Chartreuse is in Mother Nature's Pallette

The aspens at my house 'leafed out' this week. Winter was so lingering, they didn't even bother to flower this year, they just went to leaf. That means that three days ago, we woke to the most incredible color of green. The particular color of chartreuse green that new aspen leaves are is only available in Mother Nature's palette. My husband has tried to attain this color when dying things and it happens to be my mom's favorite color. It just seems like it is not to be reproduces by humans. Maybe if we figure out how to truly add pure light to things we will get it. Until then, we can all enjoy this naturally bright color as it bursts forth around us.

Week in Review

This week finally brought the melting of the snow. I had a flowing river in my backyard, now it is just swampy. That area will be carpeted by columbines in a few weeks. In fact, under the snow everything was just waiting to grow and be green. Another thing this week brought was the sound of hummingbirds buzzing about. We put out the feeder for the hungry little jewels. For me, there are several signs that spring/summer might actually be here. The hummingbirds are the final say. With their arrival, I am confident that spring is officially here. How exciting!!!
In my quilt realm, I got a lot closer to finishing a quilt & pattern that I have worked on for ohhhh, maybe 5 years. I started designing a new quilt. It will be for a friend's wedding gift, a contest entry, and is the first creative/original work I've done in a while.
I've also eaten some really good food this week. I was given some fresh organic eggs by a friend. The shells were a beautiful pale green color, like already dyed Easter eggs. They were so good!!!
Also, our local store doesn't label it's meat selection very well. You have to know what to look for and , on occasion, you can get awesome steaks really cheap. We paired the steaks with pasta and salad. My mother-in-law recently brought us salad dressing from Sabatino's Restaurant in Baltimore. This dressing makes salads worth eating!

Snake Seed of Life

This quilt was inspired by the word "Kundalini". My client used that one powerful word and this quilt was created. The Seed has black bias tape sewn down to give more of a stained glass look. The fire fabrics my husband dyed were great. Each of my quilts are a learning experience. It was after this quilt we decided to do mitered corners with this type of border in order to look really good. Also, I learned bias tape wider than 1 1/2" will not lay smooth. The snake fabric was dyed and then I prepared 2" wide bias strips. While fabric gluing in place, I discovered it would not lie flat on the inner side of the curves. My solution was to incorporate several small pleats on the inner part. This added fabulous texture and made the snakes look more realistic. I learn so much from my mistakes! The quilt was so bright, we made it reversible. The backing had a blue Seed of Life with only a touch of red/orange to tie into the front.

More Seed of Life Quilts

This is perhaps the most elegant quilt I've made to date. It was a commissioned piece a few years ago, one of several actually. The person this quilt was going to liked purple, Louisiana, and the fleur-de-lis. Given that information, this is the quilt I created. The fabrics were all dyed by my husband at my command. The Seed of Life is a prominent center piece surrounded by yards of purple knot work and dark purple Louisiana Iris. The outer knot work border was designed to look like fleur-de-lis wrought iron fence tops to further induce the feel of Louisiana. At the moment, I forget just how many yards of Celtic knot work I sewed onto this quilt (my husband thinks it was miles). Truly, I was proud of this one for coming out more beautiful than I had imagined.

Spring Snows

This is what we woke up to here at Mountainjoy. A very good morning to all us folk way up in the mountains today! Luckily, we knew this storm was on its way. It is getting late in the season though. Most of us really want the precious spring and summer to arrive. It is quite pretty out as long as I don't have to go anywhere. Driving in this stuff is awful (especially if you just took your snow tires off). Good thing my employer is wonderful and she gave me the day off. Time to catch up on a few things. I see stew, fresh bread, and quilting in my near future. I hope everyone else has a great snow day too!

Denver Quilt Show

I spent yesterday with friends down at the Denver National Quilt Festival. It was a splendid day full of visual feasts. There were plenty of vendors with all the newest stuff we love. I was attracted to the unique booths as well. These had beautiful fabrics from around the world. African Batiks, Shibori from near Thailand, and several exotic silks from different parts of Asia.
The quilts on display were many and varied. The designs and colors ranged from traditional to wild and crazy. So many quilt visions danced in my head last night as I tried to remember them all. Quilt shows are so wonderfully inspiring.