chard, kale and mustard leaves

Vegetable Leaf Table Topper, 2009, 13" x 36"
COLLECTION OF GRACE LYNCH

This lap project has accompanied me on many excursions since the holidays. Last weekend I finished up the hand stitching on the Clipper, coming home from a weekend in Victoria with my parents.

All the piecing is scissor-cut. I like the organic look that comes from the non-precise shapes.

To finish this project, I need to hem 20 dinner-sized napkins that are in the turquoise- and wine-colored vegetable leaf fabrics. Then I will ship the runner and napkin set to Grace Lynch in New Jersey—the guardian angel of my daughter, Victoria, at CIA . Grace has a humongous collection of Portuguese cabbage leaf china that she uses at family gatherings.

The ceramic dachshund was made for me by my daughter Vik in a high school art class.

the stash

In D. Lisa West’s basement, we rinsed our dyed squares in her laundry sink and fixed the colors in two plastic bins. Then we ran all the fabric through the washer for a final rinse and the dryer for a light fluff. Two and a half hours later all the swatches were ironed.

Somehow we did not create any chocolate brown cloth. I thought that when we experimented with three or more dyes, we would make mud. Generally our fabric is bright, mottled and very appealing.

baby quilt series: no. 2

New Day, 2009, 39" x 44" front+back
COLLECTION OF LESLIE ROSS

For Art Chix this week, I debuted my latest baby quilt. The theme for the meeting was “Illumination.” With a pink sun and an early morning song bird, my piece expresses the joy of each new day.

The fresh blue and white fabrics are interspersed with unusual choices such a painterly pattern, and marbled and hand-dyed fabrics. Scissor-cut and randomly pieced, the quilt is machine stitched-in-the-ditch.