Making Progress

When the weather is nasty and it's too cold--or overcast--to enjoy working outside, it's the perfect time to be in your studio and get some work done.  (Of course, it might also be good to actually organize and put away extraneous things that are also surrounding you as you work, but that's not nearly as much fun).
At any rate, I've made a little more progress on my next art quilt.  I've been playing around with the next step (the black border with the yellow flowers).  This is about the seventh thing that I've tried so far and is my favorite.  We'll see.  There will be more flowers on the side (and there'll be 4 sides) but, for now, I'm just thinking about it.  I made the decision that I was not going to try to finish this quilt for any particular quilt show deadline.  It will be finished when it's finished.  And I'm having more fun with that attitude.

In the meantime, I've been working on a new sample for an appliqué class I'm teaching in May.  The picture on the left is the finished appliqué before I quilted the piece and the other picture is of the finished work.  I don't think that the quilting stitching shows up particularly well but, in person, I do think that it adds life to the appliqué.  The object of this class is to show how to draw out the patterns onto WonderUnder, how to position the fusible pieces onto the background fabrics and how to stitch them down using a blanket or satin stitch.  Even the triangles are fused rather than pieced.  I had a lot of fun coming up with this small quilt and, hopefully, the students will enjoy making it, too.

It's A Beginning

It's always nice to get over the hump of actually starting a quilt project.  I've had two or three ideas in the last month or so but somehow I just couldn't get motivated to the point where I could choose fabrics and begin to create the image in fabric.
However, thanks to a friend talking about the quilt she was going to make, an idea began to shove itself into my consciousness.  And this is where I am in my thought process.  I really like to make quilts that radiate from the center outwards.  Of course, it CAN be a problem when you have to make either an oval or a circle that's larger than anything you can trace onto paper.  This circle is about 25 inches and I really don'thave a pot lid that large to trace!
The answer to my problem was to put a thumbtack into my cutting mat, tie a string around it and then a pencil to the other end and GENTLY pull the pencil around in a circle, transferring it to a large piece of paper.  It worked!  Of course, I had to be very careful as I was pulling because that thumbtack just didn't want to stay in position.
So, this has been my first step.  These designs are fused on and later I will sew them down permanently.  I'm now beginning to move outward.

And my next section is going to look something like this.  Of course, it can still change.  Who knows what it will say to me if I really listen.  But, the main thing is--I'm having fun.  And that's the most important part.

Christmas Tidings

Like most of you, I was pretty busy during the Holidays--making cookies, wrapping presents, decorating the house and the tree, cooking large dinners both on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.  But I also managed to make three or four Christmas-themed small quilts.

All three of these quilts were made from commercial patterns and it was enjoyable because I really didn't have to think about it too much.  Low stress for the holidays.  The table runner WAS a little different because the existing pattern was for a tree skirt and I didn't want to make that.  So I just decided how long I wanted the table runner to be and arranged the components from the tree skirt into the new space.  And I really enjoyed using it throughout the Holiday.
The circular deer cutout on the bottom quilt was somewhat more tedious to make because of all the cutting and fusing of one large unit.  However, this is the third time that I've made this particular quilt.  The original pattern does not have the four black corners but I wanted to leave open the option to use it as a wallhanging.
The top quilt I just made because the tree of life appealed to me.  Somebody will probably get it as a present down the road.  The fourth quilt I made went out as a present before I got a picture taken.  So--for now--I'm finished with my Christmas marathon.   Next up?  I'm beginning work on an original piece which I'll post as I progress.  Like most of my original quilts, at this point, I have no idea where it will end up--design-wise.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
Happy New Year.