Aullwood 2013: Suzanne Mouton Riggio

Suzanne Mouton Riggio, "August Moon"

Suzanne Mouton Riggio is another of the "regulars" in the Aullwood Show.  You can see work from other years here,
here, and  here,.  Suzanne's submissions are often small, and these three little gems all measure 11" x 8.5".  I do think of them as little gems.  Several of Suzanne's pieces include telephone poles, partly because this is what she sees and she often is inspired by scenes she sees around her house and neighborhood.

This particular piece tickles my fancy as I have never seen bats do this, usually I see maybe 4 or 5 at a time, but I do like bats, or rather I like what they do....consume vast quantities of bugs which often cause harm to people. I feel that they are maligned little things.  I also enjoy this piece because of the mysterious quality she has captured, and it brings back days when I was  a child on the farm and would sit on the back stoop watching lightening bugs, bats, the sky, and stars. Since I live in suburbia or close enough, there is too much light pollution to enjoy the sights, and I often  escaped our un-air-conditioned home in the country at night by going outside.

Suzanne Mouton Riggio "August Moon", detail.

I also enjoy this piece because she included the glitter of lightening bugs...those are the little circles.
Suzanne highlighted the clouds in the sky, the moon and other areas with silver Sliver thread, which is notoriously difficult to work with.  The highlighting really give the effect of the moon's light on all that it hits.

Suzanne  Mouton Riggio "August Moon", detail

Suzanne often, or dare I say usually, uses commercially printed cottons.In the case of "July Family" she actually printed a little of her own.  Suzanne was aware that she had a hawk family nesting near her house, but she had never been able to see all of them, but hear them calling to each other .  One day her daughter happened to have her digital camera with her and saw them preening n the telephone pole...the same one as seen above.

Suzanne Mouton Riggio, "July Family"

She Photoshopped them and printed  out the hawks on fabric.  She made the rainbow by using oil-paint sticks on tulle, then pressing the arcs out between paper toweling to remove the excess pigment.  She used milkweed down to make the little blips in the sky.  Beads composed the bits and pieces of equipment on the pole.

I can really relate as there is a pair of red tailed hawks which nest near me, and I hear them calling, see them spiraling in the sky, but in the eight years I have lived here, I have yet to see their young.

Suzanne Riggio, "July Family" Detail

Suzanne  Mouton Riggio "June Flowers."

I can't help but think of the old song "June is Bustin' Out all over" from the old musical "Carousel" (if you aren't familiar with it, I will include it at the end).  This really shows Suzanne's penchant for using commercial cottons, and she often cuts out elements to combine to make her images.  The title of this piece is "June Flowers" (so she's covered June, July and August!).

Here's what Suzanne had to say about it in her description:

When June arrived, the whole place burst out in flowers.  Roses climbed trellises.  Flowering vines made it up the pole.  And butterflies arrived en masse.

To enhance that blossomy feeling, I used floral calicoes to fashion the house,  roof, and gutter.  The binding also has that floral feel.

Suzanne lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.  Unfortunately, she does not have a web page, but many of her quilts are on the web from other shows and it is worth a google image search.

Suzanne Mouton Riggio, "June Flowers"  detail  ©2013

June is Bustin out all over

Once again, I am also participating in Nina-Marie Sayre's "Off the wall Fiber Friday.......even if it is Saturday!

You can see other participants here:  

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

Oh yeah..the last day for the Aullwood show it Sunday, August 25....in other words TOMORROW! so if you haven't been and are from the area, tomorrow is the last day.....although I will be working my way through the rest of the quilts here for a couple of days.

Dayton Landmark's Part II St. Mary's Church Completed

So...I am finding that I am really bad at taking process photos.  Here's what my semi finished piece looked like on Friday.....before I did the background quilting and cut it back.

I struggled a little bit, trying to figure out how I would do the ornate brick work at the tops of the towers.  I decided that the easiest way would be to make little lozenges of net with black Mistyfuse to make the regular brick project.

Here you cn see it after I've quilted it which added the shading lines....and you can see that I have added more detail with threadwork around the window cornices.

And here's the finished piece....only I discovered that I somehow made it an inch too short! That's what comes of measuring it alone while feeling nauseous!  I measured it twice...and goofed.  At least the quilting pattern I used in the sky is pretty much straight lines...so I can add a piece in and fix it so that the sky portion is just an inch taller.  DUH!  To quote Burns, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley,"

Come back tomorrow, and I'll be having a give away!

