Eye Candy from the Guild

To make up for yesterday's spate of whining, I have some eye candy from my guild meeting last night. (To be clear, I'm not finished whining yet. I'm just taking a break.) Lisa Crnich was our speaker last night. Lisa lives in the local area and in addition to quilting, she teaches 4th grade.

She brought with her some quilts from what might be thought of as her "previous life" as a quilter. Her first quilts are lovely.

I especially liked this pretty sort of modern take on a 9-patch,

and her origami cranes. I have a soft spot in my heart for origami cranes. When I was attending 4th grade in Hawaii, some student teachers came to class one day and taught us how to make them.

Then, she fell under the spell of Ruth McDowell and Lisa's quilting was transformed. Here is a library of books by Ruth McDowell Lisa brought for us to peruse.

She told us she attended classes by Ruth McDowell no less than five times. The first quilt she made after taking the first class was this row of mailboxes. She said it had special significance to her because they were along a road she walked while attending to her father who was ill.

Ruth suggested that each mailbox be given its own personality, and you can see that each mailbox is pieced in a strip that has been sewn into the whole quilt. 

Her second quilt was this one of her grandmother. She said her grandmother had ten children before losing her husband, and she attended to her home and her children accompanied by one of her hound dogs. The cabin in the background was built by Lisa's uncles from abandoned railroad ties.

Ruth McDowell taught Lisa how to make the clothing look worn or "rumpled" by piecing the fabric in different directions.

She used the same technique to make the dog's "fur" grow in different directions and to put whiskers on the dog's face.

Many of Lisa's quilts are inspired by her own travel photography. The quilt below was inspired by a European scooter that had been decorated in lots of different colors of duct tape.

This next quilt was inspired by her time spent in Montana where cherries are grown.

She teaches a class about making chickens, and she showed us her chickens in two different colorways.

She likes to start with the eye of the chicken and move outward from there. 

Here is a quilt inspired by the ladders in the kivas at Mesa Verde National Park. This picture was taken looking up from the bottom of a ladder. Lisa told us the pieced border was made as a separate project. When she laid it beside this quilt, it was just right.

If you look again at her library of books, there is one entitled "Pieced Flowers". Several of Lisa's quilts were inspired by the projects in the book. This one is a hibiscus.

I believe she said there were approximately 7 different orange fabrics in the flower center to give it depth.

Another of Ruth McDowell's books is entitled "Pieced Vegetables". Take a look at the quilts inspired from the book. Peppers:

Eggplant:

Broccoli. The green fabric for the broccoli florets is actually a tree fabric.

Bell pepper.

Celery:

Swiss chard:

Corn:

Here's a close-up of the quilting:

and Carrots:

Lisa will be teaching a class for our guild on August 1st. The next quilts illustrate what we'll be learning. Lisa calls this her "Four Fabric Forest" series. Each quilt is made with one tree fabric and one fabric each for the foreground, midground, and background.

In this next image, the quilts still have four fabrics. The midground fabric is the same in both quilts, but the other three fabrics have changed.

You can see more of Lisa's work (and better pictures!) at her blog: Lisa Crnich Quilts, including images of her beautiful Morrison Bridge at Night quilt.

I've signed up for her class on August 1st, and I'm looking forward to that. I love her bold use of color and the wonderful way she's interpreted the subjects of her photography.

Today I'm excited to be picking up the first of 28 shares of a CSA (community support agriculture) I joined. The farm I've signed up with, Working Hands Farm, posts the most beautiful images on its Facebook page. I've linked to their blog there. I love following along and seeing what's going on at the farm. As a bonus, the farm is only about 20 minutes away from where I live. I'll pick up my shares every Tuesday afternoon. Since I've never tried this before, I'm looking forward to the challenge of using all the produce we'll be inundated with over the summer. I've also reserved one dozen farm fresh eggs per week. It'll be nice to have eggs laid by the chicken the very morning I pick them up. Farmer Brian and Farmer Jess are a young couple married just last year. They are so cute, I'm ready to adopt them. Short of adopting them, they'll need to keep an eye on Gloucester, their cat, when I'm around.

So there's lots going on at the Three Cats Ranch today. I was too danged lazy yesterday to hop on my treadmill, and so I must do that today. Also on the "too danged lazy" list is my housework from yesterday. (You noticed I did have time for sewing in all that laziness, however.) And that means I'll be playing catch-up today before I can resume whining about the paper-pieced tulips I'm going to make.

What's on your agenda today?