Sold! Fib #358

Louise bought Fib #358 on the opening night of the Designing Women exhibition "Dimensions". At that point I hadn't embroidered a signature on it so last Tuesday while Louise, Margaret and Julie were visiting I did that. I also promised to give Louise a copy of the Artist Statement for it. This is an incredibly difficult work to photograph because the greater part of the work is white silk on white cotton stitched with a grey-white thread. Texture brings the work to life when it moves gently in an area with plenty of natural light. In real life the white bars stand out quite a bit - but this texture does not photograph well. I'm looking forward to seeing Fib #358 installed in it's new home.

Concentrating on my Art Work

I have taken the big step of closing the Lizard of Oz website and not selling English Piecing papers, templates or patterns any more. This was a really difficult decision as it's been a part of my identity for the past 12 years. I found that I felt guilty about not doing Lizard of Oz "stuff" when doing my own artwork, and when I did Lizard of Oz work I felt that I wasn't really following my heart anymore. My artwork has moved away from quilting and more into printing, drawing and painting. So I decided some radical action was necessary. I would like to thank all the customers and friends who have been supportive of Lizard of Oz during all that time. There are 2 businesses that I know of who specialise in English Piecing and Applique, Patchwork with Busy Fingers and The Quilt Fairy. I hope they will be able to help you. Meanwhile I get to play in my studio without guilt! :-)

Floral skirt

I spent a few days cutting out flowers and circles from muslin and gauze to stick all over this plain 3/4 circle skirt. The skirt is very lightweight cotton so drapes beautifully but of course is also a little bit transparent with the light behind it. That's why I'm putting flowers all over it :-)
My young friend Andrea helped me cut some of them out when we stayed at their place over the weekend. It took another few evenings to iron them all on. I plan to machine embroider over all the flowers with another shade of browny-beige. I'm hoping at the end it will look sophisticated beige rather than boring beige :-) I just hope it doesn't look too "folksy".