This is Shannon, the elder in this blog collaboration. I haven’t blogged here (or anywhere) in so long, that in the meantime, flickr has totally changed! I am finding the new interface frustrating but I will prevail, and so here is a post. This process has taken enough energy that I am almost as pleased as if I spent hours in the studio. Here goes!
I took out a loan this summer to buy a new machine. I love my 1926 Singer 99 but I could not get it or any of my other machines to properly free motion quilt. After deliberating for months, literally, I made the decision to buy a Juki TL 2010q! (I did cry a tear or two when I boxed up the Singer.)
we are still in the courtship phase but so far I have been pretty much over the moon about my new helpmeet.
I did the right thing and made a sewing machine cover.
This was a block, or a slab, that I made during a practice session, and didn’t seem to correspond with any other ideas, so it went into this piece. I don’t totally love it or anything, but it is serving a necessary function.
detail of some of the not-great free motion quilting I did here:
so, you see.
Happier with this practice piece, in which I quilted around an existing lotus pattern on a scrap of weathered linen:
It seems to be all about the repetition, and I have been sitting down to draw on a regular basis (although not as much as I could be.)
One thing I am finding is that I do not yet have a signature style when it comes to piecing. Of course I don’t; I haven’t produced that much work within this discipline! But still, with my free time is so fractured, it would be nice to find my voice, somehow, miraculously and quickly. I didn’t come to this with that expectation, though, so I’m not disappointed!
The closest I have gotten so far to my vision of my quilting style is with the half square triangle psychedelic quilt top.
I am not sure how to quilt it so for now it reamins a top.
My studio is a shambles right now, but I had a sweet moment of organization and display earlier in the summer. a corner:
Next post will feature a scrappy trip around the world, modified, and in baby quilt form…
stay tuned!
SIDEWALK STYLE, DIRT ROAD DIGS 