Diamond Play

but first this is Barnum – he’s made an appearance here before.  This is one comfy kitty.  When he lays around like this I can get him talking to me.  Both cats are quite vocal when it suits their purposes.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped in at the Quilted Bear Den in Hyde Park, NY.  They were in the process of moving to smaller digs so I got some great bargains on some really cool fabric.  This is Ricky Tims “Rhapsodee Coloree” by Red Rooster.  I’ve wanted this fabric since it first made it to the market, but waited.  I bought this and several other pieces.  I thought I’d take some advantage of the diagonal lines inherent in the fabric with the division of quilting and see what happens.  The quilting changes color and shape in each quadrant.  The diamond is trapunto and will have some more stitching built it so it will have a bit more definition.

Of course I have swirling feathers and I like the curvy-ness of the arcs of the “Baptist Fan” design.

The quilting is quite close and tight.  I am enjoying doing a lot of heavy quilting on my quilts these days.

Julie got her daughters quilt and loves it.  I’ll post more pictures shortly.  I happened to be on the phone with her when she opened the quilt.  Oh it was so much fun to hear her reaction.  I would have loved to have seen her daughters face.

Well I’m off to do some customer work then the guild quilt.  I’ll post pictures of the guild quilt when it’s done – this quilt will help raise money for Common Ground.

Normally I wouldn’t share quilt shop stories on the blog but this one is a confirmation of what I’m doing – teaching & quilting.  So the other day I’m in the shop and the customer comes in to get fabric for a project she’s working on.  We talk for some time about quilting, her art work.  One thing I’ve found freeing over the last year or so is having fun playing with various shapes, fusing them to fabric and then quilting or just quilting fabric with whatever thread and quilting patterns make sense.  This process is outside my norm as a quilter and it’s been fun.  From what she says and from what I experienced of her while we chatted her artwork is much more free and less constrained.  I shared with her that having constraints (i.e. taking one of the classes I offered and learning the technique) might add to her art work in some really good ways.  At the end of the conversation she told me I should be a teacher.  That was the best compliment ever.  Thanks!

Happy Quilting!

Teri