In Exchange.....

I wanted to share the quilt with you that I got in exchange for Turtle in a Blender. I just love this colorful, happy Storm at Sea! And it's all mine now! Isn't it just beautiful? I love this pattern, although I've never taken the time to make it myself. One of the things I love about it is that if you look closely, you can see hearts in the blocks. They aren't as obvious in this quilt, but you can choose your fabrics to highlight the hearts. I still remember a mini in the auction one year that had one red heart pieced into the blue and white Storm at Sea. So, cool! Do you see the heart in the second picture?

I've also started a new hand project. This is actually inspired by one of my fiber postcards I made a while back. There will be three "rivers" of blue on the orange background when I finish. I'm planning to quilt it in oranges in the kantha style that I used for Black Cat. This close up shows the Dupioni Silk I'm using for the rivers. I wanted the sheen you'd get from the silk. It looks more like water to me. I'm using cutaway applique to sew it all down. Only half of this river has been appliqued so far, so it will be a wider river than it is now. Applique is a dirty word to some quilters and I must admit that my applique is not all that great, but that is what this quilt needed.

When I was younger, I never thought I'd be a quilter. Two things led to it, I think. I mean I had always admired quilts and my Aunt Irene was a quilter. My mom even quilted for a while after she and my dad divorced. It was a way to bring in more money to our small, struggling household. The two things that led me to quilt are a memory of playing under a quilt that my mother had on the clothes line to dry. It had a muslin backing and from underneath it, the quilt reminded me of stained glass windows! It just filled me with joy, even at the age of 5 or so. Then sometime, many years later, a saw a wonderful appliqued quilt. It was so realistic. I can't even remember now what was on it, but I do remember that it reminded me of a painting. I was standing there thinking "I want to do that!". Painting with fabric, so to speak. I've never realized that long ago dream, which is fine, dreams change over time.