checking in

It seems that I'm not only extremely introverted and shy IRL (even more so after the stroke), but that it transcends to my online life too.

I have been quilting over the last two months. I'm no longer interested in commercially printed fabric, so I used up the stash that I accumulated in the '90s. Since I'm in Europe and buying fabric here is quite expensive (I imported my stash from the USA, since it used to be less expensive than buying fabric from the few local quilt shops), and I used to quilt a lot earlier in my life, the stash I had left wasn't too big anymore. I managed to strip piece/cut/strip piece/cut/etc. nine quilts (I pieced front and back) in the style of the one in the photo below. I didn't even bother to take photos of them all (and four were already given as gifts). All that I have left now is a small stash of batiks, which I'll probably mix in with my hand dyed fabric until it's used up. And then it will be hand dyed fabric only, plus maybe some solids thrown in, or recycled clothing. For now at least.

The second picture is a table runner that "happened" during the strip piecing process. Back in the '80s I hand quilted *1* quilt, everthing else I've done since then was machine quilted. This is the first piece I hand quilted again. Since I'm doing it for my own pleasure and gifts only, I hand quilt without a care in the world. No tiny or evenly sized stitches here, and I still love the resulting look. The Quilt Police can bite me!

the rage and the madness

4 small strip pieced blocks, backed with water soluble stabilizer, heavily embroidered with cotton and rayon thread, that will somehow end up in one wallhanging. I think I will applique them to a background fabric.

and it keeps growing...

still crazy after all these quilts

That's what this quilt will be called, once it's done. Often people ask me how I come up with the names for my paintings and all I can reply is that they just "arrive" in my head. It works everytime for me. And it seems that it's the same with my quilts. Last night while happily piecing and cutting, I suddenly knew it.

This is where I'm at right now, 24 small blocks, 2 big ones.

yesterday's progress

I pieced and cut, then pieced and cut some more and at the end of the day I had eighteen 8 1/2" blocks (plus one 16 1/2") on the table. Since I worked with the same fabrics for the last quilt I made, I'm getting a little tired of seeing them. But I promised myself not to cut into any yardage, until I have used up at least some of those strips and scraps.

free piecing again

I started to piece again. Nothing complicated, I just grab strips and scraps from my pile and piece them together randomly until the fabric looks right to me. Then I cut blocks. So far I have one 16 1/2" block and four 8 1/2" blocks. I might cut those up diagonally and then join those triangles to make new blocks. We'll see. In the photos you can also see some of the strata I made to cut my blocks from. Can you tell I'm having fun? :)

"says who?" construction

I was asked to show some in progress photos of how I pieced the quilt top, so here they are. It was the first time I made a quilt without instructions or a pattern. Click on the photos to see them at full size.