Week in Review 2013 - 08/26

1) Companion Oysters (Deadline 9/01/2013)

Detail from the backside of Companion Oysters

Whatever was I thinking? Although the deadline is not officially here, I am officially opting to let it slip by without finishing Companion Oysters. I could obsessively work every waking hour and some sleeping hours to finish, but where is the joy in that? Instead I have learned (not for the first, second or perhaps tenth or twentieth time) that intense, detailed free motion quilting takes far more time than I ever book for it, but it is worth it. Companion Oysters is coming alive with the attention to detail that the quilting is giving it.

a) Finish quilting Companion Oysters. - Started.

Detail from the front side of Companion Oysters
The more intense quilting surrounding the seaweed
helps create a sense of depth when seen in person.
I opted to quilt a horizontal pattern to enhance the
feeling that the shells are on a beach.

b) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it. - Not possible.

Another detail from further away of Companion Oysters.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

Express Your Love II covered with a plastic orientation
sheet that helps with positioning where various pieces that
will eventually be appliquéd to the background will go.

It can be tempting when I am running behind on my exhibition pieces to skip the assignments that Leah doles out weekly. So, why don't I? The answer is simple. I find that her assignments sharpen my skills and give me new techniques to add to my tool box. I can honestly say that it is making my way through these assignments that has given me the confidence to make quilting as much a part of the design as the image when creating my work.


Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. 

There were two assignments this week. The first was a new foundation style based on triangles and rods. I used it for the tress on the left in Express Your Love II.  I am really curious to see how Leah will recommend that we attached the seven pieced tresses to the quilt.

Detail from Express Your Love II. This week the "tress"
on the left was added. Note how triangles alternate with
rods versus the tress on the right which is primarily
skinny "wobbly" slivers.

The second assignment was a new free motion quilting motif Leah dubbed, Missing Pieces. This didn't grab me when I saw the demonstration video. However, I found it both very easy to stitch and I rather liked the pattern as part of the sampler of free motion quilting patterns I have been testing out recently. I even found it was not that difficult to fit around other motifs.

Practice sample of Missing Pieces.

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - Some day.

I suspect I won't finish quilting Companion Oysters next week. However I am willing to give it another shot. 



1) Companion Oysters 

a) Finish quilting Companion Oysters.

b) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. 

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


I am now linking up to two blogs on Friday's. The first is Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project and the second is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.