My bike Has Been Overhauled!!

My bike is a used 20 year old Schwinn that was a sad looking lavender before. It is very nice free bike from a friend of my boyfriend Ken. He decided to take the thing apart and spray paint it pink my favorite color! He is a perfectionist and he thoroughly cleaned every part of the bike-it now has white walls and no rust or crud of the wheels, spokes or anywhere. He was way more meticulous than I would ever have been. He admits to having trouble putting it back together but he did it and made some flashy "PeeWee Herman" handlebar streamers and he bought a pink and purple horn which sounds like a dog squeekie toy!! Ken and I enjoy bike riding alot when the weather cooperates and now I can look fashionable in my "signature colored" pink bike!!!

Hoffman Challenge Quilt

I decided to do the Hoffman Challenge for 2010. The challenge fabric is the turquoise fabric which I saw as kimono fabric. I wanted to have an image of a geisha girl but didn't really know much about the subject. My daughter suggested I rewatch the 2005 movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" and I did some research at the local public library. I used the challenge fabric in the kimono, the tiny inner border and I made some two-sided flowers for the hair accessory. I used a raw edge fused applique technique for most of the images. I thread painted the little yellow daingly flowers and glitter covered an actual hair comb from the drugstore to get the look of the geisha adornments. I was fortunate to receive the black with blue asian village print from one of the ladies in Eagle River when I was there in May teaching. It was a great choice for the background!! I mail the piece and by Sept. I find out if it made the cut. If it does, the quilt will travel to various quilt shows until the fall of 2011.