"The Sky Above, the Earth Below, and Us in the Middle"

2013, Judy Ross, 43"x62", hand-quilted.

Thanks to Sharon's good discharge work for those three middle sections (2 circles with black backgrounds) and other small pieces scattered about...

Night Watcher, 2013, 45x64"

 There's a hundred different fabrics here and kinds of: silk, satin, rayon, linen, silk velvet, velveteen, poly, cotton, linen, anything i could find that was blue.  lots of it hand-dyed or painted, shibori from China, Indian prints from Maiwa.  Whatever I had and could beg, borrow, or steal from other quilters.  There are little pictures, like things you might catch a glimpse of at night, scattered throughout.

We sold $5/tickets on it...about 200 of them, and used all the proceeds for the New Pt. Roberts Library project.  And now it lives at someone else's house instead of mine, but that's okay.  Click for a bigger picture.

Orphans Together, 2013, 44"x65"

This quilt began with the long piece of woven Guatemalan fabric on the left side.  Friends with involvement in an orphanage in Guatemala were working there this summer and brought me back odds and ends of weavings that they found in markets.  The material is woven on narrow looms, often, and the women 'seam' the pieces together with rayon embroidery.  The second, long vertical line in the woven piece is a row of embroidered frogs that joined these two pieces. (The first long vertical row is Swiss flower trim.) But the rest of the joined fabric went to make something else, leaving me with this long, narrow, beautiful strip.  Then the job involved finding pieces that would go with it since it was quite a bit heavier than standard fabrics.  Finally I settled on a lot of other 'orphan' pieces, so that I could use lots of ribbons and trim in it, as well as the odd piece of silk tie and decorator sunflower, making it a collection of orphans.  This one is still on my living room wall. 

And soon to be finished (putting the binding on now) is a brown and turquoise quilt which was inspired, in great part, by a piece of Sharon Roye's beautiful discharged fabric that she gave me at Penny's in North Van last spring, maybe, when we met there.  

The work continues!  Long may it wave.  Judy Ross

Also, note that I have turned the administration of the blog over to Sybil, so I trust you will soon be able to make better use of it than you have with me as administrator-not-in-residence, so to speak.  But i'll continue to post my work here from time to time.  jwr

Thanks to everyone for our last show artists and attendees both.  Here are some comments:

'Wonderful art! What a gift for all of us who came to see' 

'Very nice work with difficult media to work with.'

'Absolutely gorgeous.'

'Trees are magical wonders.'

'Wow I was really surprised by the intense art work. It was gorgeous.'

Artists in Attendance at the opening reception in Leigh Square
July 2013

~ thanks Ed for snapping this.

l-r: Penny Connell, Sybil Seel, Judy Ross, Sharon Roye, Ann Dickie, Jill Sullivan
Sandra LeHeup, Laura Mann, Marie Barry and Joan Baker.

show opens tomorrow and we have the invites...

Just a few of our gardens......

Welcome to our Garden.......

part of set up crew for showcase as featured artist(s) at the 2013 Sunshine Coast Quilters Guild Quilt Show, on May 10 - 12

For the Garden: judy ross

On its way to the Sunshine Coast today.  The back has small, rectangular sunflower vignettes.  Have a good show!

Feb 13/2013 Meeting    Joan Baker .. ARBUTUS TREE

Joan Baker..                           THE BEND IN THE ROAD

           
Ann Dickie                   Progress of a garden piece

Laura Mann .. Peachness?

Marie Barry

Marie Barry

Marie Barry  ,,, whole cloth, hand dyed

These pictures will give you a feel of what the show at Sechelt Arts Centre looks like. I must say that I am happy with the whole presentation.

'Aftermath" #1 in 3 forest pieces for Leigh Square

I think the name will stick, but there have been suggestion that it is winter. For me it is what we saw after the Barrier forest fires some years back. The area looked like this for a number of years..

Sharon's new piece

On the subject of the red quilt--isn't that funny--I also tried quilt as you go with a large piece, and ran into the same problem.  I made blocks for the central panel of the big church quilt.  It hangs badly.  I resolved to sew the whole thing on a backing--one of these days.

I love the Plum Tree.  To me, it has a very formal look.  I guess it's the leaded glass effect of the black.

New Year's Eve Completions: Judy

Here are the two big projects I've been working on this past year, both completed just before New Year's Eve!  The plum tree quilt is about 40"x60"; the Red Quilt is 48" by 65".  At the moment, the red quilt is not entirely willing to lie flat so either it needs more quilting or even more steaming.  But the problem, really, is in the way I constructed it (quilt as you go), which was less a decision than the result of my uncertainties as to whether this would work at all.  So, I made a piece, then quilted it, then thought maybe it would work but I needed to see more, so I made another piece and reevaluated.  And pretty soon, I'd gone too far to do anything but either start over or risk the lack of flatness.  In any case, it makes a gorgeous lap quilt and I found myself starting with a new one to do as a wall hanging.  There are still plenty of red fabrics in my collection.

I'm about to order up a bunch of 5x7" postcards of the plumtree quilt to send out as New Year's cards (or Presidents' Day or MartinLutherKing day or, at the rate i'm going, as Valentine's Day).  I will have it for the 'in the forest show' in any case.  Whenever that is.  --Judy