Christmas vacation in the studio

(Above: Window XXII. Unframed 11" x 9"; Framed 17 3/4" x 15 3/4". Click on image to enlarge.)

This is the first Christmas that Steve and I have spent by ourselves. Our elder son, Mathias, stayed in Great Britain, visiting his girlfriend's family. Although our estranged child Alex did manage to visit briefly and there were several great telephone conversations with other family members, Steve and I had a fantastic few days alone. It was like a wonderful, quiet Christmas vacation. I went to my studio ... the place on earth I enjoy the most. It was peaceful and perfect. I was productive and happy. We will be heading north on Wednesday to spend a long New Year's Eve weekend with my parents in Slippery Rock. We are going to the "Silvester" celebration in Harmony, PA. (That's the German name for New Year's Eve!)

S0....here's what was accomplished in the past few days...when I have nothing but glorious, uninterrupted time for art!


(Above: Lancet Window II. Unframed 28" x 8"; Framed 31 1/2" x 11 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Lancet Window III. Unframed 28" x 8"; Framed 31 1/2" x 11 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Lancet Window IV. Unframed 28" x 8"; Framed 31 1/2" x 11 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Lancet Window V. Unframed 28" x 8"; Framed 31 1/2" x 11 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)

So....This is a new size for my faux-stained glass fiber pieces. It was a size sort of suggested by my mother for a special location in her log cabin home .... between two story high windows overlooking her lake. That's why Lancet Window I isn't posted. It's her Christmas gift. She knows it is coming .... but she'll have to wait to see it in person! I'll post images later.

A lancet window is, according to an on-line dictionary: a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singularly or in pairs.


(Above: Window XXIII. Unframed 11" x 9"; Framed 17 3/4" x 15 3/4". Click on image to enlarge.)

I also finished Window XXII (first photo in this post) and XXIII. With all this work, I've run out of several supplies including 100% black cotton quilting thread and Wonder Under, especially the "previously painted" Wonder Under (also known as Bond-a-Web). So, I've been shopping and painting!


(Above: Yards of painted Wonder Under on the hallway floor just outside my studio door on a perfectly quiet Christmas Day!)

I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions too but haven't quite settled on which one(s) to concentrate!

ACCEPTED!

(Above: My friend Ashleigh, my third cat Max, and I last November wearing the artificial cemetery floral garments for our entry photo shot. Click on image to enlarge.)

Both my Cemetery Flower Dress and Cemetery Leaf Dress were accepted into the Wearable Arts Award performances and exhibition at the Port Moody Art Centre in British Columbia! For a fiber artist who generally creates NOTHING that is functional in any form, this is BIG NEWS! I hadn't made anything "useful" in well over two decades. Now two dresses are going down the catwalk in another country! To celebrate, Steve used our "companion ticket" (basically, buy a flight and get the second seat FREE) to book airline reservations for us to attend the fashion show in February. We're going to Seattle and renting a car .... looking at scenery, stitching during the ride, and seeing a high class, recycled fashion show! I'm SO EXCITED!

To see how I created these wash-and-wear, recycled dresses made of artificial cemetery flowers/leaves collected from dumpsters, CLICK HERE. They were stitched on a water soluble, adhesive coated stabilizer. Then, the stabilizer was rinsed away .... leaving only the thread and the flowers/leaves.

Four New "Windows"

(Above: Window XVIII. Framed 17 3/4" x 15 3/4". Click on image to enlarge.)

I've tried hard to prevent the busy holiday season from intruding on my personal studio time. It isn't easy but I've managed. As a result, I've got four new "Windows" to share!


(Above: Window XIX. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Window XX. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Window XXI. Click on image to enlarge.)

I've also decided to try a new size .... long and skinny. The measurements will be approximate 28" long by 8 " in width. The Edelweiss colored linen mat board on which each will be stitched will be 30" x 10". I can get four pieces mounted from a single sheet of mat board. It is financially important to maximize my framing materials ... but it also feels good not to be wasting anything. The first one is nearly finished so there will be photos coming soon! These will be called "Lancet Windows". According to Wikipedia, the definition of a lancet window is: "a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance."



