2022 Temperature quilt
I haven't quilted this and I think I need to do something more as a border. Still, I made a small house a day for the entire year of 2022 and, even though I worried I'd not get the full spectrum of colors, our Summer turned very hot and the red appeared in the "over 100 degrees" days after all. my only problem is I have a few days that were below zero and I didn't have a color assigned for that. I think I'll just add the actual temp number on the doors for those days.
Since I've worked on this piece, I didn't spend my off times in early 2023 for quilting. Instead, I spent some time doing some death cleaning and organizing. I think I'm in a fallow stage and contemplating what my next focus will me. I am growing a bit tired of my artistic voice being subjected to themes, sizes, fabrics, etc.. If I have anything in the back of my mind, it's the State dept. and spoonflower, but I'm not in any hurry. I really need to finish some projects I've got going around here.
I was sorting family photos and papers and just as I got everything contained, more arrived from my BIL. I did have much fun sorting those and delving a bit into genealogy papers I have and online sources. I wrote 30 + more family sheets for my collection. Online sources informed me I was a direct descendent of Pocahontas, which was a shock to me. Huh. I guess I learned I'm related to most founding fathers through connections in the 1500's.Most of those are more distant connections. Genealogy is so time consuming and I just have to be in the mood to delve into that.
I am back to work now and everything is packed away. I went to the Branson AQA quilt show and came away ambivalent. It felt like a carbon copy of last year's show, except I think they did a better job with the showcase of the cherrywood challenge pieces. I think the lighting was better as well. There is a movement to keep adding more and more quilting until most pieces are absolutely covered in thread. In many cases, the quilts were rippled, which shows uneven quilting and distortion. If it's a bed sized quilt, I suppose it wouldn't be noticeable, but wall pieces should hang well and they just didn't. It could be an indication of how well they were packed and shipped. (IDK) but I've had a few cases when my pieces were not presented well myself and it's always a sad feeling. In a couple situations, they were actually damaged and no one even mentioned it to me or apologized.
I went to the Rag barn in Alpena the day before and spent quite a bit on fabric I needed for landscaping quilts. I feel like my focus direction will be depicting the Ozarks.
