writing the book isn’t so hard

I have three projects currently underway and I’m having fun trying to clear my work flow of these three projects in order to attack two intense show quilt projects I’m also really looking forward to making. My current projects include:

Hoffman Challenge 2016…I’m currently constructing the top. It’s a happy little quilt, just a little bit fantasy-like and I’m currently placing and stitching down all the appliques. I am planning on adding lots of bead work to this quilt, so a good part of the work will be after the sandwich is quilted and done by hand in the evenings.

The background was constructed using applipiece/piecelique technique.

Stitching the appliques down. I will also add some machine embroidered animals to this fanciful forest.

The second quilt in my “Waiting…” series (name to be determined) is finally moving along. I had a very hard time with the sky and the sea. The woman and her daughter appliques were really hard to get right. They still require a lot of details that will be added with stitching. I also have to make the clipper ship applique, which will probably take me a lot of time. But it’s finally looking like it is going to become a quilt. I had my doubts when I didn’t like the sky (I repainted it), didn’t like the sea (I over-dyed both the pieced section and the non-pieced section together to bring them together), and I didn’t like the planned clipper ship design (I found a new one in Dover that has lots of motion). I still have many rocks to add, and the more I look at it the more I think it needs a border…not very wide. Long ways to go on this one.

It’s a start…long ways to go, but it seems to finally be cooperating. This pic is not square on to the quilt, I see…a little at an angle. 😀

And I’m working on my applique book, trying to draw up all the patterns. This is a book showing several techniques of machine applique and the project related to it is a soft fabric book with applique samplers in it…ending with both an art project and a reference aid to the sewist for the future. I got a package of 10 inch precuts to see if I can make the whole book using one layer cake and some white fabric for the pages.

Sew I have been having lots of fun in my studio, but it is getting a bit messy. I am trying to clean it using a little bit of work at that every day, but I seem to be taking one step forward and two backwards…LOL.

Sew happy everyone! Go have some fun in your studio and don’t worry about the mess. Oh, and I haven’t forgotten the step of the month project…I am afraid though that it will have to wait a few more months before I can get to that one.

Waiting…

I just sold Waiting… yesterday. It has been hanging in G Street Fabrics Bernina section for about a month now, along with a couple of my other quilts I have decided to sell. I love this quilt. It took me over a year to make (off and on…probably about six months full time). I sent it through several national shows, and used it a bit for my show and tell trunk shows, but the judges thought the borders were too wide and so forth. I actually agree with them now, but I will tell you that feedback to me personally from people who have seen it was the most positive of any quilt I have made before or since. Several people–even men–have actually wept over the quilt, as did the buyer.

The one-on-one responses have been so strong that I decided to make a whole series of quilts based on the heart-tugging circumstance of women (and some children) waiting at home for their men to return from war or other dangerous and totally necessary jobs down through history. The women faced difficult and sometimes dangerous lives while their husbands were gone, and many kept the home going, raised their children, and fed their families while their husbands went and came back from their important jobs. Or they did not come back! Currently, I am working on the second in the series. This will be very similar to the one above, except the borders are different, or non -existent, and the woman is a little better dressed and has her daughter with her. The ship is going to be better also, I hope, and there will be a distant light house. I have been working hard to get the sky and sea fabrics right, and I think I have finally done that, so I am constructing the top and trying to come up with a name.

It is hard for me to sell my quilts. I put a lot of myself into them. But it is also an honor when someone loves one so much that they buy it. I am so happy it is going to a couple who love it and told me personally they are planning to cherish it and pass it down to their family. I need the money, I need the space in my home for more quilts, and I need to sell more quilts for these reasons.

Day before yesterday I took down my online shop where I had my quilts for sale because it was getting no response and I had originally been told that they were going to have downloadable product capabilities by the end of last year. They have changed that apparently. So yesterday while I was investigating different ways to sell my quilts and downloadables I got the call from G Street. I’ll leave the other two quilts at G Street for a little longer and then maybe make some changes. They are beautiful, but don’t have the same emotional tug, so we’ll see what happens. They are:

Quiet Celebration, Second Place winner in Hoffman Challenge 2011 in its category and also shown in Ireland, and

The Storyteller, Hoffman Challenge 2013

Sew happy, everyone! Go make yourself some art for your walls. By the way, I haven’t forgotten the idea of a quilt work-along that I advanced some weeks back. I’m working on the pattern now. Also, I am working on samples for my first book.