Meet Helene Davis on this Funtastic Friday!

Happy Friday --
it is hard to believe it is already Friday. It has been a busy, creative and fun week for me.
I even had a grand time sharing about my new book, and ARTIFYING with Mark Lipinski,
Wed on his radio show, Creative Mojo.

If you missed it, just check out the webpage for his show and listen or download the podcast. We shared ideas on getting 'unstuck', and I loved his ending suggestion of heading to the local Hallmark store if you need a quick shot of happening color and design!

Meantime, with my eyes peeled to bring you inspiration to build your art LINE muscles this month I just had to ask local (now) Paducah artist,
Helene Davis
if I could share a little of her studio and work with you. So, in true Funtastic Friday style I hope you enjoy visiting Helene along with me. (truly the hardest part for me was editing it down to just 12 images).

on entering the Jefferson Street Studios be ready for the
COLOR - Helene's hand-dyed fabric for sale there

once behind the closed doors of the store you make your way
back to Helene's studio -- to die for - or dye for - right!

after passing magical rooms where the secret processes
of all the dye-work happens you get here - wonderful colors
of amazing fabric

from the stacks Helene take fabrics and starts to put them piles
awaiting final color selection - and oh, what choices!

strips are cut of various widths - there's that LINE thing happening

the strips are then stitched together

and quilt tops that seem touched by magic are ready for quilting

Helene uses simple stitched line to enhance the final work.
These lines are less than 1/4" apart and let the color and design
of the fabric all work to tie the composition together.

the quilting is done on 1 of Helene's 2 Singer machines, and even
her stitch savers are beautiful in their use of line -- such fun texture!

luckily, Helen's has saved all of these - can hardly wait to see how she may use them!

I had an incredible time visiting with Helene and look forward to more of that in the future.

AND, as a final treat I  picked out 4 fat-eighths of some of Helene's hand-dyes to help me create the winter skies for my tree skeletons designs I shared yesterday.

I'll be working on those so they can travel with me as I head off to Scottsdale to teach next week at Quilting in the Desert.

Stitching ON!
~Rose