clouds....to a grandma, finding all matters of shapes and figures with my grandkids.
      I taught art for many years and one activity I introduced to my students was the element of shape including organic / asymmetrical shape. When I asked how many students would look at cloud formations and find shapes and pictures in them, many hands would go up. Sadly though, there were always a few who had never been exposed to this wondrous past time!
     So here are just a few photos of clouds that I have in my collection:

  

      ....and I could go on!  But best not...don't want to bore my readers!  Be sure to check out the fab pics on the Our Beautiful World Blog!!

Memory Monday # 58

     

     The summer before my Senior year and the summer after, I worked at the concession stand at the swimming pool.  Actually, my mom and I were the managers/employers.  I was too young to sign on as manager so it was in my mom's name but I was the one and only employee! In the picture above, the stone building to the left was where the concession stand was located.  It had been built even before the pool when King Park was first established in the early 1900's.  The end of the shelter house, where you can see the windows, had been walled off to create the concession stand after the pool had been constructed. I spent many an hour in the area as a kid going swimming which I have told in earlier blogs.
     Most of my friends had summer jobs...working at the drugstores, the drive in where the skating rink was, dress shops....and most were businesses that their parents owned!  My dad was an auctioneer and owned the local Sale Barn...not really a place for a girl to work!
      The concession stand was a great place to work...most days!  Monday through Friday, it was pretty easy work and a hangout for all my friends on their days off,  but the weekends could be pretty crazy.  The park, especially the shelter house, were favorite places for family gatherings.  There were several picnic tables in the shelter, as well as a large stone fireplace at the far end which wasn't used very much in the summer.
      The concession stand was pretty small...it ran the width of the building's end  probably 15 feet or so and was only about eight feet deep.  In it were racks with chips, candy, etc., a freezer for ice cream bars and popsicles, a cooler for soda pop, a shelf for the hot plate where I would cook those yummy hotdogs!  All pretty crude, but in working order.
   

One burner was for the hotdogs, in boiling water, the other for a double boiler holding the buns to keep them warm!  And another shelf for all the condiments...relish, ketchup and mustard.

The pop cooler...holding bottles of soda..in water cooled by electricity!

      I remember one crazy weekend in particular. It was a hot day!  There were many swimmers who would visit the concession stand...and several family reunions going on  with lots of thirsty people!!  My routine was to fill the soda cooler the night before...it would run all night and the pop would be cold the next day.  As I sold the pop, I would reload through the day, keeping the warm pop at one end, and sell from the cold end.  On this particular weekend, I could not keep up with serving the crowd cold pop!  My first taste of working with the public under adverse conditions!  Most people were pretty nice, but there were the few SOB's who were very rude and impatient!

      A lesson learned for me!  I am always  tolerate of the situations that service people are placed in..and I think my experience with the almighty public  in my youth created a compassion in me that remains today!!

Memory Monday # 57

     Now that you know what a criminal I am, I will share a few more Senior (not old age Senior) moments with you.  I mentioned cruising....in a town of 4000 with one major highway running through...our cruising route was limited to about three miles up and down the "strip" (the highway) east and west, around the square, down to the high school on the south and the swimming pool on the north!  Gas was cheap by today's standards...we could all chip in 25 cents and get four-five gallons of gas.
    One of our favorite hangouts was the Cardinal Inn.  It was a really a truck stop, but tolerated the teen crowd especially after football games.  Even then Friday Night Lights were a big deal!!

The Cardinal Inn

     The Cardinal Inn had the best platter of french fries, hamburgers to die for, and one specialty of the house was grilled rolls...I have never had this delicacy any where else.  They would take a large Danish, split in half, butter the inside and grill it just to where the icing was starting to melt!  My mouth is watering as I write this!!!

      Even today, the Cardinal Inn is still operating...the highway is not as active because a by-pass...the killer of many small towns...was built many years ago, so the big 18-wheelers don't go through there anymore.  But the Inn is still the same restaurant and every time I go back to visit (my brother still lives there), we have at least one breakfast there...and I have a grilled Danish!!

Intentional Printing Java Exchange

     When Lynn Krawczyk's book, "Intentional Printing" was published, several of her fiber artist friends, sponsored a blog hop to celebrate.  All of the participates offered a prize on their blogs...a few blogs ago, I told you I had been a double winner.  My stencils which I had won, came a few days ago.

My prize from blog hop

     Virginia Spiegel, a fiber artist  sponsored an exchange to celebrate Lynn's book...Java Art Exchange....where those who signed up could make from two to twelve six inches mini quilts using techniques from Lynn's books.  Then we would send a picture of our creations to her and she would randomly send email addresses to us so we could communicate and get mailing addresses from our recipients. I finished mine late last night and got my photo mailed to Virginia.

My Java Exchange entries

So I am eagerly awaiting seeing the other entries and who I will receive my six excanges from!!!  I'll post them when they come in.
   

Meeting of the Crones

     My wonderful, creative fiber artists group met Monday. (I like to call us the Creative Crones, but we are really studioQ!)  We met at my condo for the first time since I moved here.  The condo has a clubhouse which residents can use for large meetings, so I had signed up for it for our "studioQ" meeting mainly because parking is a premium at the individual condo buildings.  My plan was to meet all my fellow crones up there then bring them to my condo to actually have the meeting.
      We are ten strong now...a nice even number!  We have debated whether to add members or not but we are getting pretty set in our ways so kind of hate to have to "train" new people! We are still working on our color chip challenge..today's colors brought to us by Kay.  Here is the picture from which she pulled her colors.

 # 5-Left-color chips/right-my fabric choices

Nancy's # 5

Bethany's # 5 

Kay's #5

Jay's three mini #5

Beth's #5..she uses actual color chips rather than fabric

      Due to various reasons, many of us are at different levels of completion about our color chip challenges...here are some of the various "catchup" challenges shown yesterday.

Wendy's 

Wendy's 

Wendy's

Beth's

Heather's 

Beth's

And I have to brag about our Heather!  She is just having a spectacular year...last fall one of her quilts won a first at the Houston International Festival and this spring she won another first prize at Paducah with one of her "Tuning Fork Series". If you would like to see more of her fabulous work and read more of her odyssey (there are more awards and honors bestowed on her!) please click on her name to go to her blog.

Heather's quilt-on bottom, second in from right

Page from the catalog with Heather's quilt