Open House and Frozen - Building Blocks Tuesday

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend (a nice long one for those of us in the States).

Caution!  Real life ahead - I have no blocks to share this morning, so feel free to skip down to the link up if you only want to see quilty things; last week I was busy with a bunch of other things.....

Thursday night was Open House at the elementary school.  As the art docent for my daughters' classes, I was responsible for saving one of our projects during the year and displaying it in the cafeteria for all to see.  Here is a picture of the kindergarten class projects.

These were abstract paintings of inspired by tribal masks.  Don't worry, I did not advertise my blog there in the center.  I just took a picture of the work before I put up the teacher's name and project title.  I guess I didn't snap a picture of the 2nd grade class display, but their projects were lovely too.

Also at school, the kindergarten class hatched baby chicks just in time for Open House.  My youngest was mesmerized by them.  I couldn't help but post this pic of her little face pressed up against the glass.

This past weekend was also my middle daughter's birthday.  Of course, she wanted a Frozen themed birthday.  Talk about a challenge!  Frozen is extremely popular and many items are sold out in our area.

We got a lovely (and delicious) cake from Torrance Bakery, and they also made us gorgeous snowflake cookies for our favors.  I think getting these cookies was the best thing for favors.  I always stress over putting together little goody bags for our guests, and let's face it, they are usually filled with little trinkets of junk!  These cookies were a hit with the kids and the parents.  I'm definitely doing cookies for favors from now on!

The day was a success, and Lizzy was very happy.  As you can see from the pic below, she is ready to take over the world.

Now back to quilting.....

I've come to realize that my schedule over the summer is going to be a little crazy.  July in particular is extremely busy.  I am wondering if there is anyone out there who would like to host Building Blocks Tuesday during July??  If you have ever visited TGIFF, I'm thinking it would work like that --  you would sign up for a particular Tuesday, show off your work, and I will give you the code for the link up and direct anyone stopping by here where the link up is for the week.  Is anyone interested?  Please leave a comment below or just email me direct at intheclosetquilter(at)gmail(dot)com.

What blocks have you working on this week?  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

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

My Monet quilt - Pantone Quilt Challenge entry

Behold!  My last minute (and only) entry for the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge.

I've been planning this one for weeks, but was just able to get to it this week.

This wall quilt measures 19 inches by 15 inches and is inspired by Monet's Houses of Parliament series of paintings.  I used fusible to create the scene, then quilted the daylights out of it!

Now before you think I am the bee's knees for coming up with this idea.  I must admit that for a couple of weeks there, I was surrounded by purple Houses of Parliament.  It was one of the more recent projects that I taught to my daughters' classes at school through the Hands on Art program.  When Anne at Play-Crafts announced the Pantone color challenge the same week I was painting and teaching this purplicious project, I knew it was fate that I would attempt to make one in quilt form.

How did I do?  If you like what you see, head on over to Play-Crafts to see all the other awesome entries.

If you are interested in a more detailed step by step how I made this quilt, I took photos along the way and here is the tutorial so you can make your own.

Thanks for reading today,

Jen


Linking up with:

"Happy Things" Art with the kids - Inspirational Sunday

It's been a while since I showed you some of the art projects that Ashley and I completed through the art program at her school this year.

For those of you who are new readers to the blog, I volunteer at my daughter's school as an art teacher.  Art was taken out of the curriculum due to budgetary issues and it is only through PTA funding and parent volunteers that our kids have art now.  We only have 6 projects each year, and I shared them with you last year and want to share this year's projects too.  I find these projects very inspirational, even though not all of them can be applied to the quilting arts.  Just search the label "art with kids" on the bottom right for last year's projects.  OR you can go to the official South Bay Hands on Art Blog.

Now just because I volunteer as a docent, does NOT mean that I am any good.  But as I said, I do find the lessons inspirational and I hope you will too.

The project I am going to share with you today was based on the work of Romero Britto.   We were instructed to think of something that made us happy and try to draw a rough sketch of it.  We then segmented the page and colored it in with different bright colors.  The kids really enjoyed this project because of the bright colors and the coloring with pastels.

The dividing of the page, makes me think of the stack and slash methods out there.  It would be cool to try to figure out a way to make a quilt like that with an actual picture of something and not have the seam allowances mess it up.  I suppose it would depend highly on the picture.

The beach makes me happy, so that is what I drew.

But I think Ashley's "good thing" makes me even happier, especially since I received it as part of my Mother's Day gift this year.

So sweet!  Next week, I will show you our attempts at Picasso.

