Hi Friends!
It's been a quiet summer over here and, if I am to be perfectly honest, it's been kind of a tough summer. I'm not going to go into too much detail but June and July were really difficult for our family. August is looking much better and I know we are through the worst of it! This did mean, however, that I was sapped creatively for the last few weeks; if I had a free moment all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and just sit in quiet and so I didn't do much of anything.
As things have started to look up, I started to get an inkling of an idea. I had gotten my hands on an old, old window and had it sitting in my sewing room.
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| It needs a little love.... |
I decided I wanted to make six flowers to go in the panes of each of the windows. I took measurements, made my own patterns, and used scrap fabric to execute this idea (before I used my really good fabric!).
The result was pretty good and I was going to spend this month starting to put together the real thing. Then I went to my guild meeting for the month and we had Kathy McNeil (https://www.kathymcneilquilts.com) as a speaker. Kathy is an internationally award winning quilt artist, pattern designer, teacher and judge.
The quilts she brought with her were mainly landscape appliqué quilts and they were truly amazing. She talked about using various simple techniques in order to make truly memorable quilts. But for me, what really shone through was how passionate she was about what she was doing and how she wanted to make sure each of her quilts was the best that she could do and she pushed herself to try new things. I came out of there very inspired.
I came out of her talk champing at the bit to tear apart the flowers I had already made for my window frame. There are a couple of issues that I need to sort out--how to make sure my points aren't lost in the tulips and I and I'm going to scrap the circle flower all together, they just aren't working for me.
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| Looks pretty good taped behind the frame. |
My plan is to put it in my living room above the couch. I was thinking I could make ornaments at Christmas time, hearts for Valentine's Day, apples or pumpkins for the Autumn, the possibilities are endless. But then I got it in my head I needed to paint the living room/dining room before I could hang the frame; it just wouldn't look good with old, ugly beige behind it.
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You know you hate the color of your walls when you really like just the primed wall before any paint has been added (left).
Well, that's what I'm working on for now.
How was your summer? Finish anything amazing? Work on something new? Share your projects!
Happy Sewing!
Kate
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