Beautiful Iris in my Yard!

 Jallab

 Hugs from Heaven

Local Hero

 Logo

Reddy Set

Mixed Media Daily Postcards - June 1 - 8

Iris are in Bloom

 Deep Conviction

 Delirium (the colors on this one really pop!)

 Cairo Love Song

More Iris

 This iris is called Summer Camp.

 Sparkling

 Roz

Morning Show

The iris are blooming!

 Banded Tiger, Standard Dwarf Bearded Iris (I would call this one an Intermediate, though because it is taller than the dwarfs at my house).

 Loudmouth, Airlbred Iris.  This one is very short, about 5" high.  I love it!

 Azap, Intermediate Bearded Iris

 Blue Eyed Blond Intermediate Bearded Iris

Midsummer Night's Dream, Intermediate Rebloomer

My New Boat

 We've been talking about getting a boat for a couple of years now and I recently intensified my search for the right one.  I was thrilled to be able to purchase this one for my birthday present to myself!  We know virtually nothing about owning a boat so we have much to discover.  We look forward to some fun adventures on the water!

Big Hail

 Sunday, May 18 a big hail storm hit Billings, Montana.  At our place, the hail was over 2" diameter.

 The hail was driving out of the west and 7 of our west facing windows were broken.

We have waited over two weeks for the insurance adjuster to make an appearance.  After he left, I called a few local glass companies - they are five weeks out on their house calls.......

Our pick-up is totaled on account of it's age and the amount of damage that was done to the body by this huge hail. 

The roof is a total loss on one of our commercial buildings along with the paint on the siding.  An AC unit is a total loss. 

I lost many iris flowers, stalks and fans. 

It has been a busy time since the storm.

Alternative View of the City

I wanted to share an image of the piece I just finished (working title Primary City) in black and white.
Sometimes, it is helpful during the design process to convert an image of a work in progress into a black and white image or grayscale to evaluate the value, balance, and composition. 

This image makes me think I should do more of these collages with strips and hand printed fabrics - and also, that I should do one in black, white and shades of gray.

Mixed Media Daily Postcards May 27 - June 1

Details of the City

Primary City Finished

 

31" x 45" 

Here it is in it's full and finished state.  I decided to go ahead and try making all the edges jagged.  I used my usual fused binding technique, but there were a lot of little corners to bind!  I think it took as long to bind this piece as it did to quilt it!  I figured I could always trim it into a nice straight rectangle if this approach failed. 

Now, about the title.  I have been using Primary City (for the primary color scheme).  I am not crazy about that title, so will have to mull the title.  Usually a good final title comes to me during the final stages of construction, but that has not happened yet with this piece.  Hopefully, I will come up with something by the time I am ready to add a label.

Quilting Finished!

OK, so here it is with the quilting finished, but I have not yet trimmed it.  Some of the people in WAV, my small art quilt group really liked the wonky edge on the left side and were encouraging me to keep it.  Decision time.....

Quilting the Primary City

The quilting goes a lot quicker than I expected.  I had this one finished in half a day!

Thread Auditions for Primary City

Auditioning threads is always interesting.  I pull out a few feet and puddle the thread over the quilt to see how it looks.  Sometimes I am surprised by the results, but it is the best way I know of to make the difficult choice.

Preparing to Quilt Primary City

 After a bit of thought, I have decided to go forward with the quilting on this piece.  Originally, I thought I might zig zag the raw edges, but I have decided against that in favor of quilting each strip of the collage individually while also straight stitching along each raw edge. So, it begins with layering everything on my work table and pinning the layers together.

Mixed Media Daily Postcards May 18 - 26

More Red on the Primary City

At this point, I have added a few more small pieces cut from some red block prints, which give it a bit more sparkle.  I think I am about finished with the composition phase on this one.  Walking through the room in the dark - I noticed how the yellow areas really stand out and I wonder if I need to add a few small yellow highlights between the larger yellow areas........Or maybe those yellow areas are just too evenly spaced across the front....maybe it needs to be cropped on one side (but I hate to lose all that great cityscape and graffiti!

I am now contemplating the quilting.....maybe I will zig zag all the raw edges (which will be a lot of it!) and then add a grid where it needs more.    Not sure, about that.  I will procrastinate a bit, because I will have to switch out my sewing machines to set up for zig zagging, (the Juki, which is my main machine does only straight stitch, so I will have to switch to the Janome) in the built-in table and I hate doing that, so I will put it off while I think about it.   Both machines are the same size, or almost - so they both fit tightly into the depression in my quilting table.

Primary City, Continued

Now, the additions are getting to be pretty minor, but I think they add balance.  I felt like the big patches of the old quilt were a bit overpowering, so I have added smaller strips on top of them.  I think it is getting close.....

Adding More to the Primary City

 

Here it is with a few additions.  I liked the yellow petroglyph printed parts and I wanted to repeat those a couple of other places.  I also liked the little bits of blue sky, so I added more of those.  I am really liking where this one is going, but I am not finished yet.