But, I don’t really chat much with those folks.  And I’ve been missing having a sewing buddy.  To that end, I’ve opted to join some swaps!  Years ago I used to participate in swaps through several lists on yahoogroups.  I’m still on those lists but over the years they have become less and less and less active.  I’ve done a few other swaps, in the mean and in between time, via the Quilt Art mailing list and some ladies on there.  But I think I was missing the connection part, where you get to talk about what you are working on and show them pictures and, well, make friends.

Imagine my shock to discover a booming community of swappers on flickr?  I mean, what a strange place to encounter this kind of activity.  And yet, it’s strangely fitting.  I feel a little like the last one to arrive at a party and they started the games without me.  Inserting myself feels complicated and uncomfortable, but I think I’ve found a few groups where I feel less complicated and uncomfortable.  But anyway…

The first swap I’m taking part is a group that swaps blocks monthly: Nubees.  There’s a website and such coming soon.  I’ve already chosen my fabrics and the block I’ll be making for each of my swap partners:

The block in the center is using my colors (purple, orange, teal & yellow) and the fabrics around the edges are the fabrics I’ve chosen for my partners in their selected color pallets. The block is “Envy” from Modern Blocks, which I received as a Christmas gift this year.

Next up, I’ll be participating in the Doll Quilt Swap cycle 12!.  It’s a blind swap – you make and send a small “doll” quilt to someone  who doesn’t know who you are and you receive the same in return.  I received my name this morning, so now I have to start stalking my partner and find out what they like!    I’m very excited about this one.  My quilt wall could use some serious refreshing.  That one is due to be sent on April 2ndish.  Expect to see some blog posts about it.  I have nothing to show for that one yet, but I’ll get there soon!

The blocks have been randomly pieced around each monster patch – there will be enough for 2 baby quilts when I’m done.  This kind of piecing goes quickly until the end when you start measuring & trimming.  For me, it also produces a lot of waste, there are lots of little edges that need to be trimmed and they pile up.  Still, I love the look.

Be sure to bring a quilt.

So I have these two friends.  And they are good friends.  And for the last couple years they’ve been living in Frankfurt, Germany.  I missed them. A lot. Last May, I guess it was, we got a call from Frankfurt that they were finally going to get married!  Hip, hip hooray! 

In September, they returned stateside for a short stint and began planning.  May would be the date, California would be the place; in a lavendar field not far from Davis.   My husband and I were asked to do a reading:

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Fast forward now to January when the bride requested that I make not one, not two, but THREE quilts for the wedding ceremony.  What could I do but oblige?  I mean, these are goooooood friends, after all.

We shopped for fabric, designed, cut and sewed together two lovely, traditional (in pattern only) table runners, but the pièce de résistance was left up to me – the altar decoration. 

I looked at tons and tons and tons of pictures of California and the rolling hills and lavender fields in California and even in France.  I printed out my favorites, cut them apart and pasted them back together again to make what I felt was an interesting, if not quite accurate, representation of the wedding venue.  And then I re-made it in fabric.  And the whole time I was sewing, I was singing … 

“If you’re going to san Francisco/Be sure the wear some flowers in your hair…”

I didn’t, by the way, wear flowers in my hair.  Feathers worked better with my dress.

Wind Moon

Hare Moon, Seed Moon, Moon of budding Trees,
Let fertile magic sprout within me,
Kali, Hathor, Ishtar, Bast,
This abundant, creative cycle now be cast.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

Living in the DC Metro area, there is one thing that you just cannot escape from in the early part of April – the Cherry Blossoms.  The delicate, ephemeral quality of these of these blooms attracts me…I don’t know what it is about ephemera, but I love it.  Maybe it’s just the sound of the word itself…I wrote a post a while back in my personal blog all about my love of ephemera…when I have a little time and some patience, I will sort through those posts and link to it here.  But anyway, I digress.  In early April this year, in the DC Metro area, when we were firmly in the grip of the Cherry Blossom frenzy, that is when the full moon fell.  Known as the Wind Moon or the Pink Moon it wasn’t just apropos that the idea for this quilt include cherry blossoms.  They are the herald of spring for us, after a very long spell of cold, dry, brown grass and barren trees and things stirring IN the Earth, but very little on the surface of the Earth that we can see.  The cherry blossoms are an explosion and a celebration of life after the winter has ended.