Once again, I am participating in Nina-Marie Sayer's "Off the Wall Friday" posts.....go to her website and check out the other participants!

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Row-By-Row Quilt

I felt well enough to go to Batty Binder's, my local guild in Troy last week.  They usually have a challenge or some sort of group project.  They have been talking about doing another row-by-row quilt.  A row-by-row is where someone collects a group of fabrics and does one row, then passes the box along to the next person who completes the next row...without the first person seeing it....then the process is repeated..  The originator has no idea what is being done until they get the top back.

Several years ago....prior to 2005 when I moved here, this was a themed row by row that Marjorie (Jo) Heffner did with the group.  You can see Jo at the left...and I was  really taken by this one.  Although the group was really pretty traditional when I came, there were a lot of people who were very much open to the concept of working outside the box.  Jo did the top row of pinwheels..

 No one remembers who did the second row...but I found it charming.  The "quilt shop" has meaning for this group as several of the members are sisters, and we also have several mother/daughter(s) combos.

 Sunbonnet Sue has options....she can go on a "slab" swing, or a tire swing.

And then, here's the Heffner farm, with an establishment date of 1947.

Jo said she thought the theme for the next row was stars, and the 4th row was nature.  I had never seen this set of Drunkard's path to make birds.  The beaks were three dimensional.



The next row's theme was hearts, and you can see on the overall, that the quilter made tossed hearts.

 Becky Goodwin, Jo's sister made the last row, which really tied in well with the second row and was a masterful completion of this quilt.  Becky is extremely talented and did her own drawings and design.

All in all, I find this a charming piece, and probably one of the best group row-by-row's I have seen.  I hope that Jo finishes it as it certainly deserves completion.

I am participating in Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Fiber Fridays....take a look at the others on her blog. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to show you my progress on the St. Mary's Church slice. I've been working on it...but it isn't ready to show you.

Someone give me a Forward Shove....PLEASE

The Miami Valley Art Quilt Network was so pleased with how their last series of co-operative "slice" quilts turned out, they decided to commit to another.  I signed up for one piece...and think I need to be committed. Once again, Ronnie Doyal went out and took photographs of buildings and scenes around Dayton.  I opted NOT to lead this time, but turned it over to Ronnie and Carroll.  They chose the images and sliced them, randomly assigning the slices to members.  Totally random....as in you put your name in and you got a piece.

Mine is the towers of St. Mary's Church  in Dayton.  I love the colors and I love the way the light is striking the towers and the crosses in the upper windows are glowing.  But....I am having a really hard time getting into it.

In fact...I've been procrastinating...plus I've been busy.....and I've started a new chemo which has left me extremely fatigued.  I thought that I would quickly complete this piece last week and this week.  Instead, from Sat. night until Tuesday, I spent the days in bed....as well as the night too.  Not exactly the way to get my derriere going.

This is my section of the photo.  Rather than hand us the photos and have us make the drawings and patterns,  Ronnie and Carroll did this for us...primarily because although for the first series we said that the sketches we made should be blow up so that all of them were 42" long.....many of our members had problems with this.  Even the resultant quilts were not the same length.  One poor member who did indeed make hers 42" long had to shorten hers three times in order to make it match the others.

So....rather than have this issue again, Ronnie and Carroll supplied it.

Here is a section of what I got, a black and white print...I have a little difficulty because I have no idea what size the bricks should be.....but there's also another difficulty.

See the little tiny fragment of the second tower to the right? I have to match mine to the other side..completing these little whiskers of the tower.  It would have been better if it had been sliced not in the exact center, but to one side...just a smide to the left.  I would have to pick up the arch on the window surround, but the tiny little bits of the cupola would have all been on my partners slice.

I did paint my background fabric and then started to select fabrics.  Chris Landis had some brick fabric left from her slice which also included a brick building and it is the right shade for the light struck side of my tower.  I will mess around with it to shade it for the dark side.

For the glowing parts of the white, my rust dyes will work well.

I will use the back side and the top side of the upper right neutral, plus some linen, and a frosted cream on the left.  The blue is a shaded batik which I will use for the domes of the cupola as well as the slate roof, but I will add some threadwork for the darker part for the slate, and make sure the lighter parts of the batik fall for the domes.

