My Journal Quilt

Ok, I’m finally ready to post a pic of my year-long journal quilt project. For this quilt, I made one 6x6” journal quilt every week from my 48th birthday until my 49th (Feb. 2009 to Feb. 2010).
The quilt actually has 56 squares—52 weeks, plus 4 embroidered corner squares that read “Journal Quilt,” “Feb. 2009,” “Feb 2010,” and “My 48th Year.”

As it turns out, creating all the squares was probably the easy part. Once I had completed them, I couldn’t decide on the best way to assemble them.

I considered stitching them to a solid background in a grid. I didn’t want to do that, however, because each square has a hand-written label on the back describing the inspiration for that week’s square.
I thought about adding sashing between the rows and the columns, but I was afraid that would make the piece unbearably wonky.

Finally, I decided just to stitch them all together. Here’s what it looks like at this point:

I’m not terribly happy with it yet. I think the problem is that there is nothing to unify the squares, so it seems a little disjointed/chaotic. I’m considering adding borders to it, but I just can’t decide.

Another thought . . . I could disassemble the squares, stitch them to a background (black, maybe?), then cut away the extra background fabric so that the labels are still visible.

Ideas? Suggestions? I would like to finish this quilt before ANOTHER year has passed!

Lucky Me!

I just found out I won Melanie Testa’s drawing for a spot in her Joggles class: Let's Exchange some Art: Stencils, Stamps and Grounds with Melanie Testa

Yippee! Thanks, Melanie!

I may end up with a bunch of art to share with blog readers as well, so stay tuned!

So Long, Arkansas!

Our vacation is almost over, and we’re driving home tomorrow. I’m already thinking about “home” things and making mental to-do lists and losing the peaceful feeling that has settled over me. So before that feeling is gone completely, I’ll share some of our vacation memories from the past week.
The little cabin that we stayed at in Eureka Springs was charming and cozy:


We had a lovely view of the lake, both from the cabin and during our walks:



We met a sweet cat named Luke who walked with us, and posed for pictures:


We grilled steaks and fresh vegetables we bought at the farmer’s market; our little dog Maxine was particularly thrilled about the leftovers:

I was surprised by the number of interesting wildflowers we encountered; in Texas, our wildflowers are mostly weeds. I have no idea what these are, except for the coneflower, which I only know because I’ve seen one in a quilt:



 


I may be over the limit in pictures for one post, so I’ll continue them in the next post.

Giveaway!

Not mine, but here: http://sammisofties.blogspot.com/

Mummysam is giving away an adorable book called Little Birds: 26 Handmade Projects to Sew, Stitch, Quilt, and Love.

Pop on over and leave a comment for your chance to win!

Child at Play

Sometimes the best way for me to pull out of a creative free-fall is just to get out the art supplies I don’t play with often enough—paper, paints, markers, scissors, glue—and revert to that time in childhood when play was serious business (and vice-versa). No pressure, no thoughts of “what will I do with this?” or “how does this move me toward my goals?”

So, here are some collage/mixed media/visual journal pages that I’ve been working on playing with, complete with advice to myself:

 

 

Fun, fun, FUN!

Catching Up

As usual, I did manage to overcome my creative drought. Even in the midst of it, I took advantage of the extra time to get some projects out of the way: a quilt I had promised to Quilts for Kids,

 

and a quilt top for my sweetie that needed to be quilted. My intention was to hand-quilt this one, but after hand-quilting a few of the blocks I threw in the towel and finished it off with machine FMQ:

And, a journal for my sister, who just retired from teaching drama to middle-schoolers; now that she’s a lady of leisure, she’ll have plenty of time for fun things like journaling:

Tomorrow, I’ll post pics of what I’ve been doing with paper, paints, markers, and my renewed creative spirit.