Spring!

The weather is warming up at long last.

Its really spring! The grass is getting very green finally!

Little purple buds are showing up soon to turn into Lilacs. I can hardly wait!

Springtime daffodil's yellow basket.with glass beads along a green band.

these are the ATCs from the trade. The photo is not so great, they look better in person.

IQA show

The show was fantastic. The quilts were the best I have seen at this show so far! Loads of amazing work. I went after work on Saturday and boy, do my feet ache now.. I did not take along my camera but here is the link for the official site with photos etc. http://www.quilts.com/sqf09/enVivo/
I traded my ATCs and will post photos soon. The Quilting Arts Make it University was a very happening place. Lots of laughs. I gave one of the ATCs made with my winning fabric swatches from QA blog to blog owner and editor, Pokey. And one went to my grandson so I had five to trade. I said a hello to many bloggers and met so many friendly people. I am very very glad I went. I left with inspirations to create better art. To stretch my limits past all comforts. To break and ignore all art and quilt 'rules' . I was humbled. I was in awe. I left inspired.

Artists Trading Cards and the International Quilt Festival/Chicago

The International Quilt Festival/Chicago is here this weekend. I hemmed and hawed about going and even decided that I was going to stay home this year. Economy and work weary feet being my reasons. But, it is THE biggest show around. How could I as a quilt artist dare miss it? There are plenty of people who live far from such venues who would just love to live so close to this show! So, I will sacrifice my time and aching feet to go...like I really would have not gone. Ha!

Along with all the amazing quilts to see there will be booths galore full of stuff to buy. I will avoid these places, except of course to pop in at Artfabrik to say a hello to Laura and Frieda. Then of course I will wander over to the Quilting Arts make it university area to see who is doing demos etc there. AND there will be a load of ATC's ( artists trading cards ) to trade. So in preparation I have been busy making some ATCs to trade. Having little time I managed to make only these few. I know that once I see the others up for trades I will be wishing I had many many more

You may notice that I used some of the beautiful fabrics that I won from Quilting Arts. What better way to utilize these then to transform them into cards for trading at the Quilting Arts booth! I am posting the photo before I am finished with the little (2.5 x 3.5 inches) cards but the light is fading and I actually have a bit of free time to blog. I still need to finish the edges of these somehow.

Happy Easter! Happy Spring!

It appears I am not the only one in my family with a love of crows and ravens. Here is a painting done by my brother, Asante Riverwind.
Titled, Raven Triad Mandala II, acrylic on canvas, 18" X 24".


This poem accompanies the painting.
"Egg of creation
ever balanced between
beaks of three ravens
infinity swirling"