Speaking of painting like Picasso and in other art news, Craftsy announced yesterday that they are adding a Fine Art category of classes to their library.  There are several classes, but I think I might try out the Perspectives in Landscape Drawing class.  Who knows, I might want to start with just trying to draw a little every day.  I hear people really improve themselves just by doing that simple thing.

I've also been listening to a bunch of podcasts lately.  I'm a regular subscriber to Katie's Quilting Corner, but also recently found Quilting for the Rest of Us, and Hip to Be Square.  Do you know of any other good AND current ones?  I found some good ones, but they stopped podcasting or haven't had an episode in a really long while.  I am in the car a ridiculous amount of time during the day, driving the kiddos around to their activities.  Seriously!  So much time, I now have a "trucker tan", one arm and one side of my neck are a different color than the other sides.  I found audio books would make me zone out a little too much, but quilty podcasts are just right!  So tell me which ones you like and why.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

Jacob's Ladder - a Friday Finish

Hooray, hooray!  I have actually finished something!

This little quilt is about 48 inches square.  I used a layer cake of Deb Strain's "Spa" fabric, plus a few squares of solids to round it out.  I quilted it quite simply - just SID and then 1/4 inch on either side of each seam.  I am sending this quilt off to Happy Chemo as my contribution for the Hands2Help 2013 charity quilt drive.

I also spent quite a bit of time this week putting together a display of the art work that Ashley's class created as part of the school's Open House event.  At the beginning of the school year, we are told which art project to hold onto for Open House.  I was disappointed that our class had to display this project, but only because it was a difficult project to complete and the students did some fabulous art in other projects throughout the year.  Here is the display:

The project entailed scraping a black paper (with some sort of clay surface) with engraving tools so that the white surface showed through.  It was supposed to be a night scene, but the docents got fair warning ahead of time that the supplies chosen for the project weren't easy to work with, so we allowed the kids to basically draw what they wanted.  The engraving tools were difficult to work with.  You had to scrape at a special angle to get any of the black off and then if they scraped too hard, the paper would end up with holes in it.  I teach 1st graders.  Like I said, it was a tough project.

I am so happy that this part of my volunteer job is over.  I stress so much about the display even though it was only for ONE hour.  Some of the docents really go all out, spending hundreds of dollars on supplies for their displays.  I had to remind myself several times not to get too caught up in the competition.  Still, the kids deserve to have their creations exhibited.

I have one more project to teach - a Picasso inspired painting!

Thanks for reading today,

Jen

Linking up with:

Peacock Pride - art with the kids

For those of you who are new readers to the blog, I volunteer at my daughter's school as an art teacher.  Art was taken out of the curriculum due to budgetary issues and it is only through PTA funding and parent volunteers that our kids have art now.  We only have 6 projects each year, and I shared them with you last year and want to share this year's projects too.  I find these projects very inspirational, even though not all of them can be applied to the quilting arts.  Just search the label "art with kids" on the bottom right for last year's projects.  OR you can go to the official South Bay Hands on Art Blog!  Something I just discovered today.

My first attempt

Our first project this year was called "Proud as a Peacock" and is a project inspired by James Whistler's Peacock Room.  After introducing Whistler and his work, the students were asked to draw a peacock onto sandpaper using pastel crayons.  We went step by step, starting with ovals, then working out to the feathers.  The students LOVE the art lessons.

Here is my daughter with her peacock.

Even though you can't see her huge smile, she is proud as a peacock of her art.

So who wants to make a peacock mug rug?

I teach our next class on December 13th, a project inspired by Hannah Frank.

Jen

A day of rest? On vacation?

First, let me thank all of you that stopped by for the Red, White, and Blue Blog Hop. I was amazed and encouraged by all the lovely comments! It has inspired me to actually do SOMETHING with my block. I am not sure if I will make some friends to go with it, or if I will make it into a cute beach bag. Today marks the half way point in our family summer vacation.

The girls are having a blast! As a result, my husband and I are needing more naps. Thankfully, on vacation, you can do that!

Now, I don't want you thinking that I am only lounging around the pool or beach. I have actually made quite a bit of progress on the embroidery portion of my medallion quilt as part of the handstitched class. If I can figure out how to post pictures from my camera, I will attempt to show you when it is done! I need to get it done before we leave since I am already WAY behind in the class.

I hope your summer is treating you well!

Jen

Finish Friday - Flipped Out!

No quilty finishes this week, but I did have a great training class for art with the kids.  The project is a Notan.  This is the first one I made.  I was thinking of stippling when I chose my shapes.

This is the second one that I made trying to simplify the shapes for the kindergartners.

I started by just cutting out triangles, squares, and rectangles.  It wasn't until I started flipping the images out that it started to look like a face.  Just goes to show you that sometimes with art, you don't know what you are going to get until you approach the finish.

