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| Ariana's Building Blocks64" H x 49" W |
It's spring in Appleton, WI, my home town. The birds are sporting their brightest plumage of the year, pairing up and building nests. My husband and I relish this time of year as everything comes to life. We take advantage of the ice free ground and warmer weather to walk the neighborhood, noticing the changes and chatting about this and that. This morning the dominant topic was financial planning for our retirement, still nearly a decade away. What we didn't include in this discussion, but something that I think about is what, oh what to do with all the quilts I have made over the years. True, some like Ariana's Building Blocks have been given to friends and family. A few quilts have been commissioned or sold. However, after making 5 - 6 quilts every year for over 25 years I have more quilts than even the Princess and the Pea could sleep on. My children have not expressed an interest in my work. Who knows about my grandchildren, but I assume they won't my quilts either. I could use some help. What plans have you made for quilts? Any recommendations?
Hip, hip hooray! Ariana's quilt is done. I will send it to her next week. That is one quilt I won't have to worry about when it is time to downsize. It did dominate my time this week as you can see.
1) Ariana's Building Blocks previously known as Tumbling Blocks I
a) block and square up the quilt - Done!
b make the binding - Done!
c) attach the binding - Done!
d) make the sleeve - Done!
e) attach the sleeve - Done!
2) Leah Day projects.
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| Blazing Spiral A free motion quilting motif by Leah Day |
b) Do Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting lesson. - Done!
I tried my hand at Leah Day's Blazing Spiral. I found this pretty tricky despite the fact that I am normally comfortable with spiraling in and out of shape. This would be a great motif for tree bark or reptile skin.
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| Life Book 2014 Lesson 17 Taught by Tascha Parkinson |
It was a wise decision to tackle the mixed media lessons in Life Book 2014 this year. Each assignment gives me a chance to explore design principles from repetition to scale. I am also enjoying learning different ways to systematically approach drawing people and animals. This lesson was taught by Tascha Parkinson. Her work features girls with apple kissed cheeks. The lesson gave me another opportunity to incorporate text in my artwork.
4) Little Lake Butte des Morts in Fall (Due August 3) - a commissioned quilt - On hold until quilts with earlier deadlines are completed.
Start piecing the quilt.
5) Tickling the Ivories - make and attach the label.
Now that Ariana's quilt is done it is time to move on to other projects. Here are some of my ideas for next week:
1) Little Lake Butte des Morts in Fall (Due August 3)
a) Create the blue print for this quilt
b) Start the piecing
2) Wild Apple 12" x 12" Opportunity - (Due August 15)
a) Determine if any of my free motion quilting samplers could be repurposed to suit
b) Create several 12" x 12" or smaller works for the exhibition
3) Leah Day projects.
a) Baste the face, torso and arms to Express Your Love II. - On hold until the quilts with deadlines are completed.
b) Do Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting lesson.
4) LifeBook 2014 - Do the assignments.
5) Tickling the Ivories - make and attach the label.
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.
Ariana's quilt is pretty amazing. She is a lucky girl.
ReplyDeleteI haven't thought so much about what will happen to my quilts when I am gone. I assume that my daughter will keep the ones she wants and give the rest to charity. There are many places that take quilts, the domestic violence shelter, the children's ward at the hospital, or the Red Cross. I have thought more about what will happen to the contents of my sewing room. I have an agreement with a group of my sewing friends. My family will contact these ladies to go through everything. They will take what they want for their own use and arrange for the rest to be donated.
Thank you, Ginia, for offering suggestions on what to do with my quilting treasures when I am ready to let them go. In fact I have given charities some thought. My work is 99% wall hangings, so not appropriate for the standard comfort quilt charities. I have wondered whether perhaps a skilled nursing facility might want them as a way to "soften" and identify rooms. However, most seniors hang their own personal mementos on the walls. Perhaps a charity could auction them off - but that requires work. My primary plan for unloading my fabric, thread, tools, paints and dyes is to have my local guild auction them in bundles at their annual internal fund raiser. I plan to donate my machines to the local tech college.
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