Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Country Church Quilt


Quilt #9 in my Through Ellyn's Eyes series is finished and it makes me really happy. It's a simple little country church and it has a lot of meaning for me.
Two of my late great uncles were Presbyterian ministers. This has carried on through the generations. I am still a Presbyterian today and my faith is an important piece of who I am.The uncle I knew best was Uncle Les. His church was a sweet little country church in upstate New York. In addition to pastoring, Uncle Les and Aunt Delia had a farm. Mostly they harvested grapes that were sold to Welches. I have fond childhood memories of visiting them in their country farmhouse.
 More walking foot quilting on this one, Also, I'm really becoming fond of big stitch hand bindings on my quilts.
My collection of quilts is growing and I am seeing some distinct themes developing. Which quilt is your favorite so far?




 

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Color of the Year 2021

 I always look forward to the announcement of Pantone's color of the year. This year's colors really resonated with me...

Pantone's swatches for its latest Colors of the Year: Illuminating, a vibrant light yellow, and Ultimate Gray, the first neutral shade to ever be selected.

Illuminating and Ultimate Gray. Both beautiful, separately and together. In fact, I have decorated my guest bedroom and bath in these colors. So it felt good to dive in and use them together in a small quilt. Small because the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild will be displaying them in the display case at the library again this year, as we did in 2019.

I actually made my quilt several months ago. After I pattern tested my friend Jane (Twiggy and Opal)'s Sparkle quilt, I decided to make a much tinier, two color version as a personal challenge. I used Kona Bright Idea (Illuminating) and Kona Overcast (Ultimate Gray) and made this 12" version of Sparkle...


Today it heads off to the library display. I hope to get up there sometime this month to see all of the quilts from our guild.

Have you made anything with this year's colors of the year?

Saturday, September 4, 2021

Going Up!

Eight weeks into my Through Ellyn's Eyes project and I'm still having so much fun. Beginning to see some patterns and learn some things about myself so that's awesome. This week I dipped back into buildings. I love buildings and architecture and find so much inspiration in cities. 

While I have a bunch of things sketched out in my sketchbook, when this week rolled around I really didn't know what I wanted to make. It kind of freaked me out a bit! I am always itching to get started on my next mini in the project but this week I kind of hit a wall. Nothing inspired me. Luckily I had other things to work on and deadlines to meet, so I kept busy. Very late in the week I had this vision of a ladder climbing up to a high, open window.....
Going up has a story to tell... what do you think it is? Did someone already climb up through the window? A forbidden boyfriend perhaps, sneaking in behind her paren't backs? A mischievous teenager who had snuck out after curfew? A burglar? YIKES! What do you think the story is?
I love how this one plays with my City Windows quilt. Both have a cartoonish feel, don't you think?

Eight quilts finished so far! Where do you think I'll go next?