Odds and Ends

Well, I'm not going to Houston (but it's fun to read the adventures of people who are there), and I'm not going to my guild retreat this weekend. Instead we are having house guests, old friends who are coming for a few days. It's a case of wanting to be two or three people! Saturday the guys will go to the football game, and Jean and I are driving into Chicago to see the SOFA show. SOFA stands for Sculpture Objects Functional Art, and as you can see from the link it's a super-duper art show with galleries from all over the world displaying artists' work. Last time I went, one of the galleries had some quilts by Nancy Crow, so that was interesting. Everything is great fun to look at, especially the jewelry, and totally unaffordable for most of us. The place is always packed with affluent looking, artsily dressed types, which is also great for people watching.

I've also been working slowly on the orchid quilt. I didn't like the whole fabric background, so I changed to blocks, which seemed like a good idea at the time and was much easier to work with, but when put together seem too stark. So I'm auditioning this striped, woodsy looking fabric for sash and border, and I think I like it. It blends the colors and restores some of the mysterious quality that I lost in the changes. The shapes in the left border may be appliqued on. This is still brewing because I don't have time to think about it at the moment. In this picture the color scheme sure looks like the 70's, doesn't it? Not so much in reality, I think.


And finally--I checked an interesting book out of the library: Quilting Masterclass from That Patchwork Place. It's a collection of quilts, mostly contemporary and "arty", by various quilters, with some comments about technique (although not as much as blurbs for the book promise). I loved the book. There are familiar quilts from familiar names like Judy Dales, Katie P. M., Carol Bryer Fallert, Ruth McDowell, but there are many others from the U.S. as well as the U.K., Australia, and South Africa that were unfamiliar to me. It's always good to get out of the rut created by looking at the same quilt magazines, patterns, and even some shows, to form a fresh perspective. I highly recommend this book.