I had just purchased some variegated holiday thread and wanted to test it on something before I used it on a customer quilt.  So, I decided to make myself a Christmas table topper. I thought the variegated thread would look good in a poinsettia design. Using white muslin fabric on top, I marked a center point on my quilt, then I marked approximate points in a circle to quilt the poinsettias. I freehanded my design onto the quilt. The flowers looked kind of plain, so I quilted a fill-in design to cover the entire area

poinsettias with background fill

Now the poinsettias don’t stand out very much, so I decided to color them using colored pencils. Here is a picture of the completed table topper.
Here is a picture of my cat Casper (of Black Tail Design fame) sitting on the table, next to the table topper

During a hot, humid July week at the lake I was working on a strip quilt.  I used all hand dyed fabrics. These were pieces of material that I had dyed during the past few years and could not bear to cut up. So I got brave, took out my rotary cutter and cut them into pieces. One afternoon I was trying to piece the quilt, but it was so hot & humid that sewing seemed like an aerobic activity, I was sweating that much. At that point, I took a break and walked into the lake, shorts, t-shirt and all. I knew I would never squeeze into a swim suit at that moment.

A few days later I finished my piecing. The quilt is somewhat bigger than I anticipated. I have this idea in my head to try using some deColourant on it. I have this vision of a space picture like the ones you can see on the Hubble Telescope website. However, I am stuck on how to proceed at the moment. I will have to practice with the deColourant first. So for the time being, I have shelved this project.

Strip pieced quilt

space picture from Hubble Telescope