Our quilt guild retreat last week was really productive for me. I managed to work on the basket quilt above from start to basting. I have been hand quilting it and I don't have too much farther to go.
I also managed to go from start to finish on my 2014 Novel Idea quilt. Here's a bit about Novel Idea if you haven't heard about it. It was always going to be small, but that helped get it done quickly! This is made with my hand dyed fabrics, including linen. This piece is based on the book The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. The book is a post apocalyptic novel in which the main character is a poet. He goes back to his old home, despite great danger, to pick up one special book. It's a book of poetry by William Stafford called Stories that Could Be True. One of the poems is quoted in the book, “The Farm on the Great Plains” and it begins:
A telephone line goes cold;
birds tread it wherever it goes.
A farm back of a great plain
tugs an end of the line.
I call that farm every year,
ringing it, listening, still
This longing for connection seems to be at the heart of this book and as soon as I imagined that telephone line with birds on it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. This was particularly meaningful this year as I had never heard of William Stafford before. He was an Oregon poet, former Poet Laureate, professor at Lewis & Clark College, and well known in my state. This year is the 100th anniversary of his birth and there have been programs and events in celebration. In a perfect confluence of events I learned about him on the radio, in my book club and through this book all at the same time. The universe was trying to tell me something! The Novel Idea quilts will be displayed at QuiltWorks for the month of April and the opening reception is Friday, April 4, 5-7 pm.
In addition to those two, I also finished a couple of 12 x 12's (Black & White and Trees) and an Improv teaching sample. The 12 x 12's will be in a special exhibit at the Bank of America in Redmond, OR this spring. I am not sure the exact dates, but will post them here when I do. Our Undercover Quilters group will have a display showing our collection of 12 x 12's which should be very interesting!
I am teaching Modern Improv at QuiltWorks tomorrow. There are still spaces if you'd like to join us for a day of creative inspiration!