Creative Life Sampler

  Unrestrained Energy This is my last finish of 2024.  The inspiration for this quilt was a wonderful spotted fabric I acquired a couple of years ago from a guild member who was getting rid of her stash. I don't know that it would have caught my attention in another environment but in the context of her collection it called to me. I really appreciated her color sense and quality fabric choices. This small fabric cut inspired me to incorporate it in an improvised composition. It began in a modest way, with the cut away scraps in a cream solid. We were going on an extended vacation and I wanted to take some work to keep busy. There were so many scraps that I split them between two patterned fabrics and basted them in place so I could stitch them down at liesure. The two resulting quilts are quite different from one another. The first of the two completed was Shifting Contour : (See this link for the original post :  https://creativelifesampler.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-follow-...

 My Christmas Sampler, circa 2009 Reaching back into the linen closet to share this Christmas creation that was started in September 2008 and finished in January of 2009. It is a king sized sampler quilt, - each square is a star themed block in golds, dark greens and burgundies.  I still love this quilt, it makes me smile. I remember being so excited to make it.  But it feels like it was made a lifetime ago, in a different era, or maybe even created by somebody else. It's so foreign to what I make now.  In reality, I suppose I'm not the same person I was when I conceived of this quilt and put needle to fabric.  For one thing this quilt is all machine pieced and quilted, not a bit of hand work.  At that time  I was just beginning to explore Hawaiian appliqu é.  I had no idea how transformative developing skill in  appliqu é and reverse  appliqu é  would prove to be.   Back then, I had no desire to spend "too much time" on hand q...

  Blue Improvised Silhouette I worked on this piece over the summer and finished it time to enter it in a juried show at the end of August. It didn't get in, . . . oh well. This is a good time to reveal this quilt. Its icy palette of blue and aqua is really appropriate for the winter season.   This year I've focused most of my creative energy on improvisational appliqu é. The remnant cut away blue scraps from an earlier  appliqu é project were rearranged on a solid white for this composition. I wanted to see if I could change the nature of the white fabric through dense stitching which would add a second color. The silhouette of the blue was rotated and outlined so white shapes emerge against the compressed subtle aqua texture. My hope was that the blue contour would appear to hover over the white contour and they would both pull forward visually to float over the delicately tinted background. View of this quilt back