Sunday Morning

"Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

Psalm 46:10

Urban Crosses: Four-in-Art Art Quilt #2

The topic for the second entry in the Four-in-Art Challenge is Structure. There are eight quilters in this group and we each have made a 12 inch mini art quilt around this theme. The overall yearly theme is Urban. Here is my entry...

Since I always enjoy spotting steeples and church crosses in every town and city that I visit, they seemed the perfect choice to depict in art quilt form. Living in Kansas City, we have a particularly unusual steeple of light coming from the top of the Community Christian Church on the Country Club Plaza. Outside the church, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, stands a wonderful cross monument. (The photo below is taken from tourist information published by the city.) 

I've decided that I would like to try to have all four of the quilts that I'll be making for this challenge blend together as a set. With that constant in mind, many of the fabrics that were used to make Urban Crosses are repeats from my first entry, Flying South, which was a depiction of the word Maps.

Wanting to somehow represent light, I landed on using the Drunkard's Path block to simulate the spotlights coming from the top the church. The map-like fabric in several of the blocks references city streets.

My quilting lines radiate from one spot, again, to imitate the light coming off the church. I chose to only make 3 crosses to represent the beautiful monument in the photo above. 

I found this cute city streets fabric in my stash to use for the back of the quilt with the map-like fabric as binding.

The dark grey strip in the center might represent a street. I'm so clever!

Piecing the quilt was an enjoyable experience once I finally decided on a theme. The one darker peach piece is a bit out of place maybe, but I've decided that it reminds me of a sunset or the Holy Spirit with the placement above the center cross.

It was a stormy day when I stopped outside the church and snapped this picture of the crosses. The steeple light is visible only at night, of course.  The cross symbol is an important one in my life as well as to many living in urban and rural settings everywhere.

I'm glad for the challenge of making the symbol into a quilt!

Take a look at the other seven Urban Structures entries here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/2044432@N25/
You also might like to visit each participant's blog site to learn more details of how each was made. Grab a cup of tea and join me!

Amanda Kattner--ajkattner@yahoo.com, blogs at: http://www.whatthebobbin.com

Anne Deister--anne@springleafstudios.com, blogs at: http://www.springleafstudios.com

Nancy Myers--retiredandquilting@gmail.com, blogs at: http://www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Eastmond opquilt@gmail.com  blog: www.opquilt.com

Betty Ayers--b78ayers@comcast.net   // no blog, but a Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toot2/with/8892547999/

Rachel Riley--rsriley77@gmail.com, blogs at: http://rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com

Leanne--shecanquilt@gmail.com, blogs at: http://shecanquilt.blogspot.com

January Friendship x and + Swap

Susan and I are having a lot of fun with our swap of x and + blocks. Our colors for the January twinsies were red, brown and light green. 

As I've mentioned, Susan seems to think that my fabric collection is a bit on the wild side. This would be one of the few areas where my choices would be considered wild, I think. As a rule, I'm pretty boring  tame!

Here are the lovelies that the postman delivered from far away Australia.  I love Susan's taste in fabric...it's one of the things that first led me to begin following her blog several years ago.

The blocks compliment each other well, don't you think!

 We are halfway through our swap now and I'm loving the look of all the blocks together. 

 I can tell that it's going to be a favorite!

You are welcome to join in the Friendship Swap anytime. We hope that you will. Here is the link to the Flickr site where you can see all of the participants' pretty blocks and color schemes.

Grey

 owl, sand, sky, squirrel, hair, stone, sidewalk, 

mailbox, gravel, cat, mouse, fog, pencil lead,

elephant, moth, bark, trout, sea,mushroom,

 titmouse, shale, highway, concrete, paint,

planter, bunny, weathered wood, milkweed pod,

dolphin, feather, spider, sage, river...

GREY

Gypsy Diamonds Quilt Top

Last week I hinted that I'd been sewing together five year old blocks. They'd been hidden away in the closet because the sewing method suggested in the free online pattern did not result in blocks of equal size. Or, well, maybe it was just user error. Either way, the frustration made for some "out of sight, out of mind" thinking on my part!

 I'm excited to say that the blocks are back in business and have become a quilt top now...ready to be quilted! My plan is to use this on my bed next autumn.

 As I lay awake one night, not able to sleep, I began contemplating how to make all of the blocks the same size. It suddenly occurred to me that it could easily be done using my handy-dandy new triangle ruler. The ruler wasn't quite large enough, but with the additional help of a straight ruler, I was able to make it work out.

 I even managed to come up with the right sized side triangles to enlarge the quilt to queen size. (The pattern had me chopping off all of the outside diamonds to create a lap size quilt without borders.) This is not a "fabric snob" quilt as many of the fabrics were purchased as flat fold fabric in a rural Kansas town. I also threw in some strips from my stash at the time. It's fun to look at the, now, older fabrics from 2008 and before. I still like them...yay!

 The last challenge was finding the right fabric for the outside triangles. After much contemplating and auditioning at Sarah's Fabrics (my favorite LQS) with my friend, Vicki, we finally settled on this Amy Butler Gypsy Caravan Stash fabric called Gypsy Mum.

I love the craziness of all of these fabrics together! On another note, I'm honored to be nominated by Debbie at A Quilter's Table  as one of 31 Inspiring Quilters on SewMamaSew today. It's been a fun series. Thanks, Debbie.

Color Photo Challenge: Grey, Part Two

It's been fun finding subjects to photograph using the prompts for my personal Color Photo Challenge. Here is the second batch of photos featuring the color grey.

FAVORITE: Will I ever have the time to make all of the quilts within these pages that I would like to?

 INSPIRATION: Speaking of quilts, I see designs for new projects everywhere I go, don't you!

 NEW: Even my new laundry basket is giving me ideas.

 STRUCTURE: Maybe if I lived in this beautiful home, I would have a maid to do my laundry!

BEAUTY: The late afternoon sun accents the curves on my concrete planter and I realize how pretty it is even with out flowers!

UP CLOSE: I wonder what tiny creature has made such a cozy spot in the crevice of this cedar tree's bark?

WORDS: Sometimes i like to wander through old cemeteries and wonder...

NATURE: I picked grey as the color for January mainly because of days like this!

Thanks for taking the time to view my photo challenge. February's color is black. Is that morbid? More winter ahead!

Sunday Morning

"But when you pray,

go into your room and shut the door

and pray to your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret

will reward you."

Matthew 6:6