The Practical, The Impractical & The Artrageous

I had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this afternoon, but my doctor got held up at the hospital with a poky baby.  I thought I'd use this unexpected time for another post.

This is a busy week with lots of details to think about and tasks to finish up--all related to good things.  First, this is the week I have to deliver jackets to the Bead + Fiber gallery in Boston.  I was thrilled to learn last month that my jackets had been accepted into The Practical, The Impractical and the Artrageous  - a fashion show during the SOWA Art Walk in Boston next month.  As part of this, my jackets will also be exhibited at Bead + Fiber during May and June.  This is my first Boston show, so to say that I'm excited is the understatement of the year.  The jackets are all done and ready to go (except for one price tag), but I've been busy with other details--the inventory list, updating and printing my resume, finding PR materials to leave at the gallery, etc.

So Thursday I drop off my jackets, then Friday I'm flying off to Milwaukee with my family for my mother-in-law's 90th birthday party.  Before we leave for that I have to finish my gift for her.  As usual it's a project that's been underway for a LONG time, but still it's going to go right down to the wire to finish it.  Of course when I started this project I didn't think I'd have a deadline to finish it.  It was only when I decided that it really should be for my mother-in-law that the deadline came up.

So what is this project anyway? If you're a long time subscriber to our Friends Fabric Art newsletter you'll have heard me talk about it.  It's a wall-quilt I've made from remnants of the first quilt I ever made. We had on the bed at our lake house until it started to fall apart.  The reason I thought that my mother-in-law should have it is that the original quilt was made from a top that she gave me that her mother had made.  I backed it and quilted it.  It was the project that got me hooked on quilting.

It was a Grandmother's Flower Garden; all done by hand.  I'm calling the new one Revisiting Grandmother's Flower Garden.  I've stitched together the good parts of the original and then covered it - almost completely - with embroidered flowers and leaves.  I also embroidered in phrases about her mother and my thoughts about making the quilt.  I can't find the picture of it right now, so I'll try to add that in tomorrow.  I need to bring it in here to back it and bind it.

In the meanwhile, in among these other projects I've managed to make good progress on this latest jacket.

It took me a couple of days to couch the decorative threads on it, but once that was done it came together more quickly.  There is more couching on the back center panel.  Today I'm working on the lining.  I'd better get busy - I need all the sewing time I can find this week.