HAPPY NEW YEAR

I have been busy 2022 even tho I lagged behind on blogging.

Progress on my version of Yoko Saito's Imaginary Garden which maybe I will name Garden of the Honeybees.  About 75 of them have been hand appliqued on the quilt. All that remains is to finish the quilting part.  I have sewn around all the elements and am faced with the quandary of how to fill in the background. ????  All I can think of is a stipple.  Any ideas???

Some sample areas of the applique......

No more quilting is actually needed in terms of stability but rather for enhancement of the applique.

NEWEST PROJECT begun in November:

Fields of Flora by Verna Mosquera

Eight blocks are completely finished tho I have not cut them all to size (8.5 x 10.5)

The fabrics are 50% Art Gallery fabrics, 40% Tilda by the lovely Norwegian designer  Tone Finnanger, and 10% miscellaneous.  

I had a wonderful time collecting fabric for this applique.  I spent many happy hours on research on etsy and on line shops.  I came to appreciate Art Gallery Fabrics-they have become some of my favorites for the modern look, their sense of color, and their lovely hand.

I have not been in a store or restaurant in 3-count them-3 years of covid.  I am not sure if I ever will now that I know how easy life is without them.  We always wear masks in public tho not many people do.

I use only 100 wt Kimono silk thread for the applique.  It is so fine and lustrous and the colors are beautiful.  I had some Yuli 100 wt silk thread but it was coarse in comparison.  I have all the colors of the Kimono thread.

It took forever to find two of the blue prints in this block.

Here is the design wall with the 8 blocks removed.  All are basted and 6 are ready to applique and the others still need some tweaking before I am happy with them.

A PROJECT FOR LAST JANUARY

The wonderful Helen Godden offered a free you tube class which you can still access if you are interested.   Based on those ubiquitous flower panels, we free motion quilted the petals using a black background.  She is the best teacher in the whole world not to mention a lovely person.  We began in the center and worked outward.   After we all got the hang of what we were doing, we took off in individual directions of quilting.  A lot of the designs I choose were from the time I took up drawing Zentangles.  Helen then painted into her quilting designs for a real WOW ending.  I did not do this part as I am 75 and time is of the essence.  You have to pick and choose and I love to pick up little bits of fabric to make designs.

The front-really a big blah.

AND, NEARING THE FINISH LINE.....

The Caswell quilt sat around for a couple years while I got involved with other projects and waited for inspiration to come regarding a border for this applique.  My brain dredged up all kinds of ideas which I vetoed and finally settled on this simple arrangement which I think complements the complexity of the the design nicely and leaves it to be center stage.  I used wool batting.  The applique is all basted and ready to quilt.  When I assemble for the quilting process, I use pins but this time, since I am not sure how long this job will be in a holding pattern, I hand basted the layers and removed the pins fearing rust if I left them in.  I have not worked out the details of quilting yet but I think it will be a random pattern using the motifs as the main inspiration.  For instance, in the lower right side a red bird is singing.  The quilting there will be a music staff to incorporate the notes.  I know I will quilt in insects and leaves and them probably pattern around that BUT who knows...not me for sure!

AND A FINISH...

This is another project which languished in a state of un-being.  Below is a photo of what was supposed to be a completion but I knew it was wrong-I just could not see how to make it right.  So it sat and I stewed.  I don't consider projects in the state to be UFO's because unfinished project implies one has abandoned it and these were never abandoned.  They were constantly in my head while I worked on other things mentally trying out ideas. I am very pleased with how the design spoke and resolved itself but, as you can imagine, lots of work was required to make all that 1/4 bias tape and hand applique it onto the seam of the border and body.  And before anyone asks, NO, I no longer have the pattern.  People email me often asking if I will sell the pattern-it is long gone.   

Well, that is 2022 done and dusted.  I could say alot about this past year, good and bad, but probably no one wants to hear it.

AND NOW....YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN

Two for today since it has been so long in coming

Camera flash on a spider's web by Ben Spurs Miles

AND

Fractal beauty of the mundane purple cabbage

I am linking up with these generous quilt makers and hostesses

Slow stitching Sunday https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/

Oh Scrap at http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/

Patchwork and Quilt at www.quiltingpatch.blogspot.com 

Design Wall Monday at https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

To Do Tuesday at https://quiltschmilt.ca/

Midweek Maker at www.quiltfabrication.com

Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/

Peacock Party at https://wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com/

Brag About Your Beauties at https://frombolttobeauty.blogspot.com/

Finished or Not Friday at http://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/ 

Off the Wall Friday at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Whoop Whoop Fridays at http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

THIS WEEK'S FOUR PACK MAKES 100!!.....also machine quilting update

I like all of this weeks blocks very much.  They are all adaptations from Chuck Nohara's book.

This one is my favorite.  The flowers and stems are from Chuck's book but I did not like her bird and substituted this broderie perse one.  I love how graceful the stems and flowers are and how the bird complements the colors.

Chuck's sunflower petals were shaped differently.  Since I wanted to use a directional fabric and her pattern called for the petals to be cut from one piece, I had to cut individual pieces and I also shaped them differently.  This is the beauty of having good resources- they generate ideas instead of being slavishly copied.

I love sunflowers!  We have some volunteers growing up around our birdfeeder.  They will not "make" as rural farmers call it-they are spindly and small.  The ground is too dry and uncultivated there.

This basket was fun but time consuming.  I have told you of my frustrations with hexagons-triangles are easier-the thread does not wrap around so much. Also I received some good advice on how to handle paper pieces working with them.  I wanted to put into practice the advice I had received and I think the basket turned out okay.  I had to call into account my math skills when making this block when I sized it up from being 2x2 inches to 6x6.  I also thought the braided handle would be more interesting than the simple one from the pattern.

I have never seen a block like the one below.  It has such a different look. This makes 100 blocks-43 to go but who's counting!

I have been working on my free motion sampler and have completed week three. This was an especially hard one-not sure why.  I have included a copy for the pattern for a couple reasons.  One-you can see the difficulty with this pattern-one sews around the circle and then backtracks and shoots off in another direction. The hard part was not getting trapped in a corner.  I drew and drew this and did some practice squares.  The other interesting thing is how individual style is achieved with practice.  My circles are closer together and are more curvy.  This just happened.  The fmq is not perfect but I am pleased.

As promised, here are two more blocks from my Caswell Quilt:

The robin block on the left is from the original pattern except I wanted the block to be 8x13 instead of 11x11.  So I deconstructed and rearranged it and added the snail.  The second pink flower bloc is taken from the original Caswell rug.  The idea for the caterpillar came from looking at Elizabethan stitchery and the dragonfly is placed on a seam to break down the barriers between blocks. 

Lastly, we have a red bellied woodpecker who visits the corn feeder.  He edges down the tree to the feeder, snatches up a kernel, goes back up the tree to beat the kernel against the bark before he eats it.  You can't see the kernel but that is what he is doing.

I will be so glad when my birthday is here in a couple weeks-I will have my new camera and hopefully be done with fuzzy photos!  We also had a large yellow flicker wood pecker some to the fountain but he flew off before I could grab my camera.

Happy quilting!

Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday, MCM, Moving it Forward Monday, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Easter's WOW, and NTT .

  Thanks for hosting ladies!