(Above: Window XVIII framed and hanging on the wall here at Mouse House. Click on image to enlarge.)

With the mention of "framing", here's a photo of Window XVIII in its frame. It is stitched to the very palest "sea grass" green mat board ... which is likely just a green tinted off white ... with a matching silk liner and a dark frame with a distressed silver lip. The glass is between the liner and the frame ... which holds the glass away from the artwork. Now ... back to work!

Stained Glass XXVI and Ancestors

(Above: Ancestors, detail. Wooden spools, painted, wrapped, and stitched with thumbnail images from vintage family and assorted found photographs. Click on image to enlarge.)

It's holiday framing season even at a severely downsized Mouse House, Inc. ... the business I have with my husband Steve. I haven't done a thing with the amazing photos from our long weekend in Seattle, but I will soon ... maybe on Christmas day! In the meantime, I've been framing various 2D gifts and earning the money for future travel. (I'm not really complaining....ten years ago I would have been spending every waking hour at my mat cutter ... from before Halloween until Christmas eve!)


(Above: Me with two of the kittens!)

We've also been very busy with a litter of kittens and the feral mama cat who deposited her family in the shed attached to our garage. My mentor Stephen Chesley has talents beyond painting. He's an expert cat catcher ... has his own cat trap and a pair of heavy welding gloves. He caught the kittens by hand. Mama Cat was in the trap by the next morning. I took her to our veterinarian, Shawn Verbrick at The Cat Clinic. $232 later, Mama was spayed, given rabies shots, tested for feline leukemia and then released. She's more than capable of survival in our neighborhood; we've seen her on an off for over two years. She can now hunt squirrels without the worry of another pregnancy. Yet, we still had three kittens ... until posting them on Facebook. The amazing power of the Internet found loving homes for all three.


(The little black and white kitten's photo for Facebook!)

My blogging and correspondence time has suffered through all these activities ... but I refuse to cut into my studio time. Therefore, I can share Stained Glass XXVI and Ancestors.


(Above: Stained Glass XXVI. Polyester stretch velvets, previously painted heat activated adhesive/Wonder Under, metallic foiling, chiffon scarves, free motion machine embroidery using 100% black cotton quilting thread, melting. Unframed: 58" x 18"; Framed: 64 1/2" x 24 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Top of Stained Glass XXVI. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Middle portion of Stained Glass XXVI. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: Bottom of Stained Glass XXVI. Click on image to enlarge.)



Scale is often a difficult thing to visualize when surfing the web. Sure, I post dimensions ... frequently "framed" and "unframed" ... but sometimes a photo with something for "reference", like our cat Shadow, is helpful. These three pieces are stitched to over-sized linen mat board and already in black linen liners. They will soon be put into frames with Plexi-Glas between the liner and the moulding ... which will bring them to the 64 1/2" x 24 1/2" total size.


(Above: Ancestors with fiber vessel. Click on image to enlarge.)

Most evenings I stitch by hand while Steve watches television. (I'm supposedly watching too but I often can't even remember what was showing!) Recently I've been stitching into the yarn wound around the sanded and painted wooden spools created a week or so ago. Each one includes a thumbnail image from a vintage family or collected photograph. I took photos with and without the fiber vessel. I'm not sure which is "better" or "why". Vessels are created after zigzagging several strands of old yarn together and then zigzagging the cord into a three dimensional form. It is very meditative to do!

Back from Seattle....and Ephemera

(Above: Ephemera I. Mixed media: collage of wooden spool labels on a page from Tableaux du Temple des Muses (date....1655 !) with a late 19th c./early 20th c. cigar silk and free motion machine embroidery. Paper size: 13 3/8" x 8 3/4"; Matted size: 20" x 16". Click on image to enlarge.)

We're back from a WONDERFUL long weekend under crystal clear skies in Seattle! We watched the new Harry Potter movie on the IMAX screen, enjoyed the Stowell/Sendak "Nutcracker" by Pacific Northwest Ballet, rode the nearly fifty year old monorail, ate in the 1962 World's Fair Space Needle's revolving restaurant, made monoprints in the Bellevue Art Museum (in addition to seeing some of the best fine crafts in one of the best spaces in the USA), loved the Seattle Museum of Art and the sculpture park, and wandered through the galleries and studios near Pioneer Square for the monthly "First Thursday" art crawl. I'll be posting photos and more details later.

