City Sampler Quilt

Here is my version of Tula Pink's City Sampler Quilt.  In the original design, there are 100 blocks.  I made 64 blocks because 100 felt daunting at the time and larger than the size that I wanted. 

The two ladies who roped me into making this quilt in the first place set a challenge for all of us.  The challenge was to complete one block a week (which didn't last long once we got hooked) and to make all of the blocks out of leftover fabric from previous projects. 

Because I was a newbie when I started this quilt I didn't have a lot of scraps, so I had to raid other's thrown out pieces of material.  

Just between us, I dipped my hand into my mom's private stash of delicious fabrics. 

The material isn't the only thing that makes a quilt a piece of art but the quilting itself. 

I free-motion quilted each block differently, to help define my fabric choices and the makeup of the block. 

Every quilt is officially finished when your name tag is added to the back. 

Let's make this the bee's knees. 

Fungi Painting

Ever since I found some really cool fungi growing on a stump when I was emptying the kitty litter pan last spring, I've wanted to paint it.  I would like the refer to encounter as "Beauty by the Cat Dung Pile". 

But even more so, I wanted to paint it for a very special person in my life.  Because love is like a fungus, that grows on your heart.  Awe, wait, what?

Come October, I finally found the ambition to go ahead and start, intending it to be a Christmas present.

I had an old oil painting based on this weird reading I had to read in my painting class in college,  sitting in the back of my closet.  I was never in love with the painting and thought that it was time to turn it into something that I actually like.

 The painting below is the dreaded inhabitant of my closet.  As I recall, I think that the woman in the story was turned into some sort of woman/worm hybrid slave that was forced to create silk in her body.  I don't know, it was a weird story that was a struggle for me to get through.

I started anew.  First by painting over the old painting and then sketching out the new on the hand-stretched canvas.

I then added a colored base.

From there I worked on it section by section instead of on the whole because there was a lot of blending of wet paints to be done before the acrylic dried.

I had my operation set up in the dining room for the duration of its creation.  Every time my boyfriend would come over to the house, instead of covering it up (because I was too lazy) I would slyly have him avoid the room entirely.  Actively trying to limit his exposure to the house beyond the kitchen.  In some instances, the house in general, just in case I couldn't trust the secret being revealed.

I am proud to admit that it worked, he says he loves the painting (the sign of a good boyfriend), and it is currently hanging above his bed (the sign of an even better boyfriend).

Let's make this the bee's knees.