Reflections...

I needed a little break the other day, so I decided to get my camara out. Taking random pictures of whatever I want to is a great way for me to unwind. I find looking through a camara is almost like looking into another world. It's like I'm going exploring. As I was the only one at home, I did not have any "victums" I could ask to pose for me. I wanted to experiment with reflections...here are a couple of the bizillion pics I snapped. (The second one is my reflection in the birdbath in front of my house.) Enjoy!

B is for Butterfly - Butterfly Garden Quilt #3

It was a bit tricky coming up with "the one" perfect butterfly for Ilene's quilt. I had never sewn butterflies before and knew that these had to be more elegant than whimsical. It would have been a different story if I was simply adding a few butterflies here and there to a basic whimsy (loops) motif. That was not the case as Ilene had requested freeform feather with butterflies. Several sketches later, I came up with a butterfly that could be sewn in one pass and that fit with the feel of my free form feather quilting design. I was excited to have been given this challenge. Now I have another spin on my free form feather design. One thing I have learned this past year as I have taken on various quilting challenges is that creativity and inspiration never run out. Every time I think I might have run out of ideas...a new one springs into my mind. I am constantly inspired by many different things and love my job!!!! Enjoy the butterflies!

More of the Glorious Butterfly Garden Quilt...

Do you see the star spinning into orbit?

Quilting the radiating swirls from the middle of the star was well worth the effort. I knew that whatever design I ended up stitching on the star of this quilt had to be elegant and lively. In order to maintain the clean lines that the seams made, I stitched along each row of diamonds. After debating between doing swirls that stayed in the channels or randomly "climbed" all over the star, I decided channel quilting would best compliment the clean, modern, bold look of this quilt. This of course took A LOT of stopping and starting. Like....A WHOLE LOT. Halfway through I was tempted to think: "What on earth have I gotten myself into??!" Those thoughts were soon replaced by my growing excitement. The more channels I filled with swirls, the more the star began to come to life. I was motivated by the thought of how stunning the quilt was beginning to look. When the last swirl had been sewn it looked as though the star was spinning into orbit.

Ilene did a very nice piecing job on this quilt. Often it is difficult, as you quilters know, to keep ALL the diamonds flat and not stretched out of shape. Ilene's quilt was nice and smooth. I enjoyed working on it. One tip I realized (I'm sure some of you have already figured this out) is that batiks are a great option when making a quilt with lots of bias. Yes, batik or not, the fabric will always tend to be stretchy when cut on the bias, but because batik is stiff and more densely woven, it probably has less stretching potential. Ilene's quilt was all batiks; and as I said, behaved beautifully.

I worked long and hard on sketching z butterfly. I finally came up with this one. She turned out pretty whimsical and fun.

Snow? Really? I Can't Believe It!

Three days ago I was roller-blading through the nearby park in a t-shirt. Today I woke up to five inches of snow. How do you explain that? All's I can say is, it's typical for North Carolina. We don't normally get snow every year...at least not this much of it. Usually it snows one night and then melts completely the following day. This time we got tons of sleet and the temperature remained freezing cold! My sisters and I took a break to go out and "play" in the snow. Yeah, I know, we're just about through with college and should be too old for that stuff....but we just couldn't resist launching snowballs at each other. We didn't last long against the fierce wind which was plastering our faces with sharp sleet. Ouch! The landscape was beautiful at least; so it was worth the trek to snap a few pictures. I did manage to start and complete a customer's quilt today. I plan to load a king size one tomorrow. I still have tons of photos of the Butterfly Garden Quilt; so stay tuned for more photos! I plan to take advantage of not being able to go anywhere. Sometimes it's really nice to be snug and comfy at home.

My sister was making me crack up when she took this photo.

Here's the clown herself...

The twins are not only my sisters, but my best friends. Candace is in the red hat and Caitlyn's the cool chick sporting the shades.

Goofiness at it's best...(Do you like my hat? I knit it. It's my favorite snow hat.)

More of Thing 1 & Thing 2 ~ i.e. Candace and Caitlyn.

Butterfly Garden Quilt #1

Ilene loved her quilt. The fusia star sitting on the cream background with hints of periwinkle was a striking color combination. The free-form feather design I stitched in the background and the swirls I sewed inside the star enhanced the the bold, fresh look of the quilt. She requested that I stitch butterflies. I had never done butterflies before. After several bizillion sketches I had finally designed the perfect butterfly. They turned out so whimsical and fun. I did a huge photo shoot of this quilt today...so more photos coming!!!