Usually, I trace over my sketches with a sheet of clear vinyl, the kind people buy to put over their dining room tablecloths on top to prevent spills....or what is still on the furniture in the house my husband lived in in Cuba in the 1960s...  I use a sharpie, then I can make sure that I get the pieces in the right spot...but last time, the vinyl stretched and I had to fiddle with it to make it match it's partners, so this time I opted to put my painted background on my light box and trace directly onto the fabric.  I will also probably take a piece of tracing paper and make another full size piece to put over the top to double check.  Tracing paper tears, but it usually doesn't stretch.  I have made the background wider and taller as I know that it will shrink when I quilt it as I probably will put quite a lot of detail quilting in....if I don't, I will trim off the excess once my partner's section is done and reading to face (however, I will use an "escape hatch" finish on mine.

I like to use Mistyfuse as it is soooo thin.  I know that some people are put off by the fact it doesn't have paper on it....but I use it like this.  I lay a piece of baking parchment (I use the Reynolds brand which is readily available in the grocery store) and lay it over the top of the photocopied blow up (or sketch if I was doing this all from scratch).  I then take a soft pencil if the fabric is light enough to see a pencil line on it, a light colored Prismacolor pencil if it is dark, and trice directly over the RIGHT side of the drawing. No having to think about reversing...it is a direct trace.

I then take the fabric I have previously fused with Mistyfuse (or you can do it in one step if you like) and place the tracing PENCIL SIDE DOWN on the Mistyfused side of the fabric.  I then iron over the top of it...Because nothing likes to stick to the treated Parchment Paper and Mistyfuse likes to stick to EVERYTHING.....it pulls the pencil lines off onto the back side of the fused fabric.  I then can use my micro-serrated scissors and cut the piece out, looking at the lines left on the fabric.

See? No switching out scissors...no flipping things around...it's just there and ready to go.

Now if only I can get myself ready to roll.  I'll show you what I am able to accomplish as we go along.....

I'm going to join Nina-Marie Sayer's Off the Wall Friday Fiber posts....I've been remiss and haven't participated....largely because I have been so bushed, or off the wall busy...

Take a look at the other blogs here

Heart throbs and Mistyfuse

Last month, for Fast Friday Fabric Challenge, I hosted the challenge and wanted people to explore texture.  For my submission, I did a realistic sort of heart.... I took some strange braided Mylar tubing which I purchased on clearance after Christmas.  I think it was intended for specialty gift wrapping.  I machine appliqued it down, then made the various parts of the heart, hand stitching the blood vessels with perle cotton, then adding machine stitching over the top.  Each segment was stuffed to give it dimension.  I added an EKG line which I based on a "normal" EKG I found on line...(only my nurse friends said that if they saw a line like that, they would be very concerned about the patient.

Hopefully, you can see it a bit better in this version.  This isn't completely finished, in fact the tape you see around the edges was to help me stop quilting at a quarter of an inch from the edge.....but for some reason, my Bernina was having fits....I broke three needles (size 100) trying to quilt through a layer of monk's cloth (the background) fused to Decor Bond, a layer of warm and natural and a backing of plain cotton.  The needle went down on the stroke, hesitated then broke the needle....and I wasn't moving the quilt sandwich.  So, I wasn't able to finish it and off the machine went to see what was wrong with it (according to the Bernina shop....nothing....).

One of the FFFC participants suggested that I add more lines of ekg....which was bobbin work with blue perle cotton. I have added lines in Photoshop (none too well I might add) to see what it looks like.  What do you think? Should I add more lines? Inquiring minds want to know.

Since my hands are not being very happy or useful, I wasn't able to hand applique these pieces down..my preferred method.  Instead, I used Mistyfuse to help me out.

Here's what I did....

I took a little strip of left over Mistyfuse....I know it is hard to see, but you can really get an idea about how thin this stuff is.  You really can't feel it if you are hand quilting through it and it doesn't stiffen the fabric much at all.

I took the piece I wanted to applique, and ironed the freezer paper template over the top, on the RIGHT side.

The freezer paper gives me an edge to turn the fabric against.

I tucked the piece of Mistyfuse under the turned edge, which I am holding here with a chopstick, and ironed the edge down with my little Clover iron.

I know you can't really see it against the Reynold's Baking Parchment...and I apologize...I was using a friend's ironing board and I didn't want to risk leaving anything behind...and I had forgotten to tuck my Goddess Sheet (Attached Inc.'s teflon sheet) in my work bag.

After a few seconds, I pull the "tail" of the Mistyfuse away....it melts and is quite easy to do, leaving the adhesive behind.

