Inspiration

There's nothing like a quilt show to get your creative juices flowing. As you may have noticed I have been pretty stagnant in the fiber art category lately. What with being away for the winter and other things, I haven't made a new art quilt in many months. I go to a huge Catholic church in Naples while in Florida that is very contemporary in design and has the most amazing stained glass windows. They also are very contemporary and abstract, just the style that appeals to me most in my quilting designs. Every Sunday I think that I am going to have to make a quilt inspired by these windows.

My original idea was to piece it in my hand dyes and then today at one of the booths at the quilt show I saw these incredible Dupioni silks, one of my favorites to use along with my hand dyes. These fabrics just sang out to me, so I bought a few quarter yard pieces. When I got home I had very similar colors at home, but that's OK. At least my brain in working now.

Can you see why I got so excited? How scrumptious are these colors? I have a LOT of Dupioni silk at  home that will play very well with these. 

The quilt show was the Northern Star Quilters Guild. I had been a member for many years, but dropped out this year because I miss so many meetings. The meeting are at night, not my favorite time to drive, and I am away so much. It's always a nice show and this year was no exception. 

Another group of which I am a member, FANE, always has a special exhibit at the show. It is always three dimensional and very different. This year we were asked to make 6 to 8 pieces of surface designed fat quarters, dip them in liquid starch and then drape them over objects. They were then arranged in a color sweep, attached together by those fabulous tiny very strong magnets. 

Very effective, don't you think. 

One of the good things about this exhibit is that when we get our pieces back after the show, we can just wash that starch out and the fabric can go back into our stashes. Pretty cool!