Two new projects, Quilt From the Back and more

NOTE: There will not be a newsletter this week as I’ll be traveling that day. I forgot to add that to last week’s newsletter. If you’re not already getting it, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter here.

It’s been a week of new starts, pondering what’s next and a discovery. First, the discovery. You probably recall my Turtle Hand Batik panel that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Quite by accident, I turned on the lights above the panel at night and was delighted with what I saw:

I love how the light rakes across the piece and highlights the trapunto and texture of the quilting. I consider what I do on my wholecloth work to be sculpture, and this photo really highlights that texture – I was delighted!

I also made another charity quilt. I am of the mind that the simpler the better on charity quilts – done is better than perfect! I essentially made one big block with fabric in my stash and I am happy with the result:

I used the Quilt From the Back method which is a great way for beginners or those with little free motion quilting experience. I chose a large scale print with an easily quilt-able design and quilted from the back. A few photos:

From the front, you can look like an expert quilter, long before you’ve conquered fmq. I love the colorful fabrics I chose:

Do you see that even if you’re not that great yet, you can look fabulous from the front?

And I brought out this quilt-in-process for another look:

I’ve still got ideas percolating on this one. All the fabrics are silk except some in the strip piecing. It has a lovely luster to it. I’ll need to think a little more before going forward on this one.

And this just bubbled up to the surface and I began to work on this yesterday.

The center tea bags are from Libby Williamson‘s class from Craft Napa last year. (BTW, did you hear, Pokey has a fun virtual format for Craft Napa this year?!). The silk behind the tea bags as well as the border came from my stash and the sashing fabric also, a hand-dye from someone.

It was so fun to play with those tea bags!

I accidentally deliberately put the silk on different grains to add interest – see how the visual nap shows lighter or darker? Check out the border, same thing. Love that! Adds a little more interest. And I put all but one of the tea bags on-point, just for grins. That hand-dye is the perfect sashing I think.

Totally playing here – made a few Applipops out of the hand-dye. Not sure if they will make the cut, I’ll have to play with that one and I haven’t had time. This is hot off the press!

I will have something soon on an Applipop give-away that will be fantastic! Stay tuned.

I’ve been working my tail off trying to get set-up to teach live online. I hope to have some news on that soon. I am legit excited now!

I’m off for a few very needed days off. I’ll be back soon and ready to post and create a newsletter next week. Be well. I’ll connect with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.