Wind Moon detail
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I quilted this piece with the swoops and swirls and spirals that you would see if wind were visible, then used thread painting techniques to create the tree branch that passes in front of the moon.  I clustered beads together on the branch as they would appear on an actual cherry tree and added swirls of beads flying from the tree as the flower petals get caught up in the wind.  The beads are a combination of small and large seed beads purchased from the craft store; and small & large Swarovski crystals and sequins, purchased from Accessories of Old in Bethesda, MD.

Storm Moon (Working Title)

Seed Moon, Plow Moon, Moon of Winds,
Illusion ends as true growth begins,
Hecate, Athene, Astarte, Morrigan,
In pure inspiration the cycle begins again.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

Once again, I was left in the dark; clouds filled the sky on the night of the full moon and there was nothing for me to gaze at in order to find my inspiration.  I had to imagine it all. 

I find that I am generally fascinated by water color quilts & the idea of taking the traditional quilting methods and weaving them into an art piece.  I love that I can create a piece from tiny little squares of fabric that give you the impression of texture.  Have you ever looked at a stormy sky?  At first glance, it seems like it is all one color, but there are shadows and tints and shades hiding in those clouds.  The same goes for the moon, it is not one solid color either.  That is the idea that I am attempting to convey by piecing both the sky and the moon with tiny 1 inch squares, the texture of a stormy sky and the true face of the full moon.

The piece is quilted using three colors of thread in a style usually used to convey the impression of water – here it is also used to convey water, just in a different form.

Quickening Moon: Seedling Ambition

Hunger Moon, Wild Moon, Ice Moon stealth,
in quiet preparation I love my self,
Brigit, Persephone, Diana, Kuan Yin,
Help to cleanse and heal what’s within.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

In February, I watched for the moon for days before and days after the after the actual full moon event, to no avail.  The sky, for days, was completely shrouded in clouds; not even a peek at a star could be seen.  I imagine before the modern days of electric lights or even the earlier gas powered lights, these nights would have been very, truely black.

The Quickening is when tree sap begins to flow again and the Earth starts to awaken.  Each year, there are seeds that sprout too early while their brothers and sisters sleep just a little deeper down in the dirt.  This quilt is about those ambitious seeds, dreaming of the coming growing season, and jumping the gun, awakening too early.

Three little seeds (apple) are nestled within their own little full moons, but one has jumped the gun, so excited by his ambitious dreams that he popped out a little bit too early. I machine embroidered the tiny seedling onto its moon first, then attached each of the 3 moons to the quilt.  I free motion quilted the piece being careful not to let the quilting lines touch the seeds that were still ‘sleeping’.  Finally, I attached the seeds and tiny glass seed beads to give the impression of stars in the sky.

This piece will be shown at Artomatic 2009, but will not be offered for sale on Etsy—it has already found a permanent home.

I’ve been keeping myself quite busy for the past few weeks with preparations for Artomatic, and now the show is finally upon us!  Walls have been painted, lettering has been added, postcards printed, paint touched-up and, most importantly, art has been made and HUNG!  Even though I completed my installation on Sunday, there is still a nagging voice in my head saying “What on Earth did I get myself in for?” and “Isn’t there more that I can do?” I can’t wait until 10pm tonight—the last minute of installation.  After that, the building will be “hermetically sealed” for staff to clean and finish prepping things like lounges, bars, and classrooms.  So as of 10 pm, I can’t do any more, even if I wanted to.  The show opening is this Friday, May 29th—I will be there as soon as I can be after work.

