Lots of Progress

Lots of progress has been made in the last week, especially on the landscape quilt with the scrap-pieced sky.








It went from this...













to this...

After it's blocked, those wavy edges will be flat, at least for the most part. If I squared and trimmed it at this stage, even binding wouldn't flatten the edges.

After binding it, I'll take a straight-on photo.

Also, two quilt backs were pieced for the Center for Women and Families, and I hope to have those quilts finished in the next month, for a total of 4 quilts.

And in the meantime, the urge struck me to do something with these batik snowflake blocks I had cut out a few weeks ago. (The blocks are very much overlapped here because my design wall is too small. The quilt will be 44 x 60.)

The blue/gray/green/white batik was in my stash, and coordinates beautifully with the snowflake blocks. But let's face it: at this point, the quilt top does not look like something you'd want to curl up under. It looks flat-out cold. I'm not a 'red' person, hence there was nothing in my stash to warm this up (except orange or gold--both of which looked all wrong for a winter quilt). A couple of yards of a warm-red batik are now on order.

Have a great weekend!

Linda

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

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

Leftover Lizards

WARNING: If you are not a lizard-lover, get out now, while you still can!

Technically, it's geckos being featured here, but I do love any kind of lizard or lizard-type reptile. Except Komodo Dragons. I just can't find anything endearing about a prehistoric lizard monster that can poison me to death with one bite. But the rest of them are just plain cute, imo. In fact my favorite Mother's Day present ever was a pair of anoles, who lived in a beautiful terrarium in our family room until one of them escaped and wasn't found until six months later, dried to a crisp behind the pinball machine. By that time I was tired of catching crickets and moths to feed them, so anole number 2 went back to the pet shop.

But I digress. About three years ago, I started what I call my personal 'mandala wall quilt,' which was to feature--you guessed it: lizards. Or rather, geckos.

(This was before the upstairs was made into a quilt studio. At that time, all designing took place on the bed and the dining room table.)

Two geckos were left over from that project, and instead of tossing them into the 'un-used element' drawer, I fused them onto a pretty fat-quarter from my stash.

Then they were put in the closet to become my first UFO...until a couple of weeks ago. Now they're a FO.

Kissing Geckos

This one shows the quilting a little better:

All stitching in the interior, including satin stitch and couching, was done in free motion, feed dogs down.

The 24-weight metallic rayon thread under the couching is free-motion bobbin work, as are the spirals. The couching came as an afterthought, when I realized the metallic thread wasn't showing up very well (although it does look more bling-y in the right light).

The border was stitched with a built-in machine stitch, feed dogs up, dual feed foot on. I left long thread tails at the corners and finished the stitching by hand, as the stops and starts for this stitch didn't line up well (which I found out by testing on a scrap).

And now for the cuteness factor:

How can anyone not love those pointy little heads, and those sticky little toes???

If you love lizards, no doubt you agree. If you aren't a lizard-lover, but you managed to get all the way to the end of this post, geckos--I mean, kudos--to you!!  :)

Linda