Catching Up

Sometimes I honestly forget that I have a blog, and those sometimes seem to be more often then not of late. Oh Instagram... you have made it so much easier to connect and share and how I enjoy you, but I had this dear blog child long before you and do not wish to abandon her altogether! 

(Forgive me little blog child... I still love you!)

Ok, so what's new? Well, I had to get a couple of new self-portrait shots for a lovely interview, which I will share in a minute. But first, I am going to tell the truth about this above photo. (Which I think looks nice and gives me a rather casual relaxed air, yes?) So this is what you don't see... I was sitting on a low stool, in front of a bookcase where I suspended two long loops of ropes on either side from thumbtacks sticking into the right and left top corners of the bookcase. The quilts had dowel rods in their hanging sleeves and I stuck the end of one rod into one loop and the other end of the other rod into the other loop. Then I clothes pinned the two quilts together around the top middle section. Their was some slack which made them droop, so I then folded the top edges of the quilts over one of the shelves and placed some heavy books on top to take up the slack. Next, I worked to get my old little point and shoot Canon camera, (which is about as high tech as I go) at just the right height, (no tripod. Why, oh why, don't I have a tripod?) I accomplished this by using one coffee table, with one small stool on top, followed by several books, followed by the camera. Easy! I set the camera on a timer, leaned forward, pressed the button to take a picture, leaned back and smiled. I did this about 50 times and still wasn't pleased with any of the shots. Then the quilts fell down and landed on my head. Re-hung the quilts, and took about 50 more photos and voila! One self-portrait of me doing my best to look casual, relaxed and chill!

But see, all that effort was for a good reason, as I had been asked by the lovely Kim Soper of Leland Ave Studios if I would be willing to be interviewed for The Creativity Project, which is where Kim is interviewing 52 quilters over 52 weeks to get to the "Why" we quilt. If you are not already following along, I hope you check it out... both my interview and the others. Kim is doing a wonderful job and I was honored to be a part of it!

And as for creating, well, I've been doing a lot of playing around... much experimenting and just a few actual finished works. This is one of the finished works, a quilt titled "Seasons Merge".

It's machine quilted on my domestic with a a free-form baptist fan adaptation, a design which always connects me to the local Lancaster County countryside with its plowed fields and soft rolling hills.

And I also made this rather lop-sided punch needle pillow which I adore. In the hoop it looked nice and round, but I later realized that the hoop had gotten distorted by the level of tension I had used to keep the fabric taut. Now I know to look for those distortions next time!

And like I said, I really adore this pillow! It was inspired by Pennsylvania Dutch frakturs, which hold great interest for me. And best yet, when positioned at an angle on the chair, as shown above, or...

 held just right as in this second attempt at a self-portrait, 

(which went a bit smoother then the other one) 

you can't even see the lopsidedness!

And in praise of things that are lopsided, off-kilter and not perfect...

This is what makes my heart sing! I am so blessed to live an an area that reminds me daily that there is great beauty in that which is not perfect. Look for it, embrace it and celebrate it!

xo