Butterfly Home

I stopped by the quilt shop today and finally remembered to bring this home. This is what I made for our guild challenge this summer. Since we are a new guild, the challenge was to try a new technique or to reflect the theme of "beginnings" in a small quilt. I had never appliqued before, so I spent most of the month of June trying out different techniques for the butterflies. I finally ended up sewing them to fusible webbing and hand-stitching them to the top. They didn't come out exactly the way I had envisioned them, but oh well. I don't think I am ever satisfied with what I do!

What was really interesting was the number of ways our members found to reflect the theme of new beginnings. A couple of others did as I did and tried out a new technique. Some others used the beginnings theme in a more literal sense and made some really fantastic personal quilts.

We were lucky enough to be able to display the quilts in a local show, and the woman who manages the show has asked us to display next year as well. It made all of us feel very good--only a handful of us had ever displayed quilts before.

This year we are combining the mystery quilt and the challenge quilt--which is why I have spent the past month working on the mystery. I just cannot get the fabrics I chose to work well together. This afternoon as I was ready to sew the last piece on the block I just stopped and decided to go back and see if I could find another fabric that might work better. I think I have it. We'll see...

Today is the last day of my Christmas break. I took my son to the airport this afternoon for his flight back to Texas. My daughter left the day after Christmas to go back to work. So my husband and I are once again empty-nesters. Tomorrow school begins again, and I have a new student teacher starting, so life will certainly get interesting.

By the way, today I found TWO more UFO's hiding in the sewing room! One was actually in the process of being quilted (about 50% done) and the other is just blocks waiting to be put together. Do they multiply when you're not looking???