This Is Everything We Are

I get really irritated when I visit a blog and only find apologies for why there haven't been more posts of late! For that reason we'll gloss over the fact that I haven't been here since January!! I have been posting on our DMTV blog so please check that out if you want to catch up with what we've been busy with recently. I also post on Instagram several times a week if you are missing me!!

Here's one of the projects that's been keeping me occupied. This is a small version of a much larger quilt already in the pipeline. We're working towards our exhibition at Festival of Quilts this summer and we've called the exhibit, 'This Is Everything We Are'. You can read our artist statement on Laura's blog if you'd like to know what's inspiring the work we are creating for the show.

This particular piece is a digital print of a design I created on my iPad. I've superimposed a photograph of a moth over a photograph of a hexagon quilt I'm making and added a layer of descriptive text from an old book behind that. I've added smaller versions of the same image along the bottom of the design and tweaked the colours and transparency to make them more interesting. The three layers have been tidied up so that some areas are erased and then they are merged ready for printing. I'm hand quilting each hexagon with a Madeira 30 cotton thread but plan to machine stitch much of the background. The black border you can see is where I plan to add text.

Probably in much the same way as you can see here on another of the moth quilts I have in progress. The black border fabric is the same as the black and white fabric you can see in this quilt - it bleaches really well so some of my text might be discharged rather than applied with fabric paint. I have to sample that first to see how it works! There are three of these quilts in various stages of completion and I've posted more images on the DMTV blog.

I have five quilts on the go at the moment. I don't usually work that way - I'm one of those people who like to finish a piece before I get diverted by something new and more exciting. I am finding though that it's making me more productive - I can have some hand stitching to kill time when I'm out and about and frantic free machine quilting when I'm in the studio and can focus. It doesn't look like progress is being made but all of a sudden several pieces are done - at least that's what I'm hoping! In between all that there's DMTV! If you subscribe to our online TV you'll recognise this chap. What you haven't seen though is his friend.

Yes he did get finished! I loved having a doable project like these kingfisher portraits and will certainly be making more. There's no shortage of subjects in our garden at the minute. It may still be chilly but the birds have decided it's spring and I can hardly get any hand quilting done as I'm distracted by their antics on the feeders outside my window!

Thanks for reading today. I'll be back again soon - Linda x