If I were really doing this, I would go around the entire edge, but this is being held well.  When I finish fusing the entire thing, I smack it down flat one more time.

Iris says she is working on bringing out some smaller "rolls" of Mistyfuse.  I'd love it...I think I really want 1/2" and 1/4" rolls....This would also be great for fusing bindings...

Once again, I am participating in Nina-Marie Sayre's "Off the Wall Fiber Friday"  and for once, I'm actually posting on a Friday! Yay!

You can see everyone else's posts if you go to her blog here.

Please also keep on checking Pozible's listing for the fund raising for the Tent Maker's of Cairo!  We're almost there, but they still have a bit to go!

Thanks also to Lynn Mosher who took the photos while my hands were otherwise occupied.

Trout Rising

 I have been working on finishing UFOs (un-Finished Objects) and finally finished this small piece (17.5" x 12.5").  I started it in 2010 for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge.  I first took grey commericial batik and quilted it over wool with Sulky Sliver thread.  I then took a commercial tone-on tone dot and painted it with Lumiere fabric paints by Jacquard to make the trout's body.

The eye is a bit difficult...and I'm not sure I got it in the right place, but it is a glass animal eye from JHB Buttons.  The dots on the trout's back are regular washers from the hardware store which  I painted with Adirondack alchol dyes.  I then placed a black sequin over the top and held it with a black seed bead. If you're wondering why I chose to use the washers, we were supposed to use something metal in our work. Since I had just participated in an unconventional materials challenge, I thought these were just the thing for this idea.

I wanted to capture the trout just after it landed back into the water after leaping for a bug....so you have the disturbance of the splash as well as the ripples from the stream.
I then over-laid many bits and pieces of sheers, topping it off with a grey sheer which I pleated and hand stitched to make it go in the right directions.

After all that, I machine quilted it once again with a grey/green  metallic thread.

I hope to do a series on game fish.  I have several ideas for working on various trout and salmon.....and perhaps there's a bluegill and a sunfish in my future.

Once again, I'm participating with Nina-Marie Sayre's Off-the-wall Friday Fiber blog roll.  Take a look at her website and explore all the other wonderously fiberous things.

Knowing When to Fold--Design Element Decisions

 You've seen this quilt before....in a couple of different renditions.  This is my View from the Abyss.  In November, I added some material on the sides in order to make it the right size for an exhibition.  Their minimum size was 30".  While it was 33" tall, it was only 24" wide....so I added panels on the side in order to make it 30".

Then, when I went to enter it in Deux, a Studio Art Quilt Associate's show which was supposed to show a conversation between two pieces, I created this piece, which I called "Progression."  You see, the "View from the Abyss" was supposed to represent depression, looking up from a chasm and related to the way I felt back in 1998 when I was first diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer (for those who don't know, there is no stage V and people with stage IV cancer are given a 10% chance to make it to 5 years after diagnosis).  I was a 38 year old mother of a 4 year old...and I went into a tail spin.

This piece, Progression, was one which related to "Abyss."  Progression is a representation of my reaction to being diagnosed with a recurrence, this time with multiple bone mets.  This happened in 2009, and as I am starting my 3rd year of chemo, I look at life still as golden, but getting narrower and narrower.

Without my telling you this, you wouldn't understand it. This is also probably one of the (many) reasons I didn't make it into Deux.  When  a juror is looking at a piece, it has to speak to them and tell them the story without my narrative.   Obviously, this wasn't done.

Here is "Abyss" in its original form.  I liked the verticality of it and it lost that when I made it wider to fit into the show.  As I looked at it the in preparation for Deux, as well as now, the light area on the left disturbs me...it brings the eye to the outside and it doesn't flow.

I think adding the extra folds of black and taking out the piece improved it, but I don't think that the wider element made it work.

I was preparing the piece to be professionally shot for inclusion in a book and I kept on looking at it in the larger sense.  I had made the appointment to take it in to be shot by a professional photographer because I had a hard time getting this one in focus...and I'm still not sure why, except maybe for my eyesight issues.  The appointment  was for Monday morning.....so last Sunday, while watching Downtown Abbey, I was cleaning all little bits of fuzz, loose threads and cat hair off it...and I decided this wouldn't do.  I needed to re-make it one more time, cutting off some of the stuff on the sides.

So, here it is in it's final form.  I think it is better than the original, and MUCH better back as the narrower piece.

