Week in Review 2018 - 07/20

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

4 out of the 7 rows are pieced 

It is easy to loose focus on how fortunate I am to be able to do something that brings me great joy and serenity. Why am I drawn to creating variations of water, sky, and sun? Perhaps for the same reason as I work with fabric and thread. Both give me time to catch my breath, relax and just be. There is no hurry to get done. My work will get completed and the sun will rise and then set. I am reassured by repetition and have learned to appreciate the variations on a theme.

All 4 sun quadrants are pieced!

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. 

Week in Review 2016 - 04/29

Isn't this fun? I discovered
a collection of apps that
create all kinds of surreal
effects. 

I just have the bottom
6" and top 3" of Sunrise
Abstraction left to quilt.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Serene - that is precisely how I felt yesterday while quilting Sunrise Abstraction. How I wish I could wave a magic wand and tap into serenity at will. It is so easy to get caught up in the demands of daily life. The to do list is invariably longer than the done list. It feels like such a luxury to sit down and spend hours free motion quilting. What made yesterday different? It may have been because the motif is second nature for me to quilt. It certainly helped that I had zero thread issues. It didn't hurt that this was the second week of no traveling. It always takes me a while to get back in the groove. When I do - serenity...

I wasn't so mellow that I got nothing accomplished. Here is how the week went:

Close-up of the free motion quilting done this week
on Sunrise Abstraction. This is what had me
feeling so serene.

1)  Finish Reflection #2  - Create and attach the label either when needed or when I have a second label to print at the same time. - I printed the label, finally!

2) Work on Sunrise Abstraction - Done!

I managed to quilt around 60% of the quilt in just two studio days. I have approximately one more studio day to go and the quilting will be done.

3) Free motion quilting practice - Done!

Remember last week's
daffodil images. Here
is the same photo, but this
time manipulated through
Drawing Pad.

My work on Sunrise Abstraction is doing double duty here.

4) Do some surface design work - Done!


Lesson 3 of Art on the iPad had me exploring several more apps. This week the apps focused on drawing. 

5) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open - Done!

I never did learn how to do cartwheels or headstands as a child. I'm not sure why these were so difficult for me. I do hate the blood rush when I am upside down. This past Tuesday there was only me and one other student in Yoga. She is 36 to my one week from turning 63. She wanted to work on headstands using the wall for support. I just wanted to cry or least do my own thing when the teacher went with this suggestion. Instead I tried. I didn't manage a full headstand but I did, very briefly, get two feet on the wall above my waist with my head resting between my forearms on my mat. 

Another drawing app experiment. This was super
easy and fun to do.

I'm looking forward to next week. I love all aspects of quilting. Still there is something exciting about squaring up a quilt. This is when the piece truly comes alive for me. I should be at that point with Sunrise Abstraction next week. So, that is one thing I'll be working on. Here is the rest of the plan:


1)  Finish Reflection #2  - Attach the label 

2) Work on Sunrise Abstraction

3) Free motion quilting practice

4) Do some surface design work


5) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open



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