Making Hay

Let us make hay while the sun shines.- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha

So I had a pile of reds, golds, and browns, culled from the donated fabric bin at the meeting of Community First! Quilters. The fields are ripe, they said - it's harvest time.

The front and back are both improvised strip-piecing. The emerging pattern reminded me of aerial photographs of farmland.

See the burgundy? It was in my fabric stash for ages. It was just waiting for that exquisite harvest-gold botanical print to pair with.

Like, hey, what's up cheese? I'm that wine you've been thirsting after.

This spring-green patch was left over from a previous quilt.

Making Hay was my first ever longarm quilting experience. Many thanks to Jessica and Ellie at The Cotton Cupboard for their patient teaching!

What is Modern Quilting? Learn more about Mobile Loaves & Fishes What is the Community First! Village? Contribute your quilting skills to the Community First! Quilters

As the Bat Flies

As the Bat Flies Improvisational patchwork quilt created for Community First! Sarah Atlee, 2015

What is Modern Quilting? Learn more about Mobile Loaves & Fishes What is the Community First! Village? Contribute your quilting skills to the Community First! Quilters

The Community First! Quilters group relies heavily on donated fabrics. I love the challenge of taking colors and prints that don't look like they should go together... and making them go together.

This is my variation on the traditional Flying Geese quilt block. I call it Flying Bats. See the grey print with the little insects? Bats eat insects. There you go.

Do you know about Austin's bat colony?

I was surprised at how difficult it was to make these blocks come out how I'd imagined. After a lot of trial and some error, I settled into a method.

The back.

Stitching detail. This was my second-ever quilt finished on a longarm machine. While I don't yet feel entirely adept at the process, I enjoy the speed and flexibility of free-motion quilting.

Whee!

Deep-cleaning the Studio, Part 1

It's a new year! And I've got a lot to work on in 2016. Time to properly clean the studio. Mostly that means dusting. But I'd also like to reduce the general visual clutter in here. Smooth out the lines, if you will. Quiet environment, quiet mind.

That little sign says "Bad painting is better than no painting at all."

Does anything collect dust quite like books? Oh, yeah, wooden bookshelves do.

For the first time, I've organized my books by size rather than subject. Smoothing out the lines. However subjects are still organized by shelf.

Genre fiction, skewed toward science fiction & fantasy, plus books I loved as a kid. Bingo & Yahtzee are here too.

General fiction, poetry, essays & memoirs, travel, reference. Yes I put Ready Player One in general fiction and not with the sci-fi. Don't judge.

Graphic arts, a brief stop in Southwest American & Spanish Colonial art, on to Modern & Contemporary.

Quiet bookshelf, quiet active mind. Ahh.

Now on to things like ...this.

See how it all turned out.

Curves on Top of Curves - Part 2

The Austin Modern Quilt Guild got so many contributions for the Drunkard's Path challenge that there were enough for two whole quilts. Thus we were able to double our donation to the Community First! Village. See pictures of the first quilt here.

First some links, then the pictures.

What is Modern Quilting? Join the Austin Modern Quilt Guild Learn more about Mobile Loaves & Fishes What is the Community First! Village? Contribute your quilting skills to the Community First! Quilters

Even More Curves.

Plus some stripes.

I just love the two zebra-striped yin-yang blocks we got. Can you spot the one in the other quilt?

By the pool. In November. Because Austin.

The back.

Quilting detail, and adorable chairs fabric from Stitch Lab.

I want to thank the members of the Austin Modern Quilt Guild for trusting me with their quilt blocks - I had SO much fun assembling and quilting these guys! You rock.

Want to see more creations like these? Check out the Austin MQG on Instagram.

Curves on Top of Curves - Part 1

In 2015 the Austin Modern Quilt Guild issued a challenge to its members - the Drunkard's Path. Many of us had never pieced curved seams before, so we leapt at the opportunity to learn. I learned with help from the excellent Amanda Hohnstreiter - a curved piecing expert! AMQG members were invited to construct these blocks using blacks and whites with a "pop of color." Here are some of my contributions:

See the little ninjas? We have Lily Gonzales-Creed to thank.

After collecting the blocks, we pieced them together into two quilts (see part 2 here). The quilts were then donated to the Community First! Village, a wonderful project brought into being by Mobile Loaves & Fishes.

Interested in learning more about this project? Here are some helpful links:

What is Modern Quilting? Join the Austin Modern Quilt Guild Learn more about Mobile Loaves & Fishes What is the Community First! Village? Contribute your quilting skills to the Community First! Quilters

Now, on to the quilt pictures!

Look at all those color pops. Pop-pop-pow!

Just lounging.

The back.

Who says they all have to be circles? Nobody, that's who.

Close-up of my free-motion quilting, done at The Cotton Cupboard.

So that this post won't be absurdly long, I've put the second quilt over here.