Before I left, Ephemera I was complete....just not matted, mounted, and photographed. It is the result of a combination of influences that occupied my studio.

First, I was in the process of started a project called Ancestors. One hundred and eighty-six or so wooden spools are involved. The first step was to remove the paper labels and sand the ends for painting. Most of the labels crumbled away, but some came off in tact. They were sitting together in a little pile.

Second, I was rummaging through vintage and antique images in order to create a wooden Nutcracker for Columbia City Ballet. I happened to find a stack of pages from a mid-seventeenth century book we once owned. Well, that's not entirely true. We never really had the entire book, just a section of it in a new binding. Some of the pages were missing. Some of the engravings were also missing. We framed and sold the remaining images. I turned most of the volume into a altered sketch book that I used during the one-week artist residency on Pritchard's Island in 2003. On other pages I applied a coat of gesso to one side. These were the pages I found. On one page I decided to collage the spool labels. I fused fabric to the gessoed reverse using my large vacuum-mount press. (Yes, it is good to own a frame shop!) Then I free motion stitched on the page and added the cigar silk that was also uncovered during the hunt for Nutcracker images.

This piece was fast and fun. I'm planning on doing more...because it was fast and fun! The title Ephemera refers to the transitory and diverse nature of so many paper labels, advertisements, and books with missing pages.

Nutcracker and my work on USAToday Travel website

I'm thrilled to see Window XIV featured on an article called "Marriott's SpringHill Suites Chain Wants Hotels to Double as Art Galleries" by Barbara De Lollis. The article is HERE. The art sale is this Friday night....but I'll be in Seattle. Steve and I fly out tomorrow morning for a long weekend!



FINISHED!
The plywood Nutcracker has been transformed into "THE NUTCRACKER IN 1893". (Click on any image to enlarge.) This is a mixed media collage of antique and vintage images that illustrate all the scenes from the Nutcracker Ballet. I tried to use pictures that dated as close to the 1893 premiere as possible....but some are twenty years early and others are 32 years later....but close enough! The work is to be used in a fund-raiser for Columbia City Ballet.


(Above: Detail of the shield.)

Even the base is done in chromolithographs of textile designs, dated 1883. I added buttons....including over a dozen vintage black glass ones from the Czech Republic for his beard!


(Above: Detail of the vintage glass buttons from the Czech Republic.)

On the back is the following full-sheet label and my signature:

The Nutcracker in 1893

Mixed Media Collage by Susan Lenz

The great French born Marius Petipa and his successor Lev Ivanov created the two-act Nutcracker Ballet as an adaption of E. T. A. Hoffman’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”. It was premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on December 18, 1892 and set to the original score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Columbia artist Susan Lenz first saw the Nutcracker at the Township Auditorium in Columbia, South Carolina during Thanksgiving weekend 1987. William Starrett, a guest dancer performing the Sugar Plum Cavalier, partnered rising star Mariclare Miranda. Susan was pregnant with her first, Mathias Lenz Dingman, now a first-artist with Birmingham Royal Ballet who has danced Nutcracker roles as Jack-in-the-Box, rat, Spanish, Clara’s Act One cadet partner, Russian, and others. Mathias has also danced the role of Sugar Plum Cavalier at the Township Auditorium with Carolina Ballet (2005). Thus, creating this Nutcracker has been an opportunity for Susan Lenz to reflect on the ballet, her personal association with the local company, and the traditions of dance carried through generations of performers. A mixed media collage of vintage images dating as close to 1893 became Susan’s concept for the piece. Below is a selected list of sources for the vintage and antique images used.

Dance and Dancers of Today, 1912 by Charles Henry and Carolina Chaffin. (The photos used include: Anna Pavlowa; Adeline Genée in her Butterfly Dance; Lydia Lopoukowa in the dance-drama Shéhérazade; Rita Sacchetto in her Spanish Dance: Adeline Genée in her Empire Dance; Ruth St. Denis in the Nautch Dance; Mlle. Katarina Geltzer of the Russian Imperial Ballet; and Adeline Genée in the Silver Star.)

