Change For the Better

Some of this pond that I saw yesterday, had become ice. And the only sun to be seen was on this tree:

It felt like it could snow - and these snow berries added to that feel.

I did not get cold feet and took the plunge.

And I like this much better:

The snow dyed fabric will look better paired with hand dyed fabrics.

Back Road

More frost toned down the colours outside, yesterday morning. I had been working with tones - wanting to use one of my snow dyed pieces of fabric in a table topper.

But somehow, it wasn't working - the colours looked good together and matched ones in the snow dyed linen, but the contrast of their flat solid colour and geometric shapes was too great. So I decided to go for a walk.

Very cold and fresh and the tide was out.

And there were a few pops of bright colour still around. Back home I decided I would unpick my work.

Nancy Crow Initiation

I arrived at the locale of the Nancy Crow class in torrenting rain, but we had everything from snow, hail, sun and high winds during the course of the week. Not that I was outside much, since I was too busy working! Yes, it was INTENSE. Initially we worked with black and white fabrics and no rulers, cutting lines and shapes, piecing them together in various ways and then designing three small pieces - which I managed to complete just before midnight of the first day. This is the first and best of the three pieces, as I spent the most time on it. We also worked with neutral coloured fabrics and then opened the door to our full range of colour, sewing many combinations and later designing five quick studies to explore what we wanted to do for a large piece. I ended up making two larger pieces and felt very pleased that I kept up with all the exercises we were given. I will post photos of the two quilt tops in another blog entry.

A Star is Born

Here are some gifts I've worked on today - I'm not planning them, but playing around until something emerges. The star potholder came about when I entered the studio and saw the green, negative star image where I'd laid it on an angle on another fabric square when putting things away the night before. I liked the jaunty feel of it, so another potholder was born. The quilt top below it isn't complete yet - I've been enjoying cutting, sewing and piecing strips and this also led to a pieced potholder. For the quilt in the third photo I used white thread to help define the star in the centre, as it was too similar in value to the background square that I had fused it to.