Happy Easter!

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”                                 J.B.Priestly

 

 

I found these this morning in my backyard!

 

More photos for my image library

Koi Pond

Nasturtium

Hawk on Tree in My Backyard

Leaves On Woods Hole Sidewalk, Photo By Andy Sexton

Gee's Bend Homage Quilt Done

At the retreat last week I started this quilt for Joshua's 18th birthday gift.  It's an homage to Gee's Bend Quilters:

Pieces of some of his own jeans are in here, as well as some of my own snow dyed fabrics mixed in with commercial fabrics, simply quilted true to Gee's Bend fashion.

More Digital Images

Been adding to my digital library for my Art In Common Project.  Here are some new images I'll be drawing from as I work on my 100 Art Quilt Project:

 

Harold Parker State Park

 

   

 Barnstable

   

My Backyard

My Backyard

Swain's Pond

Swain's Pond

Swain's Pond

 

Good Links

I'm quilting away on my Homage to Gee's Bend quilt.  I have to keep resting my hands, though; this is a heavy quilt to move around!  Thought I'd share a bit of quilting news about some of our BMQG members.

Here's a link to Jen Sorenson's blog where she shows off the quilt she did at our retreat - it's fabulous:
http://aquiltingjewel.blogspot.com/

And a link to our guild's blog showing a couple of quilts about to appear in a new magazine: http://bostonmqg.blogspot.com/

And another:
http://www.dresdenlane.com/

And this one Amy Friend worked on at the retreat - it's incredible: http://duringquiettime.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-finished-artist-studio-quilt-top.html

Retreat Weekend

Last weekend I attended the Boston Modern Quilt Guild's annual retreat -  great time was had by all!  Some were incredibly fast as well as accurate, finishing one beautiful quilt from start to finish.  Not me!  I work pretty slowly to begin with but I also was designing as I went along, rather than following a pattern, but I really had a hard time focusing on my quilt with all the activity going on around me - I'm so used to being alone and being able to work (play) without interruption or distraction.  I was so very aware of just how lucky I am to have a guy who picks up all the slack (cooking and chores) in support of me living out the creative life I have at this point in my life! Still, it was fun to be around so many exhuberant quilters and it was great to learn a few tricks from those who are more experienced than I am.  I wish I took pictures but I felt overwhelmed enough without taking on another activity. 

One of the best parts of the weekend, of course, was shopping for fabric.  If you've never experienced Marden's in Sanborn, ME, you should plan a daytrip!  It's WWWAAAYYY worth it!  First rate fabric for deep cut prices!  As you can see my stash just got bigger and better!

So, since I came home, I've been working on the quilt I started there  and just finished piecing the top, which is being made for my 18 year old nephew, Josh.  I wanted it to have the look of a Gees Bend quilt - here it is:

 

Now to quilt and bind it.  It'll only be about a month late for his birthday!

Like A Squirrel Before The Storm

The snow is piling up here this morning.  It's been lightly snowing for a day or so now...looks like about 8 inches or so - white trees, white sky, white ground, pieces of white as far as you can see.




















Yesterday I went to Joann's fabric and picked up a bunch of mostly white remnants, including a tiny piece of silk dupioni.  Most were cottons, some Kona and also a piece of voile.  Before I went there, I ordered a few yards of mostly white PFD fabric too!  I feel like a squirrel before the storm!

Some of you will be glad to know I'm getting a bit more sleep these days since my new cpap machine arrived, although Restless Leg Syndrome kicked in last night to keep me from sleeping again.  I had missed my afternoon ropinerole and it definitely makes a difference.

I do have time constraints on how long I can sit at my computer at any given time without RLS acting up or without falling asleep at the wheel, so to speak, but I finally managed the time to get the initial process down for pattern making in Photoshop!  Here's a couple of my first successful patterns that I did from scratch.

Here's the first, not crazy about it but it's the first successful pattern:

"Hearts Afire"

 

And the second that I just did this morning.  I like the pattern better:

 

"Guitar Player"

 

They are both from a couple of my old photos.

winter vision - a new art quilt

New small art quilt - #4 - only 96 to go! 

  

I did frame this one. I wanted to see if I like the deep frame wrap around look to mount these babies on and I do!  Can't really see much of it here but you get the idea.

 

 

Again, I experimented with texture and dimension.  Like my "Let Them Be Wild" quilt

(Turtle Moon Impressions: Let Them Be Wild) I used small scraps of fabric hand-tied with embroidery thread to build a textural quality.  This time, they're the shape of  leaves and some are printed with the text of a some words I journaled (also on the top of the frame) about taking the photo which is also digitally printed on cotton - an old sheet, in fact, prepared with inkAid. It's also bordered with a sliver of one of my new digital skins and quilted with gold metallic thread.  I'm doing the happy artist dance!

 

Turtle Moon Impressions: Let Them Be Wild

Turtle Moon Impressions: Let Them Be Wild: "Let Them Be Wild" was named after a verse in the poem Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  This quilt was born as a political...