Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Scraps and Scrapping

Where did the month of June go? Yeah, your guess is as good as mine.

Here's what's been going on upstairs for the last few weeks. (Downstairs, I mostly party with my 15-month-old granddaughter).  :)

1. Piecing four quilts (and quilting and binding two of them) for the Center for Women and Families. These are smaller than previous ones, just 52" square. Took some photos of the first one and completely forgot to take any of the second one.



























All of them are still featuring many of the fabrics given to me in upholstery sample books a couple of years ago. For the back of this one, I used this squirrel fabric...


...which was originally meant for landscape quilts. But there were a few squirrels left over, so we're good.

2. (Speaking of landscape quilts) Began a project and then scrapped it altogether. It only got as far as enlarging the photo and tracing it before it hit the waste can.


Just too many logistics issues. It was actually a relief to throw it away.

3. Began a landscape quilt with that funky sky fabric I had pieced with all my leftover sky scraps from previous landscapes. (Not sure I'll do that again--all those seams to iron open, and later such bumpy quilting!)


The ocean is made from a Timeless Treasures fabric (I think), purchased years ago in Paducah. I'd always imagined using it horizontally, as sand, sea and sky. Instead it wound up vertical, for a nice sunrise or sunset glow. The pale area will be covered entirely (except above the trees--color pencils should take care of that).

The tower ruins started out like this...

Stonehenge fabric from Northcott Mills
...and an hour or so later, looked like this:

Oops, forgot to quilt inside the windows.
The hardest part was to STOP tweaking it. I tend to go crazy with Sharpies and fabric markers.

Have a wonderful weekend--a holiday weekend if you're in the U.S!

Happy July!

Linda

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Nightlights in the Spotlight

I don't usually revisit previous projects in my blog posts, but this week is an exception.

This quilt, finished exactly two years ago this week and and titled Nightlights...


...has wound up on the cover of Art Quilting Studio Magazine, Summer 2016!!!

I am still in shock. This is an over-the-top honor for me, not only because it's the first time any of my quilts have been published, but because this magazine has been one of my favorites for the last four years. It's issued semi-annually by Stampington Publications, summer and winter only, and the pages are thick and NON-glossy (my favorite kind), with tons of quilt-artist features and quilt photos, and very few ads.


There is an article inside the magazine featuring both this quilt and one of my other ones, Sunset Sail.

Ironically, no landscape quilts are in progress in the studio just now, although I'm looking forward to trying a landscape quilt using only NON-landscape fabrics. In the meantime, it's been quite a while since I made any bed quilts for the Center for Women and Families, so four of them are being pieced now. Also looking forward to painting some fabric soon.

Have a great weekend!

Linda