So...what did I learn?  Don't mess with your basic image to "make it fit" into a show...unless you are George Scilliano who famously took one of his miniature paper pieced wonders and re-blocked it into the right size to get into a show.  Go with your basic feeling...if the design feels right, then do it and let the sizes for shows go to the wind.

In addition, don't make quilts just to fit the theme of a show, unless you really really want to make a piece and have been thinking about it and this show just happened to come along.  It is much better to make art which makes you happy and find shows to enter after the fact.  Your design will be much better....and you will be much saner and happier in the long run.

Just curious...which rendition do you think is better and why?

Once again, I'm playing along with Nina-Marie Sayer and am participating in her Off-the-Wall Fiber Friday...even if it is Saturday.  Day late, dollar short that's me!  You can find lots of other wonderful fibery stuff at her blog here.  (  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/  )

What makes a Good Challenge?

"Sun Fish", started 2006 completed 2008, Batty Binder's Quilt Guild Challenge, Lisa Broberg Quintana 36" square.

I am preparing to host a challenge for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge, an online yahoo group I have belonged to for several years.  I struggle with the idea of challenges.

Don't get me wrong.  I have done a lot of challenges.   But I am sometimes beleaguered at present with the thought that perhaps I shouldn't do challenges anymore. You see, sometimes I think you can be wound up in doing challenges that you don't do more significant work, or do pieces which improve your body of work, or at least further it in some what.

In the quilting world, challenges are done among a group of quilters.  A challenge is issued to the group, based on any one or number of things: an idea, a word, a size, a shape,technique,  a particular fabric....ad infinitum.  Then, all the people who participate share their interpretation of the theme.

Challenges are particularly useful if you are having a dry period and can't seem to come up with anything on your own.  It is a great jump-starter.  It is also good if you want to experiment and explore other areas of quilting.  I also enjoy the camaraderie and love to see what others come up with.

Having said that, however, I also often run into challenges which make me balk, snarl and regret that I have ever said I would do it.  Most of the time, this is when you have a challenge which has too many rules.  As an art quilter, I tend to be a free spirit and while a few rules are OK, too many? Well, they're just stifling. Take for instance "Sun Fish."

"Sun Fish" started out as a Guild challenge with the Batty Binders.  The concept was great.  The chairman of the challenge issued us all a fat Quarter of the fabric, this fish print I think was by Hoffman.  Then, we played "Go Fish" to create the rest of the rules.  The rules specified how many borders, how many additional fabrics you could add, that you were supposed to use beads or buttons as an embellishment ...and I think there were a few more.

While I liked the "go fish" concept and thought it played into the theme quite well....I struggled as my stubbornness in people telling me what to do in my quilts just aggravated me.  I did learn on this piece...such as why you should use a foundation if you're making these little needle-like rayed borders (I didn't, they stretch and are easily misshapen!).  I was going to add beads...but when I started sewing them on, I just didn't like the look. So...I broke a rule.

"Scotties" 2008, Lisa Broberg Quintana 

This particular quilt was part of an "ugly fabric" challenge.  We were all given a fat quarter of fabric that the leaders deemed "ugly" and we were to use it in a quilt.  The "ugly" in this was the pink and green diagonally printed plaid fabric.  I saw this and immediately thought of the 1940s/50s scotties.  This, however, was the only rule involved.

The Fast Friday Fabric Challenge is a closed group of fiber artists who receive a challenge on the last Friday of the month and are given a week to complete a small piece based on the challenge. "Challenges will attempt to stretch members in their skills and creativity, encourage thinking outside the box, will teach new techniques and concepts. "

I asked the group, as well as the whole Quilt Art message board, what they thought composed the best challenges.  In the past year, the most popular, as well as the ones cited by members as being the best were ones which were rooted in traditional art--such as Gestalt, chiaroscuro, or J. M. W. Turner's use of light, or pieces which were to convey an emotion.   In general, members were looking for pieces which allowed them to express their own ideas and "excited their creativity."  Like me, they balked at challenges which required you to follow too many rules.  Syd Harper said "I need a challenge which is like a dare.  Something which says 'oh, you know you can't do it."  A number of members indicated that they liked challenges which explored different techniques.  

