My friend, Terri, aka Moonbeam asked me to make her 5 cell phone purses for Christmas gifts.  I made 6 and said she could have one.

My brother in law, Jim (all different fabrics and sizes)  gave me 85 Crown Royal bags and said he wanted a quilt for their camper.  After 1.5 yrs. of thinking, planning, and shopping for fabric this is what I came up with.

Kind of ugly, but he seems to really like it so that is what counts.

Elements: Earth, Wood, Water, Fire, Metal

 I made this for the 2nd Art Squared Group Challenge.  The theme was ELEMENTS. When I Googled ELEMENTS I came accross the Chinese world elements of : earth, water, fire, wood, and metal. Hmm, now how to put those in a quilt?? The word "earth" reminded me of a river bank, and "wood" could represent trees and a river would represent the "water"....but "metal" and "fire" was a challenge.  As I worked on the riverbank I started to think about a campfire and roasting marshmallows.  

I made the chipmunks out of thread and they are roasting their marshmallows (beads) with metal skewers made out of nails.  I did a little embellishing with yarn, tumbled rocks, and crystals. 

Art Squared Group-Mystical

 As a child, I was always intrigued by the darker green rings in the grass with mushrooms here and there. They usually appeared after a lightning storm. My Mom said they were fairy rings. The first challenge in my new group called Art Squared is "Mystical". The theme immediately brought back memories of those fairy rings.

This little fairy is early to the meeting. The others are on their way as you can see from the shimmery swirls.

I used batiks as well as thread work and paint to try to make the mushrooms look 3 dimensional.

Striated Muscle Cells

I made this for the Fiberaction 10th and final challenge.  We were to look in our closets and make a quilt using those colors. I  have lots of black plus every color of the rainbow which made this a fun quilt to make...despite the fact the main board on my Pfaff blew up, my feather weight would not quilt to the left, and Maddy broke my camera so I was a little late posting on the blog.  Hmmm...maybe it is time for a new machine?  This quilt represents striated muscle cells. I hope to make a series of microscopic quilts. 

 I started this quilt in WI with my "forever friend" Kim.  It sat as an UFO in my closet for a couple years.  I finished it for our quilt show in 2012.

It was fun to make and I love the colors. I have enough squares left over to make another quilt!

Pinto Ponies in the Aspens

21"x21"

The theme for this Fiberaction Challenge was "neutrals".  Ugg, I thought, I'm not a neutral person--I like COLOR! When I was a child, I remember seeing a painting by Bev Doolittle with lots of aspen trees and pinto ponies camouflaged in the background.  That painting popped into my head when I started this challenge.  I started with five fabrics for the background, then began planting trees in the distance and made my way to the foreground.

 The branches are made with threadwork. I happened to have several fabrics that made great trunks.

I googled pictures of pinto ponies, traced them onto fabric then colored them in with markers.

Since we are moving into our log home in Montana soon, I thought I would make this challenge more rustic/Western.