A few years ago, I took this picture at the 4-H Fair of an engaging young goat looking for attention. I thought it might make a nice subject for an art quilt.

But then David Taylor made a prize winning goat picture quilt and I filed mine away, not wanting to seem to be copying.

Now, however, I have decided to go ahead with it. His is an Alpine goat done in applique. Mine is a Nubian, pieced. A goat is a goat, no one holds the copyright on goats as far as I know, except maybe God! But still, I expect someone will say I copied his idea even though I took my own photo before he made his quilt, so I consider mine to be original.

It’s about half done, so stay tuned!

The most recent Coneflowers top is in the process of being quilted now, and here is a shot of it before I removed all of the freezer paper and layered it yesterday.

You may notice that I changed a few things. I usually do. It was hard to find a fabric in the stash to go with the strange piece I had selected for the sky. Once I settled on this one, I felt I needed to incorporate some of it somewhere else, so I unsewed two pieces and recut them in the new fabric. It only took a half an hour to change them out and I think it was well worth it. Don’t be scared to make changes even if you have already sewn something!

I’ll bet I auditioned 10 fabrics for the accent strip before settling on this one! It’s a batik that had good color and design for this piece I think. I believe I used it in “Bittersweet Memories” and only have a few scraps left! Luckily this process uses small bits well.

Searching through the stash is a good thing. I was reconnected to stuff I forgot I had, pulled some out for future projects in the planning stages, and got some more ideas!

Wednesday I taught a hand quilting class. It seemed strange, felt like it ought to be Saturday! But the class went well and was fun. I think it actually jump started me and I got started on a new design. This beautiful poppy was in the park in Vancouver – don’t you love the way light plays with flower petals?

This will probably be a new pattern. I have just started to cut the fabric; still have not sewn anything though.

Other accomplishments last week were finishing up the books to date for sales tax and getting a quilt sent off to the Asheville NC show. Because it was very late coming home from being in Florida for the I-4 Corridor Exhibit, I was forced to pay $85.00 to ship “Watermelon Wine” Next Day Air in order to get it there on time. But since it had been accepted, I felt obligated to have it get there if at all possible. I think keeping one’s word is very important and I only wish everyone felt that way as I had specifically checked before entering it to be sure it could be home on time. I had assurance that my quilt would go out as soon as the show closed, instead it didn’t go out til the 8th, arriving home on Friday afternoon. Not only was this an unnecessary monetary drain, it was very stressful. Not very professional at all!

This fun site just came to my attention for all you animal lovers out there. Just click here
and answer an easy quiz question to provide free kibble to shelter animals!