Thank You Pamela Allen

I saw Pamela Allen's faces that were produced in her wonderful Fantastic Faces Workshops (http://pamed.homestead.com/home.html ). With her permission my small art quilter group decided to do our own face challenge using some of her techniques. We all had a great time and really enjoyed the freedom that her techniques allowed. I did a face that I called Marriage 39. (Can you guess how many years I have been married?) One of our members got our faces into a library and also in a local bank...so not only did we have fun but we were in two shows! Even got a little press coverage!!!!

Because of the freedom Pamela's techniques gave me, I decided to go a little further and try to capture my mother in fabric. As I worked on "The Bobbie Pin Queen," I had wonderful memories that surrounded me and I could almost hear her voice speaking to me. It was really rewarding.



My mother Elizabeth was a one of a kind person, she loved her food, her cigarettes, and her coffee. Her "candy" of choice were hot peppers. Every morning she got up and rolled her hair with bobby pins, in the evening she would remove them so she could get a good night's sleep. She loved her diamonds and wore them daily...even while doing housework. She believed that Vaseline could solve any and all ailments. She had a turban type hat that she nicknamed her"Peter Rabbit Hat," and she would pop it on when she ran to the store to cover up her pin curls. At Christmas time, we all had to be careful that she didn't sew sequins on our clothes...because she believed the more glitter the better. She loved to cook, she would spend hours cutting up vegetables to make her special soup. She loved her family and spent her whole life taking care of them. When she died she left a big hole in our family. When family members get together they still tell Elizabeth stories, even her great grandkids who never got to meet her know "Elizabeth stories," so my Mama still does live on.