February - latin (februum) - Purification

Mother Nature certainly 'Purified' the beginning of February with blanketing most of the US and Canada with white. Our long country lane is starting to look like a tunnel. The time spent shoveling, tending snow machinery, and re-plenishing wood piles has taken some time away from sewing.

Love Nest Quilt Contest at Gen X Quilters

I decided to enter my 'Morceaox de Bleu' (bits of blue). It was partially shown on my header for a while. Here she is in full view. A full size quilt (for the old rope bed) that was part of a design test that I put a twist on. This is my first large quilt, first quilt with a lot of white, and first play at design. And my first machine quilted piece - It was machine quilted by Sue Reed (my local longarmer).

Blogger's BlockaPalooza - These are my first blocks for the quilt-along. I'm using Moda's Butter Cup line - my selection from Cotton Charms Quilts. Thank you Kelly Guy, she got that bundle before Moda even had it in their shop. I love the entire collection, but splitting this with my daughter. So chose the linen green and apricot, saving her the yellow and blue.

SQUARED UP
I had a lot of comments about the purple plate - wow. How the simplest item can draw inspiration - but that color was a POP.

This is my new square inspiration. This is the time we browse those seed and nursery catalogs that are pouring into our mail box (US). With all this snow I am dreaming of green and flowers. I want to have some raised beds this year. A mix of flowers and vegies. Hmm, squares of squares of color - lots of potential.

I suddenly remembered I had an 'odd' charm pack of florals - it must have been in one of the scrap bags donated to me. Not a full charm pack and they really don't match each other. But how simple to just piece those pre-cut squares into a top - like planting a raised bed garden.

The top certainly wasn't large enough in itself, so needed some borders. I wanted to keep to the look of the planted garden. A lot of new quilters (even some of us old ones) have trouble with color selection. I found this lovely Kaufman floral in my 'backing' stash that would meld the whole piece and decided it would be my backing and binding. Using those color dots - yes they are there to assist you in selecting coordinating colors - I tried finding fabrics with similar color dots. Made it so much easier to select my borders - the medium green and the apricotty tan. That piece has a floral on a trellis - perfect to go with the flower bed. If I hadn't had interuptions, this would have been a completed quilt in a day.

What will be your inspiration? Turn to the simplest of forms - the square - and see what your creative side can grow.

Sewingly Yours,
Sharon