In early February I shared an amazing weekend with Heather Ross and Gretchen Hirsch at Asilomar for an amazing Weekend Sewing Workshop (an event I told myself that I would dedicate a blog post to, but it still kind of overwhelms me).
My Modern Quilt Guild had a wonderful showing at a local (and sizable) quilt show put on by the PVQA, another local quilt show, and it as exciting to have my quilts on display at such a large forum.
It's interesting to settle into a quilting style; it's definitely something I want to play around with this year. I want to experiment more with solids and improvisational, geometric shapes. I also want to play with denser quilting and more complicated techniques.
However, lately, I have been ALL ABOUT EMBROIDERY. After the intense emotional trauma of finishing Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, for the first time ever, oh man, seasons six and seven destroyed me emotionally, in only the way that well written TV can) I decided that I needed a more immediate, more portable and less attention-demanding hobby than sewing.
I started making these as a fun project to make at crafting night with my lady friends without having to take my machine, and I (literally) caught the embroidery bug. I had so much fun stitching these and re-teaching myself techniques. Plus these puppies were featured on Feeling Stitchy today, How cool is that!?
I should mention that I used Carson Ellis transfers from Sublime Stitching for these guys. I should also mention that I am reading Wildwood which she illustrated (I also loved the Mysterious Benedict Society books, which she also illustrated. I like children's books okay? Don't judge, you'll love them too).
I used Anna Maria Horner embroidery floss from Anchor, primarily as well as the Sublime Stitching variegated floss and a dash of the usual DMC.
Right now, however, I'm working on an original design that's coming along well, if I do say so myself.
