I'm Honoured and Excited!

I'm on a bit of a high right now!

I knew I had had something accepted for publication in 1000 Quilt Inspirations, but I'm thrilled to announce I will have ELEVEN of my pieces published in this book, which will be available for purchase at the end of the year!

You can find out more about purchasing the book by going to Qbookshop.com

I can't wait to see a copy myself!

New Abstract Series Underway...

Last week I posted about some beautiful Vicki Welsh hand dyed fabric that I was lucky enough to win. I just love hand dyed fabrics.  They've got so much interesting texture and rich colour.  

I've started a new series of abstract quilts using a collection of my own hand dyed fabric combined with Vicki's pieces.  All of the fabrics have been prepared with Misty Fuse so that I can now create by cutting and collaging in an intuitively spontaneous way.

I just love how all of these fabulous colours compliment each other.  And, as you can see, every little bit of fused 'eye candy' has the potential for finding it's way into one of the finished pieces.

Although I can see hand stitch further enhancing these pieces, I plan to start with extensive machine quilting first.  Hopefully once the cast comes off I'll be able to get back to hand stitching right away since the collection of works in progress that require hand stitching and/or beading is getting bigger and bigger!  LOL

Rust

The rust piece is finally finished!  I learned while finishing it that apparently I would prefer to thread my machine left handed, but the cast wouldn't let me get close enough.  As I tried it just went 'clunk' against the machine, so I was forced to use my right hand.  LOL  Thankfully the actual machine sewing process isn't hampered too much by the cast! In spite of the challenges I encountered working with the rust dyed fabric (you can read about it here, and more about how the piece began here), I think I'll work with it again because I'm really pleased with the finished piece.

Here are a few close up images of the piece:

Linking up with Off The Wall Friday.

Block Party and a Ball Toss...

After creating the Pick-Up Sticks art quilts, I decided to continue the mini series by using only some of the pieced stripes along with some other bright fabrics.  The first piece is called "Block Party".

 The idea of the block party got me thinking of games and from that "Ball Toss" was born. I am especially loving the process of the free motion machine quilting on these smaller pieces.  It is such a relaxing feeling to be able to doodle with a needle and thread.

I have more ideas popping into my head than I can keep up...I'm considering a couple of other series that I can't wait to get started on!