Next week, something quilting will be finished.  It might only be a placemat, but it will be quilty.

Quilt on!

A case of the Monday's

I'm not sure if it was all the wet weather we had over the weekend, or the baby being up several times in the middle of the night (unusual for her), but I was absolutely beat today.  I think the 3rd graders could sense it too, because they had a hard time focusing too.  I guess it was a case of the Monday's all around.

I didn't sew much today because I taught my art class to the 3rd graders.  This month's project is based on the works of Georgia O'Keefe and involves making a monoprint out of a Styrofoam sheet, painting it, and transferring the paint to a black piece of paper.  Since Georgia painted beautiful flowers, flowers are our focal point and we were supposed to make them "Larger than Life" and fill the entire paper.  Here is the first one that I completed.

It is supposed to be the center of an orchid.  It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, so I made another.

I like this one better, but I still wasn't thrilled.

I actually told the students today that I thought the difference between artists and non-artists is that artists create something and say to themselves, "Yeah, I like it! Let's hang it on the wall!", and non-artist are ever-critical of their work.  I could be wrong, but it seems to be true on some days.

On the sewing table, I managed to finish the rest of the blocks for the Lincoln UFO, but haven't sewn them together into a flimsy yet.  I also finished the top and back of what will become my free motion placemat for this month.  Hopefully, I will get it sandwiched and quilted tomorrow so I can post by the end of the month.  My Easter runner is also partially quilted and I am trying to decide if I want to do more or not.  I think it needs a little more than just in-the-ditch, but.....it sure would be nice to just be done with it.

Give-a-way Winner!

The winner of the charm pack give-a-way, according to Random.org, is Janet. (I haven't quite figured out how to post a picture of the results from their site yet, but I promise it is her.)  Janet said she was hoping to make a charity baby quilt with the charm pack.  A lovely notion!  This is great fabric for that.

In other news, the art class with the kindergartners was today.  It went well, but the teacher and I decided not to give the kids the additional options of drawing figures in coats.  Evidently, two other kindergarten classes went yesterday and things got a little crazy and tears were shed.  In the interest of keeping everyone sane, and the kids from crying, we just did simple panels instead.  The kids did great!   I wish you were there!

Tomorrow, I am working on my block for the Desperate Housewives Quilt from Jane's Blog Want it, Need it, Quilt it.  It's not going to be an easy one, but I hope it will be an interesting one.  Look for that post at the end of the week.

So No Sew - Art with the Kids today

No sewing today.  Unfortunate, since I have so much to do by Wednesday!  But today was one of my art with the kids days.  Today, I taught the 3rd graders.  Wednesday, I get to teach the Kindergartners.  The project is based on some of the works of Gustav Klimt.  If there was ever an artist who's work was begging to be made into an art quilt, it is that guy (maybe minus the partial nudity)!  Here is the example I made at docent training:

I know it is not ready for the museum or anything, but considering how badly I draw, I am pretty proud of it.  Can you see I also tried to incorporate this month's free motion challenge feathers too?

It is a really fun project, but it has a LOT of steps.  I was a little worried that it would be a disaster with the kids, even with the 3rd graders.  But, they did a magnificent job!!!  I wish I could show you some of their work.  You will just have to wait until Wednesday, when my kid gets to complete it.  I am supposed to teach the younger kids a simplified version, but I am torn.  I think they could do the portrait.  It will be a day-of decision, no doubt.


Don't forget to join my giveaway before you leave!

Art Training for the Kids

Ah, the power of prayer.  Thank you all who prayed with me last night, it worked!  I will now try to refrain from talking of such things again.

I was able to make my art training class today!  Today's project was a sculpture of sorts based on the works of Charles Arnoldi  http://www.charlesarnoldistudio.com/index.html.  I must admit that before today's class, I had no idea who he was or what type of work he did.  And unfortunately, out of all his works, this is the stuff I am least interested in.  But hey, it's for the kids, and I guess this is a project that can be suited for them.  Of course, even as I type that I am already struggling with how to teach a few portions of the project to kindergartners.  Anyway, a few of you expressed an interest in seeing some of the projects, so I snapped a picture of mine before they whisked it away to become "examples" for this kids. Then, I promptly broke my camera (is my art THAT bad?).

Like I said, not really my style, but perhaps I will GROW somehow.  I did enjoy seeing some of Mr. Arnoldi's modern paintings.  I could see an art quilt inspired by them....if I ever had time for that!

I also finally got my previous project back.  It was called "Reflections in Nature", basically a landscape with a reflection aspect.  Here are my two, and my daughter's paintings.  She was in a dark mood evidently...

I don't think I'm very good with a brush, but hey, it was fun!