Art and Architecture, World’s Columbia Exposition by George Barre, 1894-95

Handbook to Paris and Its Environs by Thomas Carlyle, 1893.

Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume Historique, 1876-88. (Edition used was published in 1880. Images used include costume chromolithographs from India, Spain, and Russia)

Little Pictures of Japan, edited by Olive Beaupré Miller and illustrated by Katharine Stuges, 1925

Nursery Friends from France, translated by Olive Beaupré Miller and illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham, 1925

Tales Told in Holland, edited by Olive Beaupré an dillustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham, 1926.

Ornamente der Gewebe (Ornamental Tapestries) with chromolithographs by Friedrick Fischbach, 1883.

Animate Creation, 1894 with chromolithographs by Selmar Hess

Buffon’s Historie Naturelle, ca. 1840.

And assorted other 19^th century engravings and lithographs.

Love Thanksgiving Weekend!

(Above: Collecting napkins at the Ohio State vs Michigan game. Please notice the nice jacket. It was once my Dad's....back when I was a toddler. To learn more about the "napkins"....you've got to read to the bottom of this post!)

I love holidays that stretch my studio time over several long, leisure days. There's plenty of peace and quiet and more than enough art to make....especially since I'm lucky enough to be married to a fabulous cook like Steve! (The turkey was delicious!)

I spent time on three main projects: a new faux-stained glass window; painted and wrapped wooden spools; and a plywood Nutcracker that will become a silent auction fund raiser item for Columbia City Ballet.


So....first up (above): Stained Glass XXV. It's 64 1/2" x 24 1/2" framed; approximately 57" x 17" unframed. It's polyester stretch velvets with plenty of heat-activated adhesive (Wonder Under/Bond-a-Web....some previously painted and some ironed to the back of the stretch velvets). There's several colors of sheer chiffon scarves added before about five hours of free motion machine embroidery using only 100% black cotton quilting thread. Finally, I spend about four hours poking holes and lines into it with a soldering iron before melting it with a heat gun from the reverse. It is made the same way as my "In Box" series....which has a free tutorial HERE.

(Above: Top quarter of Stained Glass XXV. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Upper middle of Stained Glass XXV. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Lower middle of Stained Glass XXV. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Bottom of Stained Glass XXV. Click on image to enlarge.)

Second....I started a new project to be called Ancestors. I've sanded and painted the ends of wooden spool before....and then wrapped them with assorted yarns and stitched into them. Yet....that was four years ago. Of course, I was blogging then too. The post with a photo is HERE. These spools (and also their "relatives", wrapped carriage bolts) now sit on a built-in print cabinet at our business, Mouse House. People seem to like them. They comment on how pretty they are and then ask, "What are these for?"


(Above: The start of Ancestors, wrapped wooden spools, on top of my studio table with sandpaper and paint. Click on image to enlarge.)

I'm never sure how to answer this question. Why should they have a function? Is it implied simply because a wooden spool once did have a useful purpose? Paintings and sculpture don't serve any other purpose than to be "looked at" and "appreciated". Why can't fiber arts just be beautiful?


(Above: Ancestors, in progress. All 186 wooden spools have each end painted another color and a thumbnail family photo attached. They are now ready to be wrapped with yarn and assorted threads before being stitched. Click on image to enlarge.)

This has puzzled me....and made me wonder how I might add more "content" to wrapped wooden spools. I've saved every wooden spool I've come across since making the earlier ones. Finally, an idea took hold. Instead of clipped magazine photos for images, I decided to use thumbnails of scanned family photos. Thus, in addition to being beautiful, the new spools will carry a meaning of family, memory, passing time, and the notion of generations of handiwork in my family. (They still won't have a "purpose".... but I'll have something better to say than, "They look pretty!")


(Above: Ancestors, in progress. Painted wooden spools with thumbnails of family photos. Click on image to enlarge.)

