All but the binding

     I managed to get some long arm quilting done. This is Pineapple Blossom, free pattern from Bonnie Hunter, that I started at a work shop with her last October in Rochester. I really liked making the quilt and want to make another, but bigger. I like the colors. The green border says meow with little balls of yarn, kind of funny. Just have to do a binding and I was thinking scrappy with all the pieces I save.
     When it gets bound, I will do a better picture and show the back.

Quick pics

     Last week was the Morningstar Quilt Guild show at the Erie County fairgrounds which was a new venue for them, but the Grange Building worked out quite well. I only had my phone with me, and some of the photos self deleted, but three quilts I really liked were these. I took a lot more, but are lost.

This one is Circle Game by Jen Kingwell, much nice than the original one on the pattern

Portion of a lattice quilt, the name of the pattern is lost.

Exciting quilt all made from men's shirts that she found at Amvets

Construction begins

     The last color tweak of the colorwash and the last black and white before I took it down, column by column and clipped them for 19 across. There are 21 rows.

      And 7 of them are sewn together so far. The web works.

Inching towards perfecting

     The batik colorwash I have been tweaking and tweaking I hope is coming to the time where I can take it down and sew it. I rummaged through all my batik scraps trying to find some dark reds to make the corner more defined and smoothed. Sometimes, it is like a Rubik's cube- move one piece and others scream out to get moved. I moved some of the light colors also. This is the red corner that kept bothering me.

     After cutting some more squares and rearranging, I had this.

    And this is what the black and white looks like.

     I almost can't even see this clearly anymore. I will wait another day to make a decision. Can't wait to web it.

Colors, colors everwhere

    Pretty darn fortunate to be taking a colorwash class with Wanda online. I love these types of quilts. I made a floral one a year ago or so, but it sold at a quilt show. The only quilt I ever sold, wish I had it back. I am using batiks I have collected and collected. I have them on cafeteria trays I bought on Amazon. They are sitting on the ironing board at the design wall.  Lots of tweaking yet, but at least pieces are up.

Colors in photo are not true- they are not so dark.

Sewing on

     One of the pieces I used in the art quilt presentation was this ongoing leaves quilt. I pin basted it and am doing big stitch with No. 8 Perle Cotton for the quilting. I find this type of hand quilting fun. It is portable, and I can take it when I have to wait somewhere.

Presentation accomplished

     For the last couple of months, I have been prepping for a presentation to my guild on art quilts. I collected a lot of information, gathered up my examples and tried to make it coher. I wrote handouts, made samples, and did an auditioning demo. It took a half hour to set up and take down and lasted about 1 1/2 hrs. I felt a huge load lift after it was done. I don't think people realize how much work and effort go into a meaty presentation. I had spent time organizing categories on index cards, gathering stuff, editing and then writing the handout. I wrote a bullet point script for myself and made use of our camera and projector as well as images from my laptop.  I wish more of the guild would have come, but those who did seemed real interested. My point was that if you are a quilter, you can make art quilts because you have all the technical skills and just need to tap conscious inspiration and use a  design process to work it all the way through the end. Then sew.
     For the design demo, I moved a lot of fabric around my inspiration piece, the discharged leaf wreath and we talked about all the fabrics, sizes, and decisions. The only photo I have is all the fabrics pinned up on the wall for discussion.