Cleaning up the work table is NOT always a chore, – it gives me to surrender to another little love: to make little things.

Scooping up scraps, thinking of “what could that become”. . .

…a memory piece fabric postcard of a quilt I donated to Block Party Quilters’ small quilt sale.

The quilt was made mostly from my own hand-dyed cottons,
plus a little bit of cotton lame, silver sheer and interesting, corresponding threads.

The design and the quilting lines symbolize frangrance, how it unfolds, swirls around invisible, until you catch a tiny swift that reminds you of something in an instant…

I also love to make:

ATC

 a little baggie

a pouch

a “holder” for no matter what: eyeglasses

name tags

pots and pans

a small mobile ironing board

a miniature as a pin or brouche

or just fabric covered brick-weights

It’s a scary thought, making a beautiful quilt top, sewing carefully together slices of gorgeous hand-dyed fabric, and then pull out your scissors and cut holes into it. Never mind, you’ve only one shot of this. But once you get over your initial fear doing something wrong to your work, it’ll get better. You’ll lose that fear of the possibility to completely mess it up.
That clears your head and you can start with the layering, the quilting process later always in mind. The truth of the matter is, beautiful hand-dyed fabrics are your “friend”, – my friend and friends help each other to push forward.

Wild Fire

Every summer, wild fires run rampant and destructive thru valleys and forests. While flying ember bears the danger to kindle new fires, the heat, glow and power of fire also carries a lot of fascination and beauty.

 Size: w 21” x h 22”

Original design, 2011

How I came about:

In Nov. 2010 at another quilt show, I demonstrated my “ruler-less, free-shape cutting and piecing, which became over time my signature-technique in piecing. My demo drew lots of visitors, and while watching closely my own hands, I couldn’t miss the many Ah-Ha-moments in their faces..

It’s that time of the year, - Quilt Show Time!  March 16 thru 18th, 2012 at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, – we are now in the brand new Expo Hall!

Come and see the exhibits of the best quilts out of the 500+ membership of Quilters Anonymous Quilt Guild http://www.quiltersanonymous.com.

©  2012 Poster Art by Lisa Jenni 

Also on display are featured artist and guild member Dorothy (Sally) LeBoeuf. Her quilting repertoire reaches from classic appliqué to very contemporary quilts and her sense for color and humor lets your heart swing right into spring.

This year’s membership challenge features small wall quilts about COLOR. It was all about to pick a color paint chip from a hardware store. The challenge is to use ONLY this color with all it’s shades and tints, plus some small amount of the compliment, as well as black and white. See the creativity of the quilt makers, how they stitched into fabric their individual ideas in all imaginable forms and embellishments! – BTW, my color chip was dark Blue.

And don’t forget to visit my booth THINK-QUILTS.COM to check out the new prints and note cards. Also, the little recipe card boxes are back, but in limited number.

This annual quilt show, going on NOW - March 18 thru 20th, 2011-  exhibits the best quilts out of the 500+ membership of Quilters Anonymous Quilt Guild http://www.quiltersanonymous.com.

Also on display are featured artists and guild members Bunny Johanson and Maurine Roy, special exhibit Migration, an international quilt challenge between Washington State and South African quilt makers.

The membership challenge features small wall quilts about a foreign country. See the creativity of the quilt makers, how they stitched into fabric lots of memories with all imaginable forms of embellishments!

(Photpgraph © by Eva Stoerch)

 This picture shows exactly what I’m trying to explain to many aspiring artists: Shadow during daylight is BLUE – here is the proof!
The color of the sunlight is not very visible to our human eye, but it is sligtly orangy-yellow in winter, ergo the shadow is the complimentary color.

Deadlines, lurking in the future, some still far away, some are drawing dangerously close to the point of delivery. Avoiding the upcoming panic feelings, writing down a plan, track life line is probably a good idea.

Pecan Squares

Dough
160 g Flour
80 g Butter
1 tbsp Sugar
1 Eggyolk
pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Icewater   ——-> put all ingredients together quickly and chill for 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 350°F  (300°F convection oven)
Cut a square of baking parchment paper to line the bottom of a 9″x9″ square non-stick baking form. Roll out to cover the bottom of the baking form. Prick with a fork to avoid bubbles while baking. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
While it’s baking, prepare the nut filling

Nut Filling
50 g Butter
5 tbsp Dark Molasse
100 g Brown Sugar
100 g Whipping Cream
1 tsp Vanilla Extract ——–> mix in nonstick skillet and cook for 3 minutes while constantly stirring.

400 g Pecan Nuts (can be substituted by or mixed with walnuts)  —–> add nuts and cook for 3 more minutes

Pour nut filling on top of the pre-baked dough, smooth out with a spatula, return it into the oven and bake for 8 – 10 more minutes.

Let cool entirely.
Take the whole piece of cake-like bars out of the form and cut into 1″ squares with a big, sharp kitchen knife on a cutting board. The knife tends to stick to the nut filling, – rubb the knifes’ blade with a little bit of vegetable oil. You can also use an electric knife.

Tip: Substitute regular flour for gluten-free flour. This works well, since the dough is basically a pie bottom.

Tags: Cookie Recipe, European Christmas Cookie Recipes

Swiss Anis Cookies

(Anisbrötli, Chräbeli, Springerle)

4 Eggs (230 g – 250 g weight including shell)
450 g powdered Sugar
pinch of Salt
2 tbsp Anis Seeds
1 tbsp Kirsch Snaps  ——-> mix all ingredients until light yellow mass

550 g – 600 g flour   ——–> add to the batter

Roll out dough beween 2 SaranWrap sheets to 1 cm (5/8″) thickness and use pretty cookie cutters of 2″-2.5″ size (look for uniform and compact shapes).

Place on baking sheet lined with baking parchment paper, and let it dry for 24 – 48 hours. Look at the bottom of the cookies, if  the bottom edges are getting a white rim, they are ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 280 F and bake for about 25 minutes, keep oven door a crack open with a wooden spoon.
Advice from my Swiss husband: watch the last minutes of baking, when they look done, it might be over-done.

This type of dough can also be pressed into “Model”, a - wood-carved relief form, or just cut into strips and cross-clipped with sissors (Chräbeli).

Tags: Cookie Recipe, European Christmas Cookie Recipes

Most of my quilts grow like a plant.

It starts with a seed, an idea, a snippet, seen something somewhere…

Freezer Paper Template

 …a little sprout pushes upwards and after some time…

Pieced together

…colorful matter unfolds…

Slicing strips and stitching it back together

…until it reveals all the beauty nature has to offer.

Plant Life

More plant matter in form of lots of stitching

Plant Life (detail)

Credit:
 ”Plant Life” is loosely based on the book “Convergence Quilts” by Ricky Tims.

Tags: Art Quilts, Judy Robertson's hand-dyed fabrics, Quilts from and-dyed fabric