APPLIQUE PAINTBOX-I LOVE APPLIQUE

IN WHICH I WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY SOLSTICE

However you celebrate it!

What to say?

The past few months have been a thoughtful time for me as I attempt to investigate my creative future.  I have begun several projects this year-completed some and abandoned others-and learned in the process what works for me and what does not.

Feathered Friends BOM with Helen Godden

I loved working on this project.  I loved the paints, the birds, the colors, and Helen's fun FMQ designs. You can see it is not quite finished as I had a hip replacement at that point and am still recovering.

I have to say my kitty was not very supportive during this final assembling and quilting as you can see:

So good so far....Kitten is giving everything a close once over checking my work but then............

she does this! She finds my work hilarious!  I mean really! Her job is to be supportive but I guess her true thoughts could not be suppressed. Good to know who your friends are. 

You can see on the design wall behind "She Who Is A Traitor" that Chuck, Susan and Me is back in play.  I have resumed quilting it.  While I recover, I am planning the stitching as each square is quilted differently.  

Along with painting Feathered Friends, I have found that I just love Fmq especially on the lovely "Queenie", my sit down long arm quilter.  I began this blog expressing my very real fear of Free Motion Quilting and now find that with the practice and experimentation undertaken that this is also a big factor in my creative life. 

So....paints and FMQ .......two items for my creative portfolio (birds and flowers are a given).  Here is a Kaylee Porter download which is FMQed and then painted with Prismacolor pencils.

Also applique is a favorite as anyone who has followed me knows.  Yes, but here's the rub.  Applique is time intensive and at age 71, projects cannot be entered into lightly. 

And this brings me to my abandoned projects: 

This is a charming, colorful pattern and you can see I appliqued 6 months dutifully before deserting.  Dutiful was the feeling I had when I worked on this.  Duplicating this lovely pattern by designer Reece Hanson of Morning Glory Designs, was frustrating to me as the applique was very time consuming which I would not have minded except I was doing someone else and not exploring my own path. The two block on the right were my favorites.  I loved the combination of rigid blocks with the curvy flowers.

 

Here is the second project I am letting go.  

Sandra Liechner's Naturalist Notebook.

The Purple Finch is the last block I completed.  I feel I have done nice work on these but so what?  Basically my efforts are an attempt to copy what she has done and "I" am not really involved in the process.  Why should I do a lame after-image when she has already done the perfect one. For this much work, I would rather do my own adaptation of the series.  So, I doubt I will do more of these tho I love them.

Next time I will show you some of what I (probably) will be working on.

FROM OUR WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Surprising a flock of pelicans at the lake

YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN

A winter image: Windblown frost clings to berries in Maine.

Happy Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Rohatsu, Happy Omisoka whichever winter holiday is yours.

Happy Stitching!

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog, Making Monday,  Em's Scrapbag, Esther's Wow, 
Midweek Makers, Whoop Whoop, Finish or Not!, and Off the Wall Friday.