Here are the newest pieces we made for Quilt Odyssey, last week's show in Hershey PA. Since we did not know we were going until the last minute, all we had time to make for this quilter's extravaganza were ornaments. We joke that as we quilt in glass, here's what we use: glass Berninas and glass thread.

These spools were a big hit; we had to take orders since we just could not solder another piece by Saturday night.

Our larger pieces were appreciated too- we sold a couple of the 18" panels for sunrooms, some smaller panels featuring a Star of David, a Dutchman's puzzle that was new for the show and our usual complement of appliqued hearts, small panels and ornaments.

The nicest part of the show was that people recognized us from Love Apple quilt show, from The Flying Geese show and even from Savage MD where I live. It's so nice to be remembered!

For the next week we are just going to offer these to a few of our local quilt shops in PA. We hope to put some up on ETSY later this month as well as a few of our smaller panels. Watch this side space for a sampling of our works.

Celtic Heart by Night

Here is the newest design, a 17" piece with a multicolored green Celtic heart. It's a bit hard to see, since this is what the piece looks like by night, but there are 6 different colors of glass in the entwined ribbons, surrounded by a pearlized white border. It's a great piece( I didn't design it, Di did)

This is one of the pieces we have at Artomatic in DC. Show runs to mid June. Come see us there

Our stuff at Artomatic.

Wow, there is a wonderful collection of artists at this show! I spent last night , along with hundreds of others, finishing my booth display. It was a pleasant mad house. A madhouse since the electric still was not installed, but wonderful since all the fellow artists were so kind and helpful.

This is just a few of the pieces I have up on the 8th floor corner space. I have light and a great view to the National Cathedral in the far right. The show is in a new unfinished office tower at M and 1st street NE right near Gaudallet College and a block off the metro stop.

For this show we only brought our bigger pieces, since this is a show, not a sale. We can sell our pieces, but we have to leave them up until June 16. http://www.artomatic.org/

Baltimore Album Quilt Inspired Piece Fall Version

Getting ready for the Dulles show, the Northern Virginia Christmas Market in 2 weeks and going crazy. To the left is my newest piece, the second in the Baltimore Album series-Fall. On the right is the closeup of the center. Since this is meant to be a companion piece to the Summer one with the molded red roses I already made, I had to have a 3-D element in this piece too. I made the grapes of glass globs that I ground so they'd fit into each other. I also used the same glass and rough shape for the basket. This insures continuity between the pieces. Unfortunately, the Winter square, currently under design does not lend itself to a basket in the center. So taking a cue from Baltimore quilts, with their wealth of design elements, I drafted a pattern of a wren in a holly spray. I can use the same greens, browns, reds and caramels as in the other pieces, but give the block its own focus.

Back From Ballston Show

Oh Heavy West of Ireland Sigh. I had a great time at the show, but little in sales. Mostly small items to ramblers on their way to pick up a newspaper at the deli. Which is a pity since it really is a nice venue and the people are great. Still, I need to pick up sales, so I may not do this one next year.
On the other hand I met a nice lady who is considering a commission . Shows are often like that- you get a few sales, but something crops up later down the road.

I did sell the blue and yellow sun in orbit/cross piece to a woman giving it to her minister sister for the holidays so that was nice. Also met some wonderful other crafters so that's a positive too.
Check out the jewelry from Just Plain Jane and the t shirts from I Like Seamonsters. http://www.justplainjane.com/
http://www.ilikeseamonsters.com/catalog/

The Bride's Basket Inspired Panel

This as yet unframed piece was inspired by an old quilt patch called Bride's Basket. It's meant to represent a flower and leaves in a small footed basket. I've made some changes to the pattern. Mostly the changes are in using parallelograms or trapezoids for the flower shapes instead of using right triangles as you do in fabric. In fabric the seam line between two same-color triangles visually disappears. Cutting and stitching 2 right triangles into squares is easier than stitching a trapezoid into another piece. You get the dreaded Y shaped seam.

In stained glass though, a Y shaped seam is as easy to insert as a right angle. However, each "seam line" really shows up. So although the final visual effect is the same in a quilters version and ours, we really do have to redraft the quilt patterns for glass use.

Designing Small Stained Glass Panel

I've been having so much fun with the small one piece hearts, I thought I'd try to come up with a small panel that uses them.

After playing around , I finally came up with a 7" square panel set on point. For non quilters, that means oriented like a diamond. I've a knobby English Muffle glass in a sherry color as a border, with a champagne colored background and a wine red free hand heart in the center. Since the background and border are regular, I thought I 'd more or less center an irregular heart as the focal point. It keeps the piece from being too static.



I picked warm Fall colors, but the undertones clashed. The orange red heart looks terrible next to the English muffle maroon in the border. Fortunately, the champagne swirls bridge the gap between the 2 colors.





Small panels, ornaments and sun catchers tend to be viewed up close, so the static versus flowing aspects of the design are more noticeable. In a very large piece, the most important consideration is the effect the colors have on surrounding area.