WOOOHOOOO…..  in his final year of eligibility, I entered Bijagos Warrior into the NQA show after Lynn Kough invited me to submit an entry for the juried Contemporary Colorations Exhibit II after having seen Fields of Gold in the Chandler show in Arizon at the end of 2008.   Well, to my utter astonishment…while we were away on a trip to a WONDERFUL family reunion in Florida (more in a few days), someone on the Janome list said my quilt had won a prize.  Since I hadn’t seen my name on the list of winners I was confused…turns out NQA hadn’t posted THIS year’s winners, and I was looking at LAST year’s list!   Thanks to Marie K. on the Janome list, I have this picture of my quilt with an Honorable Mention ribbon (in the competitive pictorial category) at the show!

Bijagos Warrior with Honorable Mention Ribbon at the 40th (2009) NQA show in Ohio

Thank you so much Marie for letting me know, taking the picture, and allowing me to share it.  The ribbon–my first ever in a truly national level show (had an Honorable last year at the large-regional, nearly-national show at Lowell Quilt Festival in Massachusetts)–is now hanging on the doorknob to my studio.  Now…to find time to make more truly competition worthy quilts.

In addition to Bijagos Warrior in the main show, I submitted several entries, for the contemporary colorations exhibit.   Fields of Gold was juried into along with works from Laura Cater-Woods Nancy G. Cook, Jane Davila, Karen G. Fisher, Marilyn Gillis, Terry Grant, Gloria Hansen, Leigh McDonald, Kathy McNeil, Pamela Mostek, Scott Murkin, Joanie Zeier Poole, Ruth Power, Jeri Riggs, Norma Schlager, Sarah Smith, Elizabeth Spannring, Cynthia St. Charles, Beth Wheeler, and Kathy York.  It is an incredible honor to be included among such talented artists.  Thank you Lynn!  Without your invitation, I probably wouldn’t have entered the main show and had this wonderful outcome!

Fields of Gold

In early May, Virginia Spiegel brough her multi-year campaign to raise funds for cancer research through her FiberArt for a Cause to a close with a final Collage Mania sale.  I was lucky to nab two of my favorite collages by North Carolina artist Grace Howes!   I selected them as gifts for my husband for his birthday.  One reads Faith, the other Trust…because I trust him implicity and completely, and because I have faith in him.   Happy Birthday Dear!

The collages themselves are 8 by 10 inches, and are mounted on stretcher bars covered with batting and batik (11 by 13 inches if I remember correctly).  Interestingly, despite the clear similarities in the two pieces, it was difficult to find a single fabric to use that played nicely with both collages.  In the end, I chose a black with wheat/rust/ochre from my stash. I sure hope Grace likes what I’ve done!  You can visit her web site at Red Barn Studios...

Thanks Grace for donating these wonderful collages! We’re so happy to have them in our home.

In the recent issue of Quilting Arts,

I placed my first ad!  It is in the Artists’ Marketplace section.  If you look at the two-page spread below it is on the right hand side of the page, almost in the center: the peach one (using the same basic set-up as my rack card and business card that I purchased to promote my book).  It says Artist, Author, Teacher…. and has my website and blog address, with my book cover and “coming in Fall 2009.”  Now, will anyone see it?  Will anyone follow the links?  Will I get any possible jobs??? Who knows…. anyway, here it is:

Here is a closer look at the ad:

What is an Alewife?  It’s a fish!   I’d never heard of them either until we moved to Maine.  I’d probably not ever heard of them until I discovered a gem of a quilt shop called Alewives Fabric and Gifts in Damariscotta Mills (about 45 minutes south of me).  Because they are set back a couple of miles from Route 1, and I’m always racing to somewhere, I’d never been there until my dear friend Kathy invited me along one day.  As I’ve said before, that store is a serious Visa accident waiting to happen!  (and I’ll be totally wicked and tell you that they now have batiks and Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett and and and for sale online!)  But this is about the fish…and they run in early May (yes, I’m late writing this up!… I knew they were running because a month ago on a trip south I saw a roadside sign and truck selling smoked alewives!)

Kathy did this quilt of the Alewives, who return from the sea, travel up the Great Salt Bay and head upriver at Damariscotta Mills, telling me about the fish ladder. (Kathy blogged about the quilt, I think, but her blog doesn’t have a search box on it so couldn’t find a picture…sorry!)  A fish ladder?  yep…. as you approach the area, you see the area in the above photo.  You can tell the fish are running thanks to a generous supply of cormorants and seagulls lurking for an easy meal.

Then you see the pen used to harvest some of the fish, which are about 10 inches long I’d guess.  The fish are used for lobster trap bait and used to be used as a foodsource.  On the information plaques, it says that for over 200 years it has been a tradition to give widows alewives (salted and cured I’d think….).

The lower portion of the fish ladder…which is basically a stream 24 inches wide or less (about .65 metres) with rocky small falls, rivulets and pools progressing up the hill to the Mills pond and lake at the top of the run…..was wall-to-wall fish:

If you look carefully, you can see both the shadow of the railing (lower right) and all those dark curvy things are alewives.

The next three pictures are close-ups of the information sign.  If you click on the photo it should (?) open up larger so maybe you can read the text.

I was lucky that someone came to purchase some alewives while I was there.  The fish are plentiful, so there is no risk to the fish stocks in harvesting them, and the proceeds from the sales are used for renovations and upkeep of the fish ladder.

First, the guy who works there gets a helper, and they use a sturdy mesh frame attached to two long poles to herd/sweep the wall-to-wall fish into a pen. As you can see on the right, there is a lot of late-spring runoff water tumbling down!

Next:  you see the fish splashing up next to the screen/sweeper:

This shot shows a fair number of the soon-to-be-bait alewives:

Then, the workers crank the pen which tips up.  The fish slide down into the hopper:

Talk about a thundering roar as all those flopping fish thump and twitch their way down the metal ramp/tilt/whatever it is!

And then there are MORE:

Finally, they stop flopping, having spent too long in the air.  They are then scooped into a crate for the waiting lobsterman.

And that’s my fish tale for today!  I love living in a place where people have lived for over 200 years.  For those of you in Europe, it is no big deal, but in the US it means we are among the oldest European-origin communities around.  Cool.

A while back, I shared a tiny tease from Little Brown Bird, a small wholecloth art quilt here.  Well, here is all 16×20 inches (or thereabouts) of it:

I made this quilt as an illustration for my Machine Quilting Unlimited article (July 2009 issue) on Negative space.  I developed the vine motif as part of the illustrative exercises, then decided to put it into use in the quilt.

The fabric is one of my hand-dyes, and is relatively monotone yellow-green.  I quilted it using five shades of green thread (Superior Threads’ 40-wt. polyester, with green Bottom Line — a fine 60-wt polyester — in the bobbin). The darkest shade of green is used in the bird, the next darkest for the straight lines and vine/leaf motif, and the lighter shades to shade/lighten the background.

Here is a detail of the bird:

And here is another of the leaf/vine motif:

If you visit my blog on June 16 (obviously it will not be “live” until the 16th!) blogpost, you can download a free PDF of the leaf/vine motif for use in your own quilting!