The fox stays - Building Blocks Tuesday

It is Tuesday, and alas, I have no blocks to share today.  However, I would like to share a finish of sorts, one that has been occupying a great deal of my time!

Kid art for class auction.  Each kid in the class designed a leaf.

This canvas was created for a PTA auction later this week.  Each child in my daughter's 2nd grade class designed a leaf.  They used sharpie markers to draw their designs on paper leaves, and then I painted the copied design onto the canvas with paint.  This process cut down on the time the kids needed to be out of class to participate; though it did make it more difficult for me!  I filled in a few empty leaves with basic geometric designs to fill it out.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that there was some debate on whether the fox should stay.  Originally I had painted some flowers in grass, but then it dawned on me that I had fall leaves and spring flowers in the same painting - not good.  I really felt something needed to be on the ground, so I tried the fox.  I was a little worried that he was too cartoon-y, but those of you on Instagram, and one of the teachers from school thought the fox should stay.  So he did!  And he is off on his way to the auction.

I can't tell you how many hours I have spent on this painting - way more than probably necessary, but you know how it goes.  The more you look at it, the more you want to tinker with it.  I am happy it is out of the house!

This wasn't the only labor intensive project I had to complete for the PTA auction.  I will share my other other finish later.

What blocks have you working on?  I would love to see.  Link up your fabulous blocks.  You put a lot of hard work into them - show them off!  This free linky will stay open until the first Monday of next month, but I will repost it every Tuesday until a new month starts.

Rules:

1) Please link up only to the page in your blog showing your wonderful blocks, not just the blog homepage.  Flickr pictures are also OK.
2) Make sure to put your blog name as the description so people know where they are going or the name of your block!
3) Please grab my button and post it in your blog post or sidebar.
4) Visit other linky participants!

Thanks for reading!

Jen

An InLinkz Link-up

Color Wheel of Charms - Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day

Hi there!  Welcome to Quilter in the Closet and my giveaway for the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day.  I love free stuff almost as much as I love quilting itself.  I love Sew Mama Sew's website.  They have great content, and this semi-annual giveaway day is always a great time for me to find new blogs.  I've already added about 15 this morning!

If you are new here, feel free to look around.  I love making stuff, especially quilts, in my spare time.  Here are just a few of my most recent finishes this year.

1. Doll Quilt Swap 14 finish, 2. Doll quilt turned wall hanging or sewing mat, 3. tiny log cabin pincushions, 4. finished shams, 5. Monet Inspired wall quilt, 6. Discontinuity 2, 7. Ashley's 1st Communion Banner, 8. guitar block with skinny border, 9. Les Amis zip pouch

All those projects were fun to make, and I can't wait to see what finishes the upcoming months bring.

I also host a weekly linky party for other quilters to show off any blocks they have made recently.  It is called Building Blocks Tuesday and it is posted every Tuesday whether or not I have any blocks to share.  You don't even have to follow my blog to participate.

I also have another linky party for Tutorials called "How I Do It".  This linky is cumulative, but I post the link around the 15th of each month.  So if you post tutorials, or just like to read tutorials, I hope you will stop back by later this week to check it out.

OK, OK, enough about me, I did mention Free Stuff after all.  For the giveaway, I'm giving away 50 charm squares!!  A Color Wheel of charms if you will, fun right?

I'm trying out the Rafflecopter widget for today's giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As it says in the widget, this giveaway will run until Friday, May 16th at 5 pm PST, when I will randomly choose a winner.  I will notify the winner via email by May 18th (so make sure your are not a no-reply blogger, if in doubt, leave your email address in the comment in the form of Name(at)domain(dot)com).  The giveaway is open to International entries!

I look forward to reading your comments.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

Inspirational Sunday (31) - via the 2013 International Quilt Festival in Long Beach

Happy Mother's Day!  Hopefully, I am lounging somewhere with a mimosa in my hand, perhaps getting a foot massage -- oh, who am I kidding??

Continuing with fabulously quilted quilts from the Quilt Festival today, allow me to share....

"Rainbow Lorikeet" by Helen Godden of Latham, Australian Capital Territory.  It won Honorable Mention in the Art-Painted Surface category.  It is hand painted, free-motion machine quilted, and is an original design.

Helen says, "The Rainbow Lorikeet soars swiftly and with grace through the tree tops like a colorful dart.  The bright primary colors of this Australian parrot are captured in detail, painted on the stunning white silk sateen, and surrounded by a burst of rainbow graded stitching celebrating his beautiful colors."

Lorikeets must be more graceful in the wild;  the ones at our local aquarium (they have a Lorikeet exhibit) are rather clumsy.  But they are beautiful!

I just love all the different quilting designs used in the backgrounds.  It is so neat!

The next quilt is called "Five Bar Blues" by Diane Loomis of Sudbury, Massachusetts.  It won 2nd place in the Merit Quilting Machine category.  It is machine pieced, machine trapunto, and machine quilted.  It is an Amish Bars pattern.

Diane says, "Inspired by antique Amish Bars quilts, this quilt was trapuntoed and quilted using many colors of silk thread.  While piecing the top, I decided I preferred rust for the borders, but didn't have enough cotton fabric left.  By happy accident, I found just the right color of silk sateen in my stash for the borders."

Just look at that gridwork!!

The next quilt is called "Lux Aurumque" by Jacquie Harvey of West Beckham, Holt, United Kingdom.  It is wholecloth, hand quilted, embroidered, couched and trapunto'd.  The design source is a Queen Anne silk embroidered bed cover.

She says, "I am a wholecloth hand quilter with a great interest in historical quilt designs.  English wholecloth quilts are traditionally made in one or two colours.  I wanted to try this out myself, but by hand.  I had not used embroidery stitches in a quilt before but this gave me an idea of how to use threads to introduce the colour I wanted.  I used many different  thickness of embroidery and quilting thread.  The centre has been quilted and the outer border has been trupunto'd with wool.  The title means "light and gold" which I thought was very appropriate."

I love those pineapples!

That's it for this week.  I think I only have a couple more weeks left from this show.  I may have to take a hiatus until I can visit another quilt show!

Thanks for reading today,

Jen