Back on Dry Land (mostly)

Finally back in the studio after 9 days in Wyoming and 2 subsequent weeks of catching up on laundry and housework (and playing hooky--oops!). Wyoming was/is beyond beautiful, and there is plenty of landscape quilt inspiration among the 850 (I'm not kidding) photos I took, including this one.

Rafting on the Snake River, Jackson, WY

As mentioned in a previous post, I don't usually travel, so this summer has been a godsend for me as a landscape quilter needing some original, non-local photos. And let's face it, Maine and Wyoming are none too shabby for starters. Here at home, though, the weather for the last few days has been unbelievably beautiful, 70 to 75 degree highs, which has made it almost impossible to stay indoors. So I ran off to the state fair yesterday, and the Big 4 Bridge walk (where you walk or bicycle across the Ohio River from the KY side to the IN side and back) the day before.

Consequently...ok, I'm not finished with the lake quilt, but have certainly made some progress.

The water, grass, and the dogwood branches and blooms are quilted. For the branches I used YLI's variegated poly thread in black, brown and a sort of rust shade--perfect for this woodgrain fabric.

Confession: the branches are not entirely fabric. Those little fine twiggy parts were drawn with a brown Sharpie marker and then thread-painted with the same YLI variegated. This was so easy I couldn't believe I'd never thought to do it that way before!

There have been a few hours of knot-burying on this project, by the way, so I shouldn't berate myself too much for not being closer to finishing the quilt. The dogwood blooms, for example: they are so spaced apart that I had to stop and start with each little group of flowers. I ended up burying about 30 knots just for them alone. (That's because I still don't trust the lockstitch on any sewing machine, although I use it for the initial tackdown of all raw-edge applique on the quilt-top itself.)

In the meantime, my glaringly blank design wall was beginning to bug me...plus, I'd been wanting to make use of these quirky palm trees I fused together several months ago during a 'playtime' session.

 

I've let this 'audition' sit for about 4 days now, and something tells me that some of these fabrics don't really want to be together. Maybe the water fabric needs to be different, or maybe it's the beach. Overall, this is just not grabbing me like I wanted it to. I'll play around with it some more, though.

 

Let's go see what some other folks are up to over at two of my favorite quilting blogs, Leah Day's FMQ Friday and Sarah Craig's Whoop Whoop Friday. Be sure to check out the reader hookups at the end of each of their blogs. Always inspiring, always fun!

 

Getting ready to help my son and his wife move in to their first house this weekend! Hope your weekend is filled with family and fun, too!

 

Linda