End of summer

I spent a lot of time this summer at our family cabin in Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior. I have gone there all my life, and one of my favorite things to do is look at rocks. There are some great beaches where the rocks are smooth, from years of crashing waves from the big lake. One year I collected rocks for our pond at home, another year we used some to make lamps. Some of my favorite ones are just sitting on a shelf! This year we looked for small, flat ones,and my husband drilled holes in them so I could make necklaces; here is my first one! Lately I have applied to several quilt shows, but I have finished with that now, I have cleaned up my studio. Today I am thinking of those waves, and they are translating into something new on my design wall. I am back to repeating patterns, but not in any rush-no deadlines, no shows to think about. Maybe it will work out, maybe not, but I am going to take time to see how shapes and colors fit together.

ColorForm 21

I have been working on more of these smaller ColorForm quilts lately. As you can see, I love orange! Using just a few colors and shapes can be challenging, but interesting in these quilts. As the summer continues to be busy, it is nice to work on something challenging, yet small enough to handle in a short amount of time. One more quilt waits for machine quilting before summer ends.

Summer

These two quilts are almost done-they need bindings. The top is ColorForm 20-16"H x 24"W, and the other is ColorForm 19-15"H x 21 "W. In all the activities of summer, I have been working on bigger quilts to enter in shows with deadlines coming up in the fall, and took time to make more of these ColorForm quilts. I have sold quite a few of these over the last year, and wanted to use some fabric I have recently dyed. I have 2 more to machine quilt,and 2 other quilts a little bigger to finish. It is not so agonizing to machine quilt these little ones!

Big

I was excited to hear of a quilt show that encouraged entries that are big! This quilt was made at the beginning of my Structure series, and is 75" wide, and 45" long. I do enjoy working on a large quilt, but it is not easy! Just working on it is hard: visualizing how big the shapes need to be, machine quilting, finding a place to lay it out to put together the layers, finding a place to photograph it. Then getting it all in a box and ready to ship, making a wooden hanger that can fit in the box too, adding a hanging sleeve at the bottom to help it lie flat-it was a relief to finally get it mailed! The quilt show BIG! is hosted by Red Rocks Community College, in Lakewood, Colorado, and will be on display from July 5 through mid August, 2012.

Stitching

The machine stitching seems endless! So I find myself taking a break and work on the process of framing some of my Dad's paintings.

Textiles in a Tube 2

This is a new show for me: it looks interesting as you must send your work in a 3" x 36" tube, so you can be pretty creative! My quilt is 18-1/2" H x 27" W, so will fit easily in a tube!

Lost & Found: orange

I love the orange in the middle of this quilt, and also the intense blue. I quilted this new Lost and Found quilt using different colors of thread. This series has to do with losing a sense of self, then stripping away all non-essentials, including anything outside oneself. Once you find what you believe, you feel strong, and know who you are. I have moved away from the darker colors of the previous quilts in this series.