Art everywhere

I love being in Paris where there is life, colour, art. Everywhere.

detail from " Une Chambre Vide Soir Suivant",
a past exhibit at Made in Town
in Paris, France

I spent about 3 weeks there this summer.

Hallway designed by Icelandic-Danish artist
Olafur Eliasson at Foundation Louis Vuitton

13th arrondissement, street painting

Scrap Quilts

Everyone should learn to make scrap quilts. A reals crap quilt...using your scraps and not buying any new fabric!

I say learn because you can't really throw everything in. There is some order and some planning even if one is using leftover bits of fabric to make a quilt top.

Everyone who has made quilts has some scraps leftover. Why not use them? Throwing them out means they end up in land fill!!

I get very excited when I come up with a way to use up my bits. I feel like when I make a fabulous dinner using whatever is in the fridge! Like profession chefs who discover a food, like cauliflower leaves, that are normally thrown out. The chefs serve them in a fancy dish! So satisfying. No waste. That is better than recycling!

After the gingham fabric, I added the green strip.
The entire thing needed to be calmed!
It is amazing what a difference that bit of green border made.

So I decided to use up some old, 4-patch blocks already made (about 8 years ago!) and set them on-point. The challenge was finding a background fabric and a fabric for the set-in blocks using what I had hanging around.

What a fun design. I love it. Picnic in the Garden.

BIG

I have always wanted to be in a giant room with a giant painting.... ALONE. And it happened at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Orleans, France, this summer.

I mean, when do you go to a museum and NO ONE is in a room?

A rare occurrence.

I was so happy. I was there for half an hour - alone- enjoying this giant art piece, getting lost in it.  It was so big. No one talked. No one walked in front of me. Bellissimo!!

Heaven.

Art work by Simon Hantai, born in Hungary in 1922. Died in Paris in 2008.
Etude, 1969
oil on canvas

Expressive Drawing

I took an intense week of art classes at the AGO this summer - a drawing and mark making class with Claire Greenshaw. I made about 350 drawings. Some took 10 seconds. Some took 45 minutes.

The first day, Claire talked about being free and drawing like children draw.

It reminded me of my own kids. There were always some art supplies ready to use - papers, markers, paints, pencils. They drew with water on the fence and had the sun dry it. They drew on giant pieces of paper. The got their tiny fingers covered in colour and made tiny painted marks on the page.

They were free when they drew. Not much thought about what it was suppose to look like. Just drawing to explore a colour or a movement or a line. It was wonderful to watch.

 Be free.

(Art work hanging outside the Helene Comay Nursery School at the Wychwood Barns, Toronto. Sorry about the glare. The paintings were behind glass.)

Paris

I arrived in Paris early today.... Paris, France not Paris, Ontario!

I left my knitting on the plane! Very sad. Limited edition yarn, sock already started. Needles and pattern in a hand-made linen pouch.

Gorgeous summer day here. Everyone was out in the cafés.

Did you notice the stone under the window sill is a measuring station! A metre marked every 10 cm. Not sure which century. 

Baby Quilt

You wouldn't think this small quilt has 52 different fabrics in it.

baby quilt measures 30" x 42"

It is a simple, 9-patch construction, the centre square is the background fabric, here it is the colour Snow from Kona.......

and the alternate blocks are the opposite; the centre square being a fussy cut fabric- for storytelling!

The back fabric is shown below. The binding fabric is striped. I like putting stripes and florals together.

When I visit a quilt store I always look for a striped fabric to add to my stash, usually diagonal stripes which are difficult to find, and purchase a 1/2 m.  I use those for my bindings.

For this quilt, I bought the back fabric only. Everything else was selected from my stash.

My stash is primarily made up of leftover bits from other projects. Once in a while I purchase a fabric for something and realize when I get home that it won't work. That piece then gets put in the stash.

There were some leftover bits from the back fabric in this project. You know, the pieces you cut off after quilting when you square up the finished quilt.

This baby quilt is a gift for a new baby. I started quilting it by machine and decided it needed to be hand quilted.

Hope Lily likes it.

North of Toronto

I love walking in the woods when it is cold and fresh and there is no one around.

The "winter" air is energizing.

I stop often to listen to the silence.

People often tell me I have it backwards- that I should go to Italy in the winter and stay in Canada in the summer. But I love the winter!

It is maple syrup time. The days reach +5 C and the nights go down to -5 C.

(I hope my photographs are inspirational to you. Fabric ruffles. They were taken in several conservation areas outside Toronto)