Colourplay Arrives DownUnder

It's always slightly nerve wracking to ship quilts between venues but I am pleased to report that Colourplay arrived safely in Australia today. Phew!

The quilts were transferred from shipping box to suitcase and are now ready to continue on tour:

• Craft & Quilt Fair, Palmerston North, New Zealand 14-17 February 2013;
• Australasian Quilt Convention, Melbourne, Australia, 18-21 April 2013; and
• Pinnacles Gallery, Townsville, Australia, 29 April - 31 May 2013.

Gerrie is in Art Quilting Studio

I was very surprised, but excited, to be invited by Art Quilting Studio to write two articles about my art quilts. They are in the Winter 2013 issue, due to hit the news stands, soon. The magazine is published twice a year and is filled with great articles and lots of eye candy photos of many styles of art quilting.

Here is a sneak peek at the article about my Aspen Quilts.

I received 2 advanced copies. I am giving one away to one of my readers. All you have to do is leave a comment on my blog about the article, Click Here.

La Confiserie

Even the most cursory research shows that sugar has a fascinating history.  According to Wkipedia, " [sugar] influenced the formation of colonies, the perpetuation of slavery, the transition to indentured labour, the migration of peoples, wars between 19th century sugar trade controlling nations and the ethnic composition and political structure of the new world".  In the 21st century, there is an avalanche of literature and scientific reports highlighting the detrimental effect of sugar on your health.  But never fear, looking at these photos won't hurt you.  While on home exchange in France is 2008, I visited the Florian confiserie at Pont du Loup.  They make candied fruits, jams, crystallised flowers and other goodies using traditional methods. Sweet!

    

The Ultimate in Sweet

Sugar cane

My goodness, when I chose the theme of "sweet" I had no clue how challenging it would be for me.  To be honest though I have been rather busy with other things and have just, in the past few days, had time to really start thinking about "sweet".

I am happy to say that I have landed on an idea and I even have a rough sketch.  Yay!

Onward I go!

But first I must go find something sweet.

Bon Bon

I've been working on revamping my website (check out www.BrendaGaelSmith.com!).  While reorganising my portfolio pages,  I came across this sweet themed piece from 2006  Bon Bon.

And, if you happen to eat too many Christmas candies, it's liable to go straight to your hips:

Headed home

I have had all 144 of the Theme Series quilts in my studio for a little more than a month now. It has been a busy time and I am finally ready to return these beauties to their owner/makers. What a journey they have been on! Back in 2010 they traveled to Lark Publishing to be photographed for our book, then headed to Australia and New Zealand where they were exhibited together for the first time. Then they went to Great Britain and finally to the US where they met up with their younger siblings, The Colorplay Series, for exhibits in Houston, Cincinnati, Long Beach and Portland. The Colorplay quilts are off to Australia soon, but the Theme Series are headed home, at last.

After I removed each quilt from the black panels we used for hanging them, I separated them into stacks of each artist's work. Then I packed them into their traveling bags.

Over the next week I will be boxing them up and shipping them to their respective homes. For all the places they have been and all the travel they have experienced, they look great. No damage. No loss. I will hate to see them go, but will enjoy having my twelve here again. They are filled with such great memories.

Rush Job

I should never try to rush through anything.  It always comes back to haunt me, and takes me twice as long to finish what I wanted to rush through.

I ran through a few medical ideas for Sweet, but couldn't come up with anything I wanted to work on.  Then I was reading Joann's blog here http://jsuley.blogspot.com/2012/10/breakfast-pepper.html, and thought about all the times my kids say sweet when they like something.  I came up with an idea quickly after that, and since I'm going on vacation soon, I wanted to finish it before I left.  It turned out really nice until I cut it down to size, sewed that backing on, and realized it was 11 x 20. I got that sinking feeling you get when you really mess up and started scrambling for a solution.

Top left is the edge with the backing on.  I had to remove the backing, then dug thru the trash to find the edge I had cut off. For some reason I thought if I just sew it back on, no one will notice.
Well, I notice, and I'm sure you do too. Sigh. It took me a few days, but I did come up with a solution that works.  But your not going to see it until December 12th.