Kathy Loomis has been doing a series on "The Challenge of Challenges" which was a happy co-incidence to my posing the question.  She has several posts on her blog commencing with 12/3/2012.  If you go to her blog, you can see the other posts and click on the additional "Challenge of Challenges" to see where she goes with it.  One aspect that Kathy does is sort of interesting.  In essence, she sees the call for entries for quilt shows as often being challenges as they state the theme.  I have toyed with this concept and indeed have made pieces specifically to fit a show's theme although I am not sure if that is the best way for me to operate. I think that I would rather do pieces which fill my soul and explore areas I'm working on (that is a series) and if I find a show it fits, then put it in.  Sometimes I think I am spinning my wheels creating works just to go into a show.

"In Orchid Paradise," Lisa Broberg Quintana

A few pieces I have done for other challenges:  "In Orchid Paradise" was a challenge issued by the American Orchid Society in conjunction with a local quilt guild and shop.  I created this piece based on a poster by Alfonse Mucha.  It took a second place prize...the green fabric background, the orchid print (which I cut out and fused down) and a small pink polka-dot fabric were included in the challenge fabric packet.

Hoffman Fabrics issues a challenge every year, and while I entered that one once and created one which I didn't get done in time twice, I have never gotten into the show.  Robert Kaufman fabrics used to issue a challenge and I entered it twice, and got in twice (El Ritmo Flamenco and Tuscan Lady Bellingham both got in).  In addition, I also did another Much based piece and entered in Luanna Ruben/Robert Kaufman's " Life, Love and Hope" exhibition which was selected for the show.

I will probably continue doing challenges...but hopefully, I will be a lot more selective and make sure that they continue pushing me down a path rather than diverting me.

This is my post for Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays."  You can see other participants here.

Stitch Like an Egyptian

"Stitch Like and Egyptian" Demo, AQS Grand Rapids MI show 2012

The internet is a wonderful thing...but sometimes it makes me whistful.  Almost a year ago, Jenny Bowker posted that she was curating an exhibition of fiber art from Egypt at the Festival of Quilts in the U.K.   Jenny has lived in the Near East and several Islamic countries for about 15 years as a result of her husband's position.  While in Cairo, she met Egyptian tent makers who made incredible appliqued work on canvas.

Like many, I've long been enamored of Eqyptian art and I would have loved to have gone to the show. I thought I would have to be content viewing it on the internet until I discovered this summer that Jenny had signed a contract with the American Quilter's Society and was going to have the exhibition at the show in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

What luck!  I went to see the show and it was mobbed.  If you have been following my blog, you know that I had one post which I pulled the photos down from when I realized that AQS not only wanted you to have permission from the artist, but also from AQS.  So....I dutifully sent an email to AQS.  and.....never heard back.  However, Jenny graciously said yes, and I decided that I would post this anyway....with the effort I usually take to properly attribute things.

"Stitch Like an Egyptian" was every bit as good as I thought it would be.  I actually had to wait for this picture to get some of the essence of the quilts in...most of the time it was difficult to take a long shot because there were so many people.

Some of the pieces are based on Arabic calligraphy  others like the one on the left here resemble tile work.  Others remind one of the wall of the ancient Egyptian tombs.  Men make these wonderful applique pieces which are often used on the walls of tents at funerals and for other occasions.  AQS alluded to this with the "tent" you see in the first photo.  Unfortunately, this is a dying art as the people are giving up their nomadic life and decorated tents as part of their culture.  Two of the tent makers , Tarek and Hossam came over and demonstrated...using large scissors and with hands that seem too big to make the fine stitches and work that they did.

Here you can see Hossam Mohamed working away at a piece inspired by lotus blossoms.  The woman in the background is Jenny.

The tent makers struggle to provide for their families. I am happy to report that although I was there on the first full day the show was open, many if not most of the pieces offered already had "sold" stickers on them.  I was even tempted to take one home...but I thought better of it as I wasn't sure how I would explain that one to my husband...as I had told him "Don't worry, I'm not going to be buying anything" as I left.

I did, however, buy the catalog that AQS produced...and I was even able to get my membership discount!  It is a wonderful book and well work the purchase price.  I didn't buy the DVD, but it includes the entire show as well as interviews with Jenny, Terek and Hossam.  You can guy it with the book, or separately.

The best part? I discovered that the exhibition will be at Quiltweek in Lancaster, PA, March 13-16, 2013 as well as at the Paducah show, April 24-27 in Paducah, KY.  So...if you are going to either show, make sure you allow enough time to take everything in.

And Jenny? I'm really thankful for the work you put in to make this possible.  It was a real treat to be able to see these wonderful pieces.

Once again, I am participating in Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays" fiber art blog roll...so if you want to see more fiberlicious blogs, just go here and link up!