Steve and I also went to the Ohio State University's Charleston alumni party to watch our beloved Buckeyes beat arch-rival Michigan. They meet at the Charleston Battery (soccer) Stadium's very fancy Three Lions Pub on Daniel Island....and even served free eggs, toast, and Bud Lite for a pre-game breakfast. (I skipped the beer....opting for a Bloody Mary instead!)


(Above: Ancestors, in progress. Wrapped spools in the turkey roasting pan on the left....those waiting to be wrapped in one of my fiber vessels on the right. Both containers are sitting on our glass topped coffee table. Click on image to enlarge.)

The wooden spools had progressed to the point that they got to go to Charleston too. I started wrapping them with yarn on the hour and a half drive down and back. Now, wrapping them has become my evening handwork.


(Above: Ancestors, in progress. Click on image to enlarge.)

There are 186 wooden spools. I counted them when I applied a rubbing of light wax to the acrylic adhesive used to attach the photo. Wrapping them will take quite a bit of time.....but less than stitching into the fibers.....so....more photos will be coming!

Now....the final project was one I really hadn't been planning to do. But, I couldn't find a good reason to refuse to decorate a plywood Nutcracker for Columbia City Ballet. They said it was four feet tall. It's closer to five and half feet! They delivered it last Wednesday. It went to my studio on Thanksgiving Day.


(Above: Plywood Nutcracker....about to be primed with two layers of water-based Kilz.)

The shield and sword are detachable. Most artists are painting their Nutcracker. I hate to paint. I'm terrible with a brush....but....at least I know how to prime things with Kilz.


(Above: Nutcracker with Kilz primer.)

To avoid "painting" too much....I only added color for the boots, hat, face, and a few details. The old wire rimmed eyeglasses were also in my studio! The "body" is being collaged with vintage images....as close to 1892 as possible. This is the date of The Nutcracker's debut in Russia. I'm currently working on the collage for the shield...with mice, rats, soliders, etc.


(Above: Nutcracker fund raiser project in progress. Click on image to enlarge.)

Fortunately, Mouse House deals in antiquarian prints. We have thousands upon thousands of them. Steve and I had a lot of fun looking for Racinet costume plates that would look like the variations: Spanish, Arabian, Russian, Chinese, and a shepherdess. Plus, I found two vintage candy advertisements to represent the Bon Bons.


(Above: Top half of the Nutcracker in progress. Click on image to enlarge.)

We had plenty of chromolithographs from the Columbia Exhibition 1893 and the Paris Exhibition from 1889...all the rage of fashion. I also clipped from a book called Dance and Dancers Today, dated 1912 and from a book of children's stories from Japan and from France dated in the 1920s.


(Above: Bottom half of the Nutcracker in progress. Vintage chromolithographs, mostly from 1893. Click on image to enlarge.)

Of course, I need another project like a "hole in the head".... but sometimes I just can't stop the ideas .... or acting on them.


(Above: Ohio Staters cheering on our team over Michigan.....while I collected all the usable paper napkins from the tables!)
While at the Ohio State game, I couldn't help but to notice how nice the paper napkins were, large, white, and almost the thickness and strength of ordinary interfacing. My mind kept churning with a sewing plan....a bridal gown for next spring's recycled fashion show....something embellished with my white artificial flowers collected from cemetery dumpsters. By the end of the game I had a big pile and a new plan! GO BUCKS! Who said a football game couldn't be inspirational!

Stained Glass XXIV

(Above: Stained Glass XXIV, full view. Polyester stretch velvets, previously painted heat activated adhesive/Wonder Under, metallic foiling, chiffon scarves, free motion machine embroidery using 100% black cotton quilting thread, melting. Unframed: 58" x 18"; Framed: 64 1/2" x 24 1/2". Click on image to enlarge.)

For last week's annual autumn art crawl, Vista Lights, I had this piece stapled onto stretcher bars I use during the melting process. I'd soldered about half the holes. I also had Stained Glass XXV on my table, under construction.

People coming through my studio at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios really seem to enjoy seeing the work in the various stages of development. Since then, I finished this piece and am now melting the next one. I've got three more designed....more than enough to do over the Thanksgiving holiday!


(Above: The top of Stained Glass XXIV. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: The upper middle portion. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: The lower middle portion. Click on image to enlarge.)


