The front garden

When I'm not in the studio, you might find me in the garden.

When I moved into this fixer upper in 2000, it needed fixing both inside and outside. I took on the responsibility of garden planning and plantings. Gone now is the old camellia that dropped thousands of tiny blooms and required many hours of pickup. Gone now is the weedy Bermuda grass lawn.

Here are photos of what it looked like in 2006 and what it looks like now:

I love the way this part of my front yard turned out. The fresh smell of lemon verbena and resinous smell of Russian sage. Feather reed grass dancing with the breeze. Textures and colors galore: spiky orange and green libertia, furry red kangaroo paws, bronzy red flax, round bright yellow-green leaves of the smoke tree, fuzzy gray-green leaves and fuzzy purple flower plumes of Russian sage, and tall buff seed heads of the reed grass.

If I'm not down in the studio, I can look out the window at this.

Test prints

Half the work is done. I've sewn the sets together, but someone else put together the combinations in these ready-made log cabin blocks. Now my challenge is to add more - which goes toward my goal of getting comfortable with prints. Only way to get there is by doing, seeing, editing. I've whittled down the selections from my stash to these: Do they work? I think so.

Curatorial experience

In June EBHQ had quilts hung at the Lakeview branch of the Oakland library. I helped curate – my first experience. And wrote about it for the guild newsletter:

Tale from a Virgin Curator

cu•rate (kyoor′-āt′) To act as a curator – as a person in charge of an exhibition.

Like a student waving her hand at the teacher because she finally knows the answer, I jumped in when Jennie Aldrich asked for volunteer curators for the Oakland Lakeview Library show. So did Sandy Ellison and Pati Fried. Since we three volunteers were without curatorial experience, we were the students and Jennie our teacher.

Unlike an institution like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, we did not have a cadre of curatorial assistants. We did it all.

First task was to collect and store the quilts. Pati and Sandy manned a table at the May general meeting to collect quilts. Both of them and Jennie were especially persuasive convincing others to participate. Responsibilities included getting the forms completed and signed, checking for a label and a hanging sleeve, and keeping track of all the quilts collected.

A week before the exhibition, the four of us met to review the submissions and lay out the display. We reviewed all the quilts and started grouping them. Some quilts just sung with one another and begged to be together. We were challenged to identify specific wall locations to fit each group. Thankfully, Jennie had measurements of the display spaces. Sometimes we had to shift quilts around but tried to create a cohesive visual display. In the end we found display space for all 33 quilts submitted.

Then we documented the quilts and their locations with photos and notes. Otherwise we would've been lost on the hanging date. Hanging them was only a week later but you know how that is! Before packing up the quilts, we prep them for hanging and made notes to get more supplies.

On Monday, June 1st we hung the quilts. Jennie was on the ladder and the rest of us were the ground crew. Other than a scramble halfway through the hanging, we fell into a rhythm – two to hang and two to prepare. We made a great team!

Jennie and Sandy had to leave for the EBHQ board meeting. But they left only one wall for Pati and me to finish on our own.

On the ladder, I realize how adept Jennie is at hanging. I knocked off the picture moulding hooks several times for each of the three quilts. I'm sorry, Pati! As my ground crew, she was fishing among the books stacks for the hooks that flew off. I was so close to the quilts, I couldn't see the display and depended on her help to adjust them. Going it alone would've meant getting up and down the ladder constantly. That would've saved me a gym workout, but also would've resulted in noodle thighs!

Looking around the two rooms after we were done, I took pleasure in having a role in brightening and transforming the library. I hope you'll have a chance to visit this library and see the quilts whether you have one hanging there or not.

A lot of credit goes to Jennie for the curatorial lessons. What I learned was well worth the few hours I put in. My three co-curators were all fantastic and cooperative co-workers. And I got close looks at all the quilts. What a fabulous experience all around!

How about you - would you like to curate a show? Perhaps your very own show someday? Start small, start with experienced help, and start here. Volunteer for the Oakland Lakeview Library exhibition next time. Or some other EBHQ show. It'll be an excellent opportunity.

Ellen who's no longer a virgin curator

Fav haunt

Every teacher's first stop and every artist's second home. The East Bay Center for Creative Reuse is a non-profit store that depends on donations. I never know what I'll find there. I found half-inch thick foam core boards for my design wall there. And added many fabrics to my stash.

A recent find were two sets of four log cabin blocks: I'd sewn them together. Someone else did a great job of mixing prints and colors. No sense dwelling on why were they were discarded. My mission: add more. I'm auditioning additions from my stash to each set.

More finds: ikats.
They feel like fine Egyptian cotton. They'd make great quilt backs but I'm not sure I want them hidden. I don't want to cut into them either – they're so beautiful just as they are. Precious bargains.

These three ikats and some other fabrics, scraps and stuff filled a shopping basket –all for $10. Such a deal! Keeps me coming back for more! This place has become a regular haunt. The fun is in the treasure hunt.

Advantages & disadvantages

On a 3-hour drive and a weekend away, I finished two things. One birdie. He had been sewn and stuffed. All he needed was the opening in his tail sewn up. You can get the Mister Blue Bird pattern here.

One more hand appliquéd leaf. The second of the hand appliquéd leaves started in Gabrielle Swain's workshop. The first shown here a year ago. Seems like ages ago.

Being away from home has its advantages. While my other half helped his father with tree pruning, I went on a rare shopping trip.

Honey Run Quilters in Chico carries Superior Thread's King Tut cotton machine quilting thread. Though I was looking for a heavier thread, I'll give this a go. I also picked up a nifty little purse pattern. This will be a great exercise for mixing prints.

Next: Johnson Shoes for sandals. With extra wide feet and orthotics, I have an unbelievably difficult time finding good fitting shoes. I bought two pairs of sandals with fairly good support, but not usable for orthotics. Shoes are always a compromise.

At least I got some shopping done. But the disadvantage is spending money.

Toward no. 3

Last fall, other than solids for a Nancy Crow workshop, my stash was still small. I tried out techniques from Sandi Cummings' Quilting Outside the Blocks using old fabric. Green and red. Must have been leftovers from making stuffed fabric Christmas wreaths. The 70s. Beautiful, not! Wall un-worthy! But perfect for recovering an old – also 70s – floor pillow.

I'd borrowed Harriet Hargreave's Heirloom Machine Quilting from the EBHQ library. What a comprehensive reference! She really gives you the nuts and bolts about preparation and quilting. This ufo would be my practice piece and my goal for June. Sashing made it bigger and differentiated the nine blocks. Still not beautiful but that helped. Then machine quilted. Can you see the quilt lines? This was a good size – about 27x27 – for my first machine quilted project. There were times I got lazy about rolling it up to feed it through the throat. But it was small enough I could cheat.

I'd bought variegated 40wt thread from Superior Threads specifically for this project. So I used it. What's done is done. I would've liked a heavier solid thread. Could be an illusion with the variegated thread, but the lines don't look parallel. And the corners flared. Maybe there's a better accessory or technique for this. I used a walking foot with a seam guide bar.

Superior Threads' Bottom Line worked well as the bobbin thread. Here's the muslin back side. Instead of batting I used flannel for the sandwich, so it's rather flat. Stretched over a pillow, the loft would've been lost anyway. I'll add a pillow back and another ufo will be done.