This and That

I have been thinking that I should post something fresh, but I have been totally uninspired. Let's see if this goes anywhere.

I did think of posting pictures from the show at Claire's school last week. It was so great. Her class sang songs, danced and read poetry. It was right in their classroom and was attended by lots of parents plus the other kindergarten class and all their "reading buddies." It was crowded. All the pictures had lots of other kids in them and I just don't feel like I should post pix out in the wide open with out permission. Anyway, you can assume they are all super cute in the very best 6-year-old way of missing teeth, bed headed hair, dishelved clothes and innocent nose picking.

I don't have any new art to post. I'm sewing lots of embellishments on the rock quilt. Rusty keys, washers, clock faces, etc. It's looking cool.

A couple of you posted about my quiliting designs and how I managed to spread the motifs out across the design of the quilt rather than staying within the seams. I used to be much more rigid too -- but that was when I was just using a walking foot. Now I love quilting that meanders throughout the quilt and enhances or contrasts with the pattern -- depending on a thousand factors. I think my design style changed along with improving my free motion quilting. I sometimes think of my quilts as three layers that compliment each other. Not the top, batting, backing three layers... but the compostion, the quilting and the embellishments as the three layers. Of course, it's also neccessary that the quilting covers the raw edges of any pieces that have been fused down, especially if they are commercial fabrics which are less stable when fused than hand dyed fabrics. So that means the quilting has to meander a bit.

I've been trying to develop some of my own favorite quilting motifs. Most of what I used is from the wonderful Robbi Eklow article in Quilting Arts issues #11 and #12. But I also do a pretty good job with my rippling water pattern, my flames and my grasses.

I was looking at some Klimpt paintings today and thinking that some of his motifs would make great quilting patterns. It almost made me what to do a whole cloth experiment. Or test pieces, like That Logan Chick calls them.

Stay tuned.