So quiet.

Since I returned from Berlin a mere two-and-a-half weeks ago, life has certainly turned quiet. No more teaching commitments before September, no more fairs where I will be going with the fabrics, no real trips planned...

It had been a lot during the first part of the year indeed. Only now do I realize that my reluctance to go away for the family holiday towards the end of May resulted from that fact that I probably had been away too much. At that point all I really wanted to do was stay at home, catch up with things. And not be rained upon two weeks in a holiday apartment, although of course I did not know that would happen right then.

As it turns out with this lack of excitement, there is not really a whole lot to write about. But: Suddenly I am getting things done. I finished two quilts last week: Play of Lines XXXII, which had been waiting for its binding for quite a while now, 

Play of Lines XXXII (2013), detail

and Play of Lines XXXIII. 

Play of Lines XXXIII, detail

That one was entered for the challenge (in the teacher’s category) in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines a full 32 hours before the end of the extended deadline. Then, the next morning, my brain played me a mean trick and suddenly told me I had uploaded the wrong pictures. Panic – telephone call to Dinah at the Carrefour, who was kind enough to check in her data base and described the quilt she saw on the picture... I had entered the right pictures after all. Let’s see whether I win the one-week-round-trip to Tokyo for that one. Perhaps I won’t even get in. But that wouldn’t matter – I have an exhibit coming up in August, and could well show it for the first time there.

This week I have been working on another quilt that I had started quite a while ago, not really knowing where it would take me. It was another attempt to work on the principle I used for Play of Lines XXVII.

Play of Lines XXVII - ice-cube fabric on the right!

After I had finished No. XXVII I wasn’t really so sure what to think of it. I had tried to work with Kathleen Loomis’ technique of thin lines, but moving them into the realm of curves. And I wasn’t sure how much I really liked it. Imagine my surprise when it was shown in Alsace last September, not in a particularly advantageous spot, and drew many many positive comments. That’s when I decided I would give that principle another go and had taken the first few steps in February or March or so. Since then it had been pinned to my wall, waiting for inspiration and time to be continued. This week it certainly took on a life of its own when it clearly told me that it wanted to be a two-pieced quilt (I hesitate to call it a dyptich...) 

Play of Lines XXXIV, in process, detail

Finished the quilting today and will work on the bindings when family activities are done, after the weekend.