BARNS

 I love to travel around the area I live in and take photographs of different  farms and wildlife.  I took this photo of an old wore out barn with many repairs that have been made over the years now also falling apart.  I love the texture in this piece and it will be what I make next.

It all starts with a sketch. 

GOOSE LANDING

"GOOSE LANDING"

An Original Design measuring 18" X 32"

Raw edged fused applique, machine thread work and quilting

Fabric painted clouds and snow on the corn field.

Stretched on Stretch Bars.

This is my last quilt for the year 2015.

THE JOURNEY

GREY BARN RED BARN

Can not believe that so much time has past since my last post.  I had a very bad cold and just could not focus with all the sneezing, coughing and blow of the nose!   However it seems to have finally moved on so I was back in the studio today.

All the background tress are quilted.  I then began work on constructing the two barns I wanted to add to the scene.  I have quilted the grey one but still need to quilt the red one.  Once it is quilted I will add the windows. 

There is a lot more to come!

TREES TREES TREES

Still adding trees and quilting them as I do.   This will be all that will be added but some still need quilting and some needles put on two small pines.   Then comes the hard part....but I will not tell just yet.

Dove

Working on quilting the background so not much to show today…..so instead here is a Mourning Dove at the heated birdbath that I can view from the kitchen window.  They love that birdbath and usually sit there for a very long time if undisturbed.  We are going to go into  a deep freeze again with temps at -25˚.   Seems this is going to stay a very cold winter.

Corrections

Sometimes working late at night is not a good thing.  I got up this morning and looked at this piece and could see mistakes made.  It was immediate.   Funny how that works.  You feel good the night before and then when looking at it with fresh eyes, it seems so obvious.  So I made the corrections.  It was the two new trees.  If you look at my previous post you will see the difference.  They needed to be perfectly vertical like the others and the furthest one needed to go off the top of the quilt.  Now it is so much better and I will quilt it and add needles and snow and then my blue jay will be added. 

What a difference a day makes.

Just A Bit More

Some of the last additions have been added....you can see one of the additions that has not been completed on a branch. It is drawn on a piece of tissue paper but not make yet.

The snow in the background is painted in.

I am close to finishing now so stay tuned.

Distractions

 I know I promised fast work on the Winter Quilt I have started but......some interruptions have happened.  One really nice one was a visit of my two grandsons.  This is Clay above, trying on Grandma's biking helmet in the studio.  He is quite the "ham".

Max is the artistic one.....loves to draw and the studio is his new favorite place to be where he can sit up high at my cutting table undisturbed by his younger brother while he works.

Then I have been biking.  The weather just too beautiful to not take advantage of.  Sunny days in the 70's could not be better.  Here are some of my travels and the gorgeous fall color.  Still not "Peak" but getting very close now.

 Trust me this is a killer hill on a bike and I still can not make it up without stopping and resting or walking the rest of the way up.  Beautiful view though.  Only about 5 blocks from my house.

And yes, just a bit of studio time to add some details to my winter scene.  I am happy with it so far.

Winter Is Approaching

 Well like it or not....winter is approaching so I thought I would stray away from my waterlily scenes and do a winter scene.  This will be much more simplistic so stay tuned as it will be a pretty fast composition.  Well, that is if I do not get distracted part way through it.

Above is the background....I immediately did not like the slope of the hill in the foreground.

 So I fused some more white onto the drop off point and extended it out to the edge.   Much better.
Then I quilted it using organic lines....I prefer the quilting to take second place to the composition...the art.   So I do not do a lot of fancy machine quilting which I prefer to see on treaditional quilts as opposed to art quilts.

Here is a close up to the quilted surface.   Now it is ready for the fun.  I always quilt the entire background first.  It prevents all the stopping and starting you have to do once all the objects are added and becomes the background canvass for the magic to happen on.