This time next Wednesday...

...I'll be on my way to Houston!!!

 

 

 

It will be a quick trip...fly in, go to Preview Night to look at the quilts, attend

show Thursday to shop shop SHOP, and home Friday afternoon.

 

Anyone else going?  If so I'd love to meet you!

 

 

 

I haven't been idle...I swears!

As I was writing my post about the Jacksonville show, it occurred to me that it's been

a while since I've really written about anything quilty...8/13/13 to be exact. 

I haven't been sitting idle.  I've been keeping busy in fact working on several

things...bouncing around from project to project as usual.

I've made some more City Sampler blocks.  I have on 18 more to do and then I have all 100. 

But to be honest, I'm not sure that I'm going to make the last 18.  I have to have this

project pieced, quilted and bound in 4 weeks to be entered into our guild's

show with my friends under the Group category.

 

Here are my blocks so far.  I haven't a clue how I want to set them

or even how many of them I actually want to use. 

 

 

 

I've also been spending some time "dying" black and white prints using diluted textile paints.  I had planned to do this I think a couple years ago and then never did.  I had all the stuff but just never got around to it.  Mark Sherman's class gave me just the motivation I needed to do it.

 

 

 

With a ton of paint leftover I decided to experiment a little bit.  And I came up with this.

To make it, I traced a deer silhouette I found online onto freezer paper and then

 ironed it onto a white Kona fat quarter.  Next I diluted some paints and

put them into small spray bottles and this is what I ended up with. 

 

Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.  I'd like to add more color...maybe.  And initially

I thought I would Zentangle the heck out of the deer and then changed my mind. 

What I think I'm going to do is quilt the face in so that it gives a ghostly appearance. 

Stay tuned to see what happens.  I should have it done in a couple years...lol.

 

 

On the longarm front I did a little charity quilt.  This is #16...

nothing special quilted on it...just a funky free motion flower thingy.

 

 

During the past couple of months I also made this quilt from approximately

110 jelly roll strips.  This is a shot of what it looked like before I quilted it.

 

And here are a couple of pics of the free motion quilting

I did on it...a big meandering paisley.

 

 

And finally...this is what I'm working on as we speak.  It's for a black and white

challenge for a show in West Palm Beach in January I think. 

Like the City Sampler, I have to have it done in about four weeks.

 

The challenge is to come up with a quilt that is black and white with the option of 

one or two colors added that equal no more than 25%.  The quilt has to be no

more than 160" around.  I think this one will come out around 140". 

 

Right now I'm stitching down the fused applique and then it's ready to be quilted

...which I have no idea how I'll do yet.

So what have you been up to?