New Colors from Point Bonita

Every year at Point Bonita there are two events that bring all of us out of our studios to the main gathering room: the Bazaar, where anyone can bring their wares to sell, and the Silent Auction, where people donate quilt-related items that are auctioned off for the charity of the buyer's choice.

The bidding at the auction can get quite intense. Ladies hovered over the bid cards and blatantly crossed off each others bids, smiling ferociously at their rivals as the time left was called out: "One minute remaining!" "30 seconds remaining!" I was in such a bidding war for a huge and luscious pile of silk samples...and lost, alas! But when there were but 15 seconds to go I gave up, scooted across the room to another table, and put my winning bid on these incredible wool shawl ends covered with exquisite tambour work. (Here's a great link to see how tambour work is done.)

This is high quality wool, and a most satisfying consolation prize for losing out on those silks.

At the Bazaar my old friend Vicki Day had some ravishing hand-dyed felted wool for sale, so I bought a nice palette-full.

This is just ultra-wonderful and I know I'll be using it a lot.

More color! I took a painting workshop with Lynn Koolish, who was demonstrating some possibilities of the Liquitex paints C & T is selling to the quilt shops this year.
I wasn't interested in painting on fabrics, but I did try it out on some lace and trim.

That little sheet is Lutrador...I think I'll be able to cut some nice flower petals out of it.

Being in the creative atmosphere of Point Bonita inspired me to step way out of character and paint a shirt too. Well, actually I used the shirt as the background for when I was painting the lace....

I do find the cuff details quite fetching.
My husband says it looks like someone was riding a motorcycle and ran into a South American parrot.
I haven't had the courage to try it on yet!

Some of the wool and painted lace found its way into the project I worked on all week. It is a floral framed portrait of my beautiful niece, Amaleah.

"Amaleah: Welcome Home" 18" X 18"

It was so great looking down at that wonderful smile all week as I stitched. I used a vintage quilt block as my background.

Here is a detail shot:

There is a painted lace leaf along the bottom, and a four-petaled purple wool flower along the left side, with the blue flower bead in its center. (I learned that flower from Conni Jenkins here.) The embroidered leaves are of Vicki's wool as well.
There are several needlepunch ribbon flowers on this piece, and gathered lace flowers too.

What a great week it was.....