My Artomatic Wall, from the side
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I’m showing two different sets of work—4 pieces of each series.  The Full Moon series that I started at the beginning of the year includes Wolf Moon, Quickening Moon: Seedling Ambition, Storm Moon, and Wind Moon.  I realize that I haven’t made blog posts about any but Wolf Moon; I am going to try to get them together and post this week or in the first week of the show, in case folks come here wanting to know more.  The second is a series that I began over a year ago which I’m calling Water & Stones. I pieced the large quilt many moons ago as a study of patterns and lines and colors and just got stuck.  I pulled it back out and quilted it just recently in time for Artomatic.  The small quilts that run along side it were fun little variations on the theme.  There is a fourth, but 3 is a better number for display purposes.  My current description of them starts out with “if Andy Goldsworthy were a quilter…”  Once again, I realize that I haven’t made a blog post about any of these.  Just like with the full moon series, I am planning to post something descriptive up this week or next.  If you want to see more pictures and details of the quilts, check out my set of Artomatic pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyson_olander/sets/72157618608512307/ .  Once Artomatic opens, I will be posting (almost) all of the pieces on etsy for purchase: http://wonderlandquilts.etsy.com .

Me & my wall
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

Here’s the oh-so-important plug and show information:

55 M Street, SE (Navy Yard Metro, Nationals Stadium Exit)
Washington, DC 20003
My work be found on the 4th floor, near the education area

May 29-July 5, 2009
Fri-Sat: Noon-1 am
Sun, Wed, Thu: Noon-10 pm
Meet the artists night: June 13th (I’ll be there!)

More Information: http://www.artomatic.org/

This was just a quickie project for myself that may end up turning into more. I bought one of those spiral bound calendar books this year in order to keep myself better organized. I immediately thought of covering it, but I didn’t have the time, the inclination or the material I wanted on hand. Luckily all of those things came to me about a week an a half ago.

The fabrics are 100% cotton, the prints are from Jay McCarroll’s line for Free Spirit: Woodland Wonderland, which I got from Fabricworm on Etsy. The cover was really simple, and I feel good about it because I designed it, start to finish, myself. Plus it only took me a couple of hours to put together, including designing and measuring, which really is half the battle. The only thing I’ll keep in mind for the future is to maybe add some of the stiff interfacing just to the front and back covers so that they will be even more protective of the flimsy little calendar. But either way, I <3 it.

You can see more pictures of it on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyson_olander/3339549097/

Snow Moon, Cold Moon, Quiet Moon abide,
Let protection and strength grow inside,
Inanna, Sarasvati, Hera, and Sinn,
Sew new beginnings deep within.
—Dallas Jennifer Cobb

In my research about the Wolf Moon, this rite struck me as just perfect to begin my year long full moon journal quilting adventure.

The full moon on the night in question was shrouded in clouds, but the moon shown through, creating these amazing rings of color around herself. This is represented by both layers of fabric and of thread – 8 different fabrics and 4 different threads. The clouds seemed the carry the glow of the moon far beyond what we would normally see. Also, that night, the moon was huge, the largest we will see all year; as she passed on her closest path to the earth.

In years past, this was the time of year when families huddled together for safety and warmth, with wolves howling outside – it was the most difficult time of year, the winter was in full swing; food was beginning to run low; the wolves were particularly fierce in their own hunger.

Originally, I was planning to place a heart, to represent the family, swaddled and protected by the layers of the moon, but it seemed too trite in the end. I liked the starkness of this image, it leaves the story open for interpretation.

Take from it what you will.

There is a continuation of the journal quilt project going on. It’ll be an online exhibit only. And since my plan is already to make journal quilts, why not enter them? But here’s the dilemma. The journal quilts are going back to the old format of 8.5″ x 11″, vertical orientation. And I had already decided on 12″ x 12″. In fact, I’d already started creating a quilt for the series in 12″ x 12″. I could cut it smaller. I have little to no problems doing that. But I’m not sure that I want to do it, just to get the quilts into a show. I could just finish this one and complete the rest in the smaller format and just not enter this one as one of the three in the show, but I kind of wanted them all to be the same size to tie them all together. I’d like to make the decision before I start quilting the piece, so that I don’t have to quilt unnecessarily. Free-motioning is a lot of work, dontchaknow, and especially when you are working in a small format, every stitch counts.

In addition to that dilemma, I feel like the quilt I’m working on needs more, and I was thinking about putting in a snowy landscape below the moon, but I really didn’t want these quilts to be quite so…literal. It changes the whole perspective of the quilt and it would be changing the point of it almost completely and I’m not happy about that either. But you can’t force art and I am feelin’ the landscape. If only I can make it look as good as it does in my mind.

So anyway…didn’t work on it yesterday because a) I was tired and b) dilemmas.

Any thoughts?