Caribbean Citrus Flight?

When I was first thinking about the Flying Geese NQOF challenge.  I saw citrus colors, against a midnight blue background.

I ruled out a black background as being too somber for the feeling I was going for and found a rich Hoffman 1895 batik - Tahiti. I gathered this range of, you guessed it - batiks, of course! Hot, bright citrus colors.

And the more I thought about it, the more I felt this palette was too limiting.  Why would I do that to myself?  I have a stash of batiks with depth and breadth. At least 740 different pieces of batiks, not counting my creamy neutral shades.

Yes - 740 batiks to work with and I was going to only use 11. Talk about dumb! 

So the palette has been expanded and hopefully the design mind too!

Midnight Flight Redux

A few years ago I made 'A Midnight Flight to the Four Winds' for the Sauder Village Challenge.

This year the NQM New Quilts from an Old Favorite theme block is Flying Geese. I always wanted to make a new larger version of my design and I think it will fit the challenge quite nicely, with a few modifications, of course.

Fortunately, I still have my original graph paper drawings that I copied to cut apart and can rearrange to get my designing underway. 

I started out simple with a repeat of the rounds. Too plain  - need some visual interest here, so I played around with an offset barn raising setting.

And then added a trimmed down 'bird'.  

Nope. So I need to add some negative space and some more flying geese.

The design is getting there. It's one of those that need to just evolve as I go.  Hopefully, I'll run into some happy design accidents along the way. 

Sums It All Up

Yep - the last couple weeks since my previous post have been interesting. 

Was there sewing? Umm yes and no.  I hand stitched some pockets to the interior of DH's costume vests. A grand total of 4 pockets.  Not a lot of sewing but it was a welcome break from the computer. 

This screen shot pretty much sums up the past couple of weeks.

Happy to report, this issue resolved itself and the computer did not get thrown out the window.  And, even better news, some quilt designing is underway!

The Night King is In!

On Friday, I received this email notification:

The Night King is in as a Finalist!  There were 304 entries, with 120 being named finalists!  I am honored to be among them.  

Got the label sewn down last night so it's ready to make its way to Minnesota.  I like the way the quilting shows up on the back.

Now I need to leave the lion behind & concentrate on flying geese.

The Lion King Project

Way back in February (February?!), I introduced the Cherrywood Lion King Challenge.  It had a deadline of July 1st, which I made by a whopping 2 hours and 17 minutes.

My finished piece is different from what I had originally imagined it to be.  It came down to 'Get something done already!'  A much needed dose of sewing discipline for myself.

In the end, my inspiration came from the Lion King logo itself (nope, no huge stretch of any creative imagination here).  I had a printed 4 inch square picture to work from and the finished piece needed to be 20 inches square.  I didn't have time to have the picture blown up to actual size so I gridded off the small picture and the full size drawing page, and free-handed the image. 

Since the face was to be done in fused raw edge applique, I had to reverse the drawing and transfer it to the back of the fusing material.

I chose a few browns to add to the challenge golds. Here is the back of the applique piece.

And here it is all cut out as one piece - it looks like a pile of strings.

Much better once it's laid out and ironed down. 

First I outline quilted with black thread then used a medium tan, lightly variegated thread for the rest of the quilting. I finished it off with some simple borders and here is "The Night King"

Waiting to hear if it is good enough to make the cut of the finalists - should be announced by this weekend.

I Am Here!

The Happy, Happy, Zen, Zen Michigan House.  It's only for four days but it's fabulous and I am grateful!

I need to step back for a minute and document my absence from Blogland for 3 months.  It wasn't planned. It wasn't bad.  It was busy, bordering on overwhelming at times but it's behind me.  I learned a few things that I may have known at one time but had forgotten.  

1. Dietary supplements and I don't always get along.  I tried a new one that totally, completely sapped my energy level. It took me a bit to figure out the culprit but once I stopped, my energy bounced back just in time to...

2. Take on doing another persons job, in addition to my own.  With daily planning, some extra hours (what is a weekend?), a whole lot of communication with my team, I have been getting it done. In mid-April, a colleague left the company.  She performed a vital role and I was the only other person trained in the process. There has been no time to train someone else to do it, because...

3. The only thing you can count on is change.  On June 3rd, my company was sold, merger, acquired - pick your word. Bottom line things will be changing at work.  The transition has started. It will take several months for the integration to reach me and my responsibilities will shift again. Just need to keep on keeping on because...

4. Health is important.  I am fine! We are still working thru the logistics of when my DH will be having back surgery. After several delays, it's tentatively planned for the beginning of August. The delays were probably a blessing in disguise as my Dad underwent 3 cardiac catheterizations between mid-May and the end of July. He's doing well with 5 stents implanted and avoided open heart surgery. And finally..

5. Some things are unacceptable. This is one of them.

And it can't be allowed to happen again.  Me not sewing something - anything - is bad for my well being.  It has since been dusted off and is with me this week.  I have a recently completed project to share and a new one underway.   

Independence Day!

So much to catch up on but not today.  It's all about celebrating our Nation's Birthday and Independence!