Spring is nearly here and walking in the mornings has become a more regular activity. Yesterday I was pulled over to the side of the road where the dirty puddle from the afternoon prior had frozen over. I find the freezing patterns mesmerizing.

The muddy puddle on the road also demanded my attention. I love the icy ridges that form over the pebbles and the mud!

But most of time is spent in the studio these days. I had a productive weekend “playing” and not overthinking a new quilt. After piecing the ground I pulled out my Oak Shot fabrics I bought a year ago during my time teaching at the New Jersey Quilt Festival, my bolt of EZ fuse, the iron and my scissors. I didn’t overthink the process and the composition came through trial and error and a lot of intuition.

And during the late afternoon yesterday I finally took my quilt sandwich to the sewing machine. I decided to take a modern approach with the quilting but instead of pin basting I opted for actual hand basting. I am happy I did. It is so much easier to just sew instead of pulling safety pins.

Above is a little sneak peek… I am making fast friends with my Bernina 820. It generates a well balanced stitch – it is just slow going with the close spacing of the quilting lines. But, what is the rush – I constantly preach about the process… it is all a journey, right?

Once I got into the house  and while waiting for dinner to finish cooking I felt the need to pull out my sketch book. I spent Sunday night applying colour to a watercolour sketch book. It was a nice and relaxing activity to just add some Inktense pencil to a page and use a water brush to diffuse the colours. I plan to add sketching to my routine. Here I was thinking of spring. While the snow is gone, the ice on the lake is slower to melt it keeps the environment a little cooler than I like. It inhibits the trees and flowers to form buds… but I am really rushing it now. Usually we don’t get to this stage till the end of April or even early May.

And, yes I am still working on my Kantha white-on-white pieces for my book. I added some more stitches last night, and before I knew it it was midnight. Today is another day… and it is filled with a visit from friends from Saskatoon. I can’t wait to see them. Lunch in town is on the agenda and then I get to see my friend DEbbie’s finished commission. I get to photograph them for her. What an honour!

Have a great day everyone! I know mine will be fantastic!

09 Mar This entry was published on March 9, 2016 at 9:53 am. It’s filed under Art, Creativity Update, Design, In the News, Journaling, Landscape photography, Motivational, Nature's Art, Networking, Special Project, staying in touch and tagged daily walking habit, finding balance, intuitive composition, Kantha, new quilt, piecing and fusing to create a quilt, quilting, sketching. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.