When I saw “Stonehenge” fabric by Northcott before Christmas I bought it in two colorways with the rock ledges in mind. It had subtle colorations including mossy greens that I thought would be good for this piece. However, I’m thinking it’s maybe too subtle so I will probably further fracture some of those rocks and add in other fabrics for more texture. Of course, later, the quilting will add texture as well.

It’s time to decide on the shadows, I still think the black/gray is too harsh, plus the scrap I have may not be large enough for all of the kids.

I’m liking this blue batik better and it has areas with a gray/beigey cast that may be useful. And I have LOTS of it!

It looks even better with more seams sewn. Of course now I have to un-sew the first section and replace the grays.

That done, I’ve placed it into the whole pattern up on the design wall for context.

The shadow under the jaw needs to blend better with the one on the neck but it’s coming along. I’ve also begun to lay in some of the rock ledge.

Prep work finished, it’s finally time for the fun part! I think I’ll start with the kid in the center. I’ve pulled fabrics that I think will work for the kids and some of the surroundings. I found a neat brown for the eyes that already have some built in “sparkle”.

I’m not really liking the black/gray deep shadows on the kid but will leave it for now and see if it works better as more color gets added.

This foliage is too dark.

This may be too bright.

I like this one better, at least for now.

I make lots of changes as I go so try not to sew too much together until I’m pretty sure it’s OK. But still, I will un-sew if I need to! A little color is starting to bring it to life.

The neatly folded fabric that I started with didn’t stay that way for long!!

Last week I ordered 26 half yards of batik on sale and on Christmas Eve day they arrived! Well, 25 of them arrived plus one quarter yard piece. I’m not sure if it was a freebie or if it was all they had of the 26th piece. Whatever. Today I will wash, dry and iron them all and try to find a place to put them!

You can’t really see them, but the whitish ones on the left were ordered for the next piece I am anxious to get started on, Mountain Goat kids. There are some nice leaves against blue sky prints that I am always on the lookout for and general nature texture type stuff. They were photographed laying on the back side of the “Spring Burning” piece which is finished except for the beading which I got started on yesterday afternoon.

We are hoping to be able to have our family Christmas on Sunday, but by the looks of the snowdrifts this morning — I don’t know. It all depends on when the wind quits as even if the plow gets through the road will drift shut again as long as the wind blows.

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!

The bluebird top is done! I did have to make a few changes and tweak some bits – like the white on the belly. White was too white. Off white was too white. I ended up using a piece that was cream with shadings to beige and gray, but it looks pretty white. I also ended up taking that piece out and adding a bit more rust to make a better shape. And a piece on the shoulder needed to be taken out and replaced with a darker blue. It is hard to find that wonderful electric bluebird blue in fabric!  I pulled all of the brightest blues I had, some were too green, some were too purple, but I think these work pretty well – you just can’t duplicate the brilliance of the real thing! some of these fabrics were printed as water, one had nice linear effects. One was even a blue cabbage! Be open minded when searching for fabric. Everything is darker in real life than what I am seeing on my monitor, but I have learned that my screen tends to be a little on the light side so I hope you are seeing it correctly!

Many of the seams are not yet sewn in this photo, and before the final sewing I changed some of the background. It seemed like a darker border on the left would enclose it better.  I think that making use of the design wall is so helpful  but you have to be willing to toss a piece of  fabric or unsew a seam – really it doesn’t take that long and is SO worth it! Often the fabric isn’t even wasted – in this case I used the lighter piece inside behind the tail where it was more effective. After quilting, I will probably bind this in the dark ferny fabric.

He still needs a twinkle in his eye, but that will come later….

Oh yes, Gwynette!  Welcome back. This morning we have a temp of 16 with wind chill at 6 so quite a difference from the balmy 70’s of a few days ago! I didn’t uncover anything yet and I must bundle up and go out to see how the snowdrops are faring. I expect they are just fine.

Yesterday I finished preparing the pattern and pulled fabrics for the new work, and even found one to use for binding on The Merchant’s House. In the process I found some that might work in the second one that I have planned, as well.

Since March has National Quilter’s Day, we are being bombarded with sales ads for more fabric. I will try to avoid those as I already have more fabric than I can ever hope to use.

I resolved the problem of the fawn fabric by going back to the stash, finding this piece that I had dismissed earlier as being too orange with indistinct spots.  It had areas of less orangeness, though, that I thought had possibilities.  I cut the body from an area that had nice sized spots, but on the wall they were not showy enough.  I decided to try bleach discharge with the Clorox Bleach Pen on the spots, first playing around with an edge of the unused fabric. Bleach direct from the pen ran and made the spots too big, but applied with a Q-Tip, I was able to control it and I think I got really nice spots!  I neutralized the bleach with Hydrogen Peroxide, then washed it thoroughly with Synthrapol. You can see lower on the belly, the original spots before bleach, I felt like that was good for that area to leave them alone.

I am not happy with some of the background fabrics and am in the process of changing them.

The fawn fabric arrived and was disappointing. Some of the stuff I already had may be better, but fabric will always find a place eventually!

Never mind that seams are not lined up, it will look better when they are sewn.

Here are those new batiks, all washed and pressed and ready to go!

I guess I am ready to move away from the greens which figured so prominently in the last piece!

I’ve been pretty busy since last I posted, and have tied up many loose ends. With the coverage of the hurricane in the background I did some folding and packaging of patterns, inventory and straightening up supplies, filling and packing orders to mail yesterday, and packing and shipping the quilts for Houston. I re photographed POPPY! and got the cover prepared, and sent off for printing. Also caught up on the books to date! So I feel like I have accomplished quite a lot even though it is not very visible.

Rain has been forecast but has not materialized here, for us, though it poured on me in Topeka yesterday and curtailed some of the shopping I had intended to do while in town. I guess I will need to water the plants if it doesn’t happen very soon. I really want a nice soaking rain so I can pull some more weeds!

Found some more time to read the Stephen King book – and yes, of course there are monsters! But it’s good, very art oriented this time.

Today I will get started writing and preparing the pattern for POPPY !…..
Must get THAT out of the way before I even think about sewing!