Quilt Photos

I spent some time this weekend setting up a place outside to hang up quilts for photographing. I've had three finishes to show for some time now, and have just now gotten it together enough to actually have photos to show. I like to get my quilt photos outside for  better lighting, but I had to contend with wind, bright sunshine and cold today anyway. It's never ideal, but it is still a set-up.  Mr. KQ was very agreeable with helping me, so that was a bonus.

Diagonal Hearts by Ilene Atkins

So I'm showing today the quilt which I think might be my best one so far, certainly it's my own favourite so far.  I just love how this one turned out. It was nearly a right-off, but I managed to save it from disaster!

I didn't really know what I was doing with tension on the backing when I did the quilt sandwich for this one. So when I laid down the diagonal quilt lines along those rows of hearts, I had a lot of puckers on the back. At the time, I didn't know how to fix it, and I became discouraged and put it away. That was about 5 years ago! I make a better quilt sandwich now, by the way!

In this year's finishing frenzy, I decided this summer to pull it out and face whatever music there was to be faced. I thought it was worth salvaging, and figured I now had enough experience to work out any kinks. I painstakingly took out a lot of that quilting, worked in all the puckers, and then finished up with what I had started. It's okay as long as you don't look too closely at the back!

Diagonal Hearts, detail by Ilene Atkins

I wrote about this quilt previously, here, and here. In case you are wondering, I needle turn appliqued two hearts on every block, then joined all the blocks together. Then I appliqued a heart on each intersection. This is one of my red and denim quilts, six I think so far.

When I first started to do my quilting, I did a lot of straight lines with my walking foot, and filled in with stippling, so that's what I continued with. I've branched out from stippling since then, so I added some free-motion hearts in the spaces between the hearts.

This quilt has been a long time from start to finish, and I'm so glad it's now on the finish list. I hope you like it, too.

Red Admiral Visitors

Red Admiral Butterfly

Earlier today, when I was outdoors doing my day job, I saw hundreds, maybe thousands of a very quick and pretty butterfly. I was intrigued, but went on about my day. I was wishing I could carry my good camera with me at work, but that would not be practical, or wise.

So this afternoon, as I was out working in my back yard, weeding and trimming and such, I saw more of these butterflies. Wow. I ran inside to get my camera, and managed to capture a few good shots.  They seemed to like the wooden retaining walls we have, probably resting in the sun before continuing on their crazy flight. Isn't it pretty?

A quick search on the www revealed that they are Red Admirals, latin name Vanessa Atalanta, common to much of North America.  It seems they overwinter in Texas, and migrate north in the spring. Here's how I see it. I think they are very early, maybe 3 or 4 weeks, largely because of the warm winter we've had. But I also think the huge stormy weather the US has had this weekend might have played a part. The butterflies may have been migrating faster towards better weather, because they would instinctively know that surviving a tornado wouldn't be possible. Do you think that's a reasonable assumption?

In any case, they were a real treat to see, and an even bigger treat to capture with my camera.  You may be wondering what all this has to do with quilting and quilt blogging. I'll explain that. I have a keen interest in nature and photography, and I'm usually snapping photos all over the place.  Also, it is my intention to use my nature photos as inspiration for my quilting. . . . someday.  Lately, my energy has been elsewhere. Re-negotiating my mortgage, a mean and nasty cold that won't let go, and a new more difficult job at work have all conspired to keep me from much quilting. But I can't go for very long and my quilt/blood levels get low, so I'll be back at it soon.

After a bit of a lull, there are three quilt shows in Southern Ontario this weekend coming up, with many more coming after that. So I'll be blogging about all that. And I have a trip to Halifax for Quilt Canada at the end of May coming up, too, so I'll have my fill of quilting.