A New Quilt - for Dinner at Eight!

OK, it's been a loooong time since I finished a "big" quilt. I'm constantly making small samples for publication, and have made several quilts for donation in the last few years, but nothing much bigger than 12"x12". Hence I'm *very* excited to show you this new work! Without further ado - California Dreaming:

 I made it specifically for the juried invitational exhibit Dinner at Eight. I'm very honored that my quilt was accepted for the exhibit, and will appear at International Quilt Festival in Long Beach; August 1-4, 2013, and International Quilt Festival in Houston;Oct 31- Nov 3, 2013. 

California Dreaming is 24"x60". It's a digital collage comprised of  several photographs I took while on vacation with my family in Florida and California last summer. (The pelicans are from Florida, the grasses and flowers from California.) The theme for this year's exhibit is "An Exquisite Moment". This quilt represents the exquisite moments I experience with my little family on vacation, free from the everyday stresses of work, school, extracurricular activities, and all the minutia that go along with them. The three pelicans represent my three sons, ages 15, 13, and 10.

If you enlarge the detail photo, you'll be able to see better that on the flowery parts I repeatedly stitched over the lines of the flowers, adding some weight to those areas.