a distinct lack of Wednesday WIP.



Well, the tragedy continued... lol After I was done pouting about the kitty incident, I pulled out Love Drops to quilt. You may remember that I need to rip out my original stitching, as I decided that I didn't like the "double" heart effect.

Although I made that quilt top this past spring, which is not that long ago, I've made about 15 quilts since then, so I've learned a (tremendous!) lot since then, including that reallllllllllly closely spaced stitches are not a good idea.    Especially when you're trying to pull them out later. *ahem*

After spending nearly three hours unpicking (and having only ten or so unpicked hyperquilted hearts to show for it - or not show for it, if you know what I mean) I decided that I would incorporate the hyperquilted hearts into my new quilting design and have done with it.

Alas and alack (lol) new problems developed. 




It's a confetti quilt, right?  With oh, roughly 1 billion seams.  And though I had many, many needles on hand, all of them were of the skinny size, not quilting size, and I went through 6 packages of needles and  hours and hours wasted by constant putting in a new needle, re-threading, coming across another seam that was just a little too thick ten minutes later, and *poof!* another broken needle.

The stores were closed so I couldn't buy more, and I had already decided that 30 needles was the limit I would waste on this quilt.  Two thirds of the way through I reached needle number 30, and when it broke, I threw in the towel.

I'm picking up some new needles at lunch today and hope that I will have something substantive to show you tomorrow!

Sheesh!

We agreed, but the fostering process turned out to be a disaster for us.  After bottle feeding those little babies, stroking their throats to make them swallow, teaching them how to go to the bathroom,  and generally, being their "mommies" - we fell deeply in love and couldn't give them back. 


And that's where the problems began.  Because they were fosters, we kept them separate from the other three cats for four months.  And though my old girl (Mitzie) likes them as well was she likes the other two girls, the two teenagers have never integrated the babies or accepted them although it's been years! 




So, during the day, "the babies" as we call them, live in the downstairs portion of our house, and "the three girls" live upstairs. At night however, we leave the doors open, close our bedroom doors, and let the wild rumpus begin!



One morning, I found the two babies trapped on top a dresser in my sewing room, with the teenagers staring them down from a sewing table across.  I scolded the teenagers, rescued the babies and didn't think much more of it, until I went to sew the binding on my quilt, which was sitting on top of that dresser.

It's full of pee!

Needless to say, I won't be working with THAT quilt today. 

So, I'm going to pull out another WIP and quilt that, and will have another quilt to show you later on today for my Wednesday WIP.  *le sigh*

My apologies, and stay tuned...

I have 't been spending as much time in my sewing room lately as I would like - it isn't that I haven't had the opportunity, only that I have been feeling strangely unmotivated.




I realized on Friday night as BSP and I discussed our weekend and the usual question came up "What will you work on this weekend?" that though I have a host of WIPs to be completed and approximately one thousand quilts in my head to be made, none of them were speaking to me.

So, it was with some reluctance that I approached my sewing room on Saturday morning.  I worked on my Wednesday WIP for a while, but apparently, as I was quilting, a plan was forming in my subconscious, against my conscious will.



When I finished (well  thought I finished but that's a story for Wednesday!); I pulled out a group of fabrics that I had set aside for several months now, fabrics I had been collecting for a certain quilt; pulled out my notebook to refresh my memory about layout and began to cut and prepare the fabric for sewing (again, this quilt is a mix of silk, satins and a silk cotton blend from Japan, so stablizing of some of the fabrics was necessary).

And then I began to sew.  And as I began to sew, I immediately began making something different than I had planned.  The process was a meditative one, and when I post the finished quilt, I'll explain what happened and why.

But in the meantime, here is the finished top.  When done, it will be called  "A Sparrow in the Rain".

1. dispersion quilt, 2. recycled fabric container, 3. Arlequin, 4. Expression libre

Why these are this week's Flickr Faves, after the jump.


Two of these quilts (the ones on the right) are by the same artist -  Cecile Meraglia. The red one is by Deborah O'Hare and the third is by Carol Taylor.   What all of these pieces have in common is an unabashed love of saturated colour and a certain fearlessness in their construction. 

I admire these women as artists - not only because of the beauty of their work, but their lack of inhibition in producing it. Some day, I too hope to produce work as beautiful and free as this - with my own voice.

In the meantime, I hope you have a weekend filled with beauty.  See you on Monday.  :)

A while back, I showed you a sneak peek of a quilt I was working on. Well, I both started and finished it this weekend.