Garden State Doll Artisans at NJQuilts Convention 2008

I was thrilled to have my dolls show for the first time with GSDA doll club at the State Quilt Guild of New Jersey 2008 show at the Raritan Center, Edison, NJ, June 12 - 14. Our exhibit generated quite a bit of interest.

I was also really pleased to see Lisa Shepard's Cultured Expressions booth, where I was able to shop and add some amazing Ghanaian batiks to my stash. Lisa is the artisan who I credit with starting down this creative path when I took part in her African Mosaic Quilt workshop a couple of years ago. Please visit Lisa at http://www.culturedexpressions.com/.

If You Danced to LaBelle - Lady Marmalade - in the 70's .... Hollah! This is my Hoffman Challenge Doll.

I decided to enter the Hoffman Challenge for the first time after seeing the traveling exhibit in March of this year at the Quilt Show at Garden State Convention Ctr. The Hoffman Challenge fabric was something I never would have picked to work with, but I guess that's why its called a challenge. I purchased the challenge fabric and several of the coordinates - and was stuck for several weeks on what to do with it. One night, while I was sleeping, I awoke with the thought of a peacock as the bird of paradise. From there, I thought of Nona Hendrix, one of the original LaBelle trio, singing the original Lady Marmalade in the 1970s. Thirty something years, and I can remember dancing to those ladies in their feathers, leather and plumes as if it was today. That was the inspiration for this doll, who I call "Lady Bird of Paradise Sings the Blues. " (Hey Sista, Go Sista, Go Sista, Go Sista...)