Where did the week go?

Not sure where the week went! Thursday we took pictures of the 50+ Art of Nature quilts for the upcoming exhibit. There are some spectacular quilts in this exhibit and this is where my wolves will for the next year.

Thursday night we met up with our friends Carol and Tony from Florida! They are here in Michigan waiting the birth of their fourth grand baby! I know they are excited about the new baby and also enjoy spending time with their family. It was fun catching up with them and of course having a great meal at Lucky's in Davison. Back to our house for some more talking and home made brownies. Mrs. Smith's recipe! My kids know this recipe. It's from one of my old patients back when I worked for Dr. Kerr and it's one we use all the time.

Friday I played with painting some tyvek for a new piece I'm working on. It's depicting the painting by Hokusai. Not sure it will turn out but it kept me busy!

Here is my journal quilt for this month (art of nature theme). This piece started out as a practice piece to just free motion quilt on when I want to try some new threads. But after I started quilting on it I thought it would look good as a journal piece!

I stamped a piece of hand dyed fabric with one of my first stamps I cut. The stamp is on the right and I printed on a piece of tissue paper (this piece is going in my altered book I'm working on) so you can see the pattern. This design is actually one of Patsy Thompson's quilting designs. She does some really nice quilting, designing patterns and has lots of info on her web site.

Then I printed on a light and dark piece of chiffon. This is the darker piece which I didn't use.

I quilted the entire piece then painted over some of the areas just to darker up. I took the stamped chiffon and covered up three of the leaves then free motion stitched on top and around the edges. I then cut on the outside to remove the excess chiffon and added beading (this is a rope pattern) on the 3 leaves and it's done! Here's a closeup of one of the leaves with the chiffon stitched on.

This is the finished journal piece (8 1/2" x 11"). I think it turned out pretty good. The lighter leaves where just stamped and stitched. I like the way the chiffon darkened up the leaves and gave them some more dimension.

So cleaning and laundry day today and maybe a little sewing. I'm finishing up beading on my shibori piece and I should have it ready to sew on facing while watching Tigers tonight!