Melody Johnson has been an artist all her life, starting at age 3, with her newly painted bedroom walls. On those she drew her first prehistoric monsters, in black crayon.
But it was at age 15 when she understood her feelings about color:
"I saw a window display of nylon ripstop bags, one each in yellow, purple, orange, hot pink, turquoise, red and royal blue. I wanted one, but just one color wouldn't do. It was the combination of the colors all together and the effect of playing off one another that resonated for me.
Ever since that moment I have been using that experience of adjacent color and contrast in my work."
Melody's undergraduate studies focused on painting and printmaking but in the last few weeks before graduation in 1981 she was introduced to quilting by a classmate. Since she was already an accomplished seamstress, she dove in to the craft and forgot all about painting. After her first two or three bed quilts, she began designing original art quilts for the wall.

Radiant Orb 48x45"

Cotton and silks, fused, machine quilted.
blogged
fibermania.blogspot.com/2011/11/radiant-orb.html

 

Treehouse series:
Small quilts with a Treehouse theme, all are a combination of hand dyed fabric and commercial prints, fused, hand and machine quilted and embroidered.  http://fibermania.blogspot.com/2010/07/process-pledge-working-in-series-while.html

Matchstick Moons I

Hand dyed cottons, fused, machine quilted, 2004, 45" x 41

In 2007, after her career of teaching quilting around the world, Melody and her husband retired to rural Tennessee where she found a slower pace and more than agreeable surroundings.

 Her blog chronicles her life there as well as the artwork she continues to create. www.fibermania.blogspot.com

Make a living staying at home

http://fibermania.blogspot.com/2005/07/yesterdays-output.html


http://fibermania.blogspot.com/2005/08/speed-dried-silks.html

Silks always sell in a big hurry. The first link shows the set of gradational half yards that I sold instantly.

Design small fused quilts (we've already made it OK to fuse) and sell the pattern and fabric as a kit. Or just the pattern, $10 or just the fabric.

http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/3488-AA.shtml?lnav=fabric_cotton.html buy the bolt or more and you'll use it up in no time.
Also good but harder to get is:
http://www.jamesthompson.com/products/fabrics/view/Pure_Thread's_Dyers_Cloth
I already forgot what else I was sending you... See you this afternoon.

Recovering the old chair

 I got the old chair out of the garage and it was full of deeply imbedded dog and cat hair. First I tried to scotch tape it off, to no avail.
Then I decided to just recover it. A few screws, and then the cushion was off the frame.
Next I found the electric staple gun and used it to first attach a layer of fresh batting as a barrier between the hair. Leaving the old cover intact, I just stapled the batting and then decided to use this old freebie piece of fabric as the cover.

I liked it mainly because it was slippery, which makes sitting and moving on the seat easier. A bit of pulling and stapling and voila! the seat is covered.

Then the backing, which came off easily enough with three screws and I repeated the process.  I adjusted the back to be low and centered on my back properly and now I have then new/old sewing chair. The whole process took less than 30 minutes!
Got anything you'd like to recover?

He's got the mouse!

Chum and Chester love the mousies so much. I gave each one last night and they proceeded to love them to death, altho they do still remain in one piece. This is their favorite kind of toy, CHEWABLE. Chum brought his to bed with me last night. Gooey and spitty tho it was, I know he was happy to have a cuddle buddy to snooze with.
Thanks for passing them onto the boys.
And thanks for the new shoes, which did the trick for me. Altho my feet didn't stop hurting until about 9pm, I was able to get my shopping done and get home withouth having to wear those red reeboks anymore.
I am going to wear the new pair all day today, with socks and enjoy my spread out toesies.
I hope you're feeling better and are back at work, making moolah.
Lovest Mel

Facing the quilt

Beautiful isn't it? I took the liberty of fixing the binding and making it a facing instead. I know that you were in a hurry and misunderstood my instructions over the phone, and got my binding and facing instructions switched or combined. Nevertheless, I figured it was my fault, so I allowed myself permission to fix it.

1. cut the strips to the exact length of the side and sew almost to the end.

Fold back the edges to meet in a 45 degree angle like this. Press open so you know where to stitch.

Stitch on the dotted line (I didn't use black...this is just for the picture)

Trim off excess fabric and finish stitching the point, pivoting at the seam line.

Trim points.

Turn right side out. Later I will unsew the facing half way down and turn under the edges to fuse or hand stitch or both. I fused yours, but a few stitches could be added for the finishing touch. No rod pocket was added yet.