(Above: The bottom portion. Click on image to enlarge.)

Pat Callahan

I just heard from my friend Pat Callahan....who gave me the wedding dress that I transformed into Milestones, a grave rubbing art quilt. I had no idea that she had a blog....which includes very, very good pictures of her trio of shadowboxes. One hangs beside my art quilt at the 20th anniversary show at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios. The blog post is HERE.

Pat writes of her series: This series of shadow boxes explores the multiple and conflicting roles a woman juggles. The roles are mythic and modern; the conflicts, seemingly inescapable.

Loving Memory Of.....and Vista Lights 2010

(Above: At Rest and Milestones, two of my Grave Rubbing Art Quilts, in the 20th anniversary exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios....as seen through Charlie Dillingham's ceramic circle of life. Click on image to enlarge.)

Yesterday evening was the 25th annual VISTA LIGHTS art crawl in downtown Columbia. My studio is at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios....which was celebrating its 20th anniversary. The current thirteen resident artists each had two pieces in the show. We invited all previous artists (those who once rented a studio during the past 20 years) to display one of their artworks.


(Above: Pat Callahan's mixed media work beside Milestones....which was Pat's first wedding dress. Click on image to enlarge.)

Without knowing a special significance, the artist hanging the exhibition placed Pat Callahan's piece between my two Grave Rubbing Art Quilts. Pat used to have a studio at Gallery 80808; we became good friends. She gave me the wedding dress!

I loved the various views to the wall on which Pat's and my work hung. Bill Jackson's large metal horse gave the wall drama.



Michel McNinch's seaside oil painting lent a special serenity.



Charlie Dillingham's incredible ceramic circle of life provided a brilliant tunnel through which to see the world beyond. The show looks fantastic!


(Above: LOOKING FOR A MATE, a public sock art quilt project! Click on any image to enlarge.)

My husband Steve manned my studio during the reception. I was up the street at River Runner, the local kayak and canoe shop. River Runner's owner, Guy Jones, has provided me with acrylic felt for about two years. This felt was the substrata for my public art quilt project called LOOKING FOR A MATE. I must have explained the definition of "art quilt" and the concept of recycling material (both "mateless" socks and the felt) a hundred times....but it was fun! The front page newspaper article reminded people to bring their sock donations. Lots of kids got to stitch too.


(Above: My new studio assistant, Sarah, helping a new stitcher!)

Fortunately, I have a brand new studio assistant....Sarah Martin....who really helped out and took most of the photos of this public art quilt project. I've never had a studio assistant before; in fact, I don't personally know an artist who has had one. This is sure to be a learning experience for both of us. Scroll down to see more pictures from LOOKING FOR A MATE! The completed art quilt will be on view during the annual spring art crawl, Artista Vista. It will become the property of the Vista Guild who sponsored the project! The guild even got me on TV last night....part of the evening news!


(Above: Loving Memory Of, Grave Rubbing Art Quilt. Crayon on silk with vintage household linens. Hand and machine embroidery. 24" x 27". Click on image to enlarge.)

In the meantime, I finished and photographed my newest Grave Rubbing Quilt, Loving Memory Of. The rubbing was made using several different tombstones while visiting Nottingham, England. (I blogged about the trip....with photos of the amazing cemetery....one of the most beautiful I've ever visited, HERE!) I am totally in debt to cyber friend Julie for suggesting we meet in this location. I dream of returning to the intricately carved slate with even larger pieces of silk. Fortunately, I have several more rubbing about this size....all of which might get stitched!


(Above: Loving Memory Of, detail. Click on image to enlarge.)

The reverse is also special. A local friend is turning her life upside down....selling just about everything she owns and flying off to study photography at a west coast college. She gave me all the "fabric of her life".... including bags of vintage clothing and several pieces of vintage household linens. She hoped to see some of these pieces in my work "one day".... well, Libby, this is the day!


(Above: Loving Memory Of, reverse. Click on image to enlarge.)

The reverse of this art quilt came completely from Libby's stash. Thank you Libby! What's more, the foundation for the quilt I just started was once Libby's drop cloth. It is PERFECT!

Now.... the rest of the images from LOOKING FOR A MATE!