What a week! And here's a sneak peek!

I can barely contain myself this week with so much happening, I just had to share it with some of my friends! Not only did my fabric samples come in the mail and I was able to design a quilt for them but the Riverside Museum came to my house to select 8 paintings to hang in the museum for the next few months!! I am honored to have this exhibit at the museum it is the direct result from winning last years still life category in the Museums Members show. I am going to go to art walk tomorrow night and check it out. Then today I went to Road to California to set up our Art Groups 2012 group quilt. We have never seen it hanging all together since it is so long and to try and find a wall 27' long to hang and photograph is close to impossible. Carolyn gave us a premier spot in one of the hallways and the quilt looks amazing, the women did a fantastic job! Here is some of the details but you have to see it for yourself up close!

The quilt was something I had originally designed as a pool mural and made some changes to better fit the fabric. Each women could use any technique but had to add a personal element to their piece. From there I went over to Gingers Booth where I set up my patterns in preparation for the next 4 days where I will be demoing and selling my patterns. I hope, if you are going to Road, you will stop by and see the quilts and come over and say hi! And please, don't miss the Route 66 exhibit by Pat Blair which is amazing. Pat painted the back drop of the Route 66 hwy that runs from CA, AZ, NM, TX, OK, KS, MO and IL. The quilts represent different areas along the highway and are placed where they belong on the road map! It is an awesome exhibit, great job Pat!! Here is a sneak peek! Some of the women in the Iris challenge were also in the Route 66 Exhibit, amazing!

The Iris Garden

I did a 26' mural for a custom pool which I then turned into patterns for my art quilting group. Anyone that was interested could choose a section to work on. The only two rules was that they had to use two same fabrics and add a personal element to the quilt. They were encouraged to not work together but as individuals, making their piece uniquely their own. Each section is 36"x42" and they all meet and hang as one big unit. It was so exciting to finally see all the pieces hanging together, it was amazing. Everyones piece was so beautiful and was a true labor of love. We are also honored to have been accepted to hang at "Road to California" this January. Look for our quilt and see if you can see each unique element in each section of the quilt. These women worked so hard to make this happen, they appliquéd, painted, fused, embellished, quilted, designed some worked from other states. All in hopes that they would finish in time to submit it for the Road, congratulations to all of you!!

1. Nancy Williams

2. Ann Turley

3. Kay Davis

4. Desiree Habicht

5. Christa Elsee

6. Marilyn Fromherz

7. Phyllis Campbell

8. Anne Sonner  

9. Nancy Mastroianni

Sub-Q Quilt entry

I belong to an art quilting group called subterranian quilters, or Sub-Q. It is a group of talented art quilters. Sadly we lost our founder suddenly last March. The group was unsure about staying together after Sally's death. This quilt was our first group project after we decided to keep going to honor her vision for the group. We dedicated the quilt to her.

The project was to recreate a section from a photo. I had a picture of orchids and I divided it up into 6 sections and changed it to black and white or grey scale. Everyone who wanted to participate took a section and enlarged it 400%. Their challenge was to put the color back into the quilt and recreate the picture using any techniques they wanted to. The group used so many different techniques it was amazing. And I love the colors that everyone choose, no one saw the original, color photo until all the pieces were finished. The participants were Nancy M., Kay D, Phyllis C, Me, Ann T., Carol C. Thanks for all of your hard work!

This is Phyllis at the show and this is Phyllis' picture, standing in front of the quilt. Her piece is number three. She used inks and paints along with some applique.

My piece is the one next to, and after hers or fourth from the left. I used saved, used paper towels and did like a collage of them to make the flowers and the leaves. I had to put my sewing machine on suede to get it to sew through the thickness. I also used tissue paper and paints and acrylic inks.

Day Two of abstract design class with Katie Paquini

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Day Two of abstract design class with Katie Pasquini
Today we got back our blown up versions of the tiny macro drawing we did the day before with our tiny view finders. My eyes feeling like sandpaper still struggled with all the drawing we did today, but I think today went much better. We moved into more of the designing aspect of art quilting and how to crop paintings to get many good possibilities for quilts. We went over many different aspects of how to approach getting a good design also. Many of the women were just loving the class and I know some were a bit surprised by it. I think that most of the women were excited in some of the possibilities for quilts that they produced painting! I think I would have liked to take something home, some small project, instead I have lots of cut up paintings, which I may or may not use. It made me think about watercolor paintings I have at the house that were unsuccessful, now I will cut them up and re look at them for quilts. I loved the frame that we cut in half and could slide up or down to adjust the size of our crop. Its an old trick I had totally forgotten about. I think that most of our time was spent helping people get comfortable with painting and creating. I am already there, so hoped for more design input. It was a ton of information and exercises to do in two days. One of the women in class was so excited about her design that during lunch she went down and bought all the fabric to make it! That's what a class is supposed to do, inspire us. I do love her work, I appreciate her strict work ethic and the amazingly beautiful quilts she produces, its a testimony to her methods. I learn something new and exciting in every class I take and I did take some new ideas away with me from this class too. I think the possibilities for some very unique quilt options my be in my bag of cut up paintings. Thanks Marilyn for reminding me that sometimes we just need time to digest the information and make it our own before we can put it to use! Thanks Katie! She even signed my books.

After two intense days a few of us signed up for the pincushion class! It was from 7pm to 10pm! I don't know what I was thinking, probably that a fun class would be a perfect finish to all that design. I forgot the fact that we might just be plum tired! We ran over to the hotel to shove a hamburger in our faces before running back to make our class. Oh did I mention that we ran through the quilt show, tried to quickly shop, see the quilts we had entered before eating? We made it to class right at 7 and saw that it was a very full class. We all found our seats and were pleasantly surprised by what the next three hours held. The class was called Pin cushion Party, and it was! Debbie Busby, the owner of the wooden spool in Oregon taught the class and had made up the cutest bags of already cut and in some cases sewn pincushions for us to sew. We received thread, buttons, felt, wool, stuffing, bags, etc, etc. The gifts kept coming and she did a drawing for a free pattern. Although it was a bit expensive I loved it. I think because it was fun, it was easy, it was doable in the three hours and we all left with 5, yes 5, pincushions. I finished 3 of them there, started the fourth and took home number 5. Plus we got all the patterns to make more. Thanks Debbie for making it a great evening, and my eyes could handle this!