Ginger Cherry

My two block party challenge blocks! You can see the fabric I was trying to mimic!

Here is the original block party assignment block. I was given the blue flowered fabric. I will take it back to the guild and see if I will win blocks enough to make a quilt!

Well I have been busy this week.  I finished my block party block for my quilt guild (Capital Quilters Guild), which asked that we mimic, using embroidery or applique, some aspect of the fabric we were given.  The block party fabric will then be used to border the white embroidery or applique block.  I always make two extra blocks for myself with my own fabric for the block party challenge and my own quilt in the end–which is what the first picture is  here!   I am also continuing to work on my madness/genius project…at least in my head!  I will get back to stitching it this week.  I’m very excited!  I also checked out a Harold Bloom book called Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds from the library.  Virginia Woolf is on his list, and he defines genius in very interesting ways.  I am looking forward to reading and exploring more!  I also found two beautiful books for use as ledgers for my work samples and ideas…one at the North Carolina Museum of Art and one at my favorite used book store, Reader’s Corner!  They both contain beautiful art, and I am pleased that my work will live along side those masters.  More about my ledger projects and madness/genius soon…

So, I have been away from my website for a while!  Yes, but I have been busy, and now I will try to post more often.  I’m working on posting once a week.  Time will tell!  Recently I have been working on reverse applique and embroidery.  I have a few images today, and I will have more on each soon.  I am timidly moving forward with this blogging!  Too, today I began work on a piece that will be part of a series about madness and genius and how they so often inform each other as with Vincent Van Gogh and Virginia Woolf.  I will have sneak peeks soon with more discussion of my thought process, too.  What is genius?  What is madness?  What happens in artists where both reside?  Are they kin?  Or are they merely in contention?  I have much to ponder…and create…

This piece is the reverse applique. I reverse appliqued the flowers, used french knots for the centers and back or stem stitch for the stems. Then I hand quilted the leaves.

A sort of scarf that I really like, and I like reverse applique. I think I will try more!

Some sample pieces of embroidery for my Simply Stitch 4 class with Karen Ruane. If you haven’t seen her work you should go look! You can find her at http://karenannruane.typepad.com/