Looking Up

First off, I've been very remiss after finding out that Jolene made a lovely Esther's Tote for Jody and not showing it - here's the picture. Great job, Jolene! If anyone else has made one I'd love to see it too.

I feel like things are looking up around here.

Standing in the center of my front yard, looking up

The enteritis that led to my appendectomy persisted for several weeks after the surgery, and it's only in the last 2 weeks or so that I've begun to feel myself again. I try to leave family health problems off the blog, but this has really been a slog for me. I've managed to make a number of stamped cards and have loved the instant gratification associated with that, but haven't yet manged to get my quilting mojo back.

Quite a few weeks ago I thought I had a quilt design finalized to print out, and had all the supplies ready to go. After printing the test image below I realized that I didn't have a design, I had a collection of competing pretty objects.

This is a small portion of my original design

When designing quilts on the computer it's easy to see the big picture, but sometimes hard to see how individual small sections will look. This makes it essential (to me) to print out test sections before making the entire quilt. From this test I could see that I needed to lose the white outline around the butterfly, trim out the white part at the bottom of the butterfly's body, the antennas needed work, and that the red leaves needed to be reconsidered.

I think I finally almost have a completed design that's very different from the original. The day before yesterday my husband looked over my shoulder and said "Wow!" while I was working on the design. Since he's never said this about any other design I have high hopes ;). Wish me luck!

I hope spring has started to come to your neck of the woods, wherever that may be!

We Have a Confirmed Sighting!

Check out Miranda's lovely version of Esther's Tote! She opted to not interface hers, and used a wonderful combination of stripes. Thanks for sharing it, Miranda!

I haven't gotten any quilting done, but I've had lots of quilty "stuff" going on. Under the Rainbow was accepted for the AQS show, and Grotto will be at Quilter's Heritage Celebration in Pennsylvania, so if you're going to either of those shows stop by and say "hi" to my quilts.

I sold Marsh Grass I to a wonderful buyer - a lovely surprise. I've also been invited to have a quilt in an invitational exhibit later this year.

We've had a mild winter, but spring has been slow in coming this year. Only one crocus has bloomed so far, but things should really start popping in the next few weeks.