I had a difficult time deciding on a favorite book. I love several series: Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern books, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, Joust books and her Elemental Masters books.

So I decided to do a different series. I took the cover picture of the first book of the series and printed it on fabric before using inktense pencils and water to color it.

Then I cut out the house and tried a couple of backgrounds.

I didn't think the house stood out enough. I got a suggestion that black might be good, so I tried that and thought it worked. So here is the finished piece.

Guess you want to know what the book is (HA HA HA).

Yes, I am the author. Book is a cozy witch mystery with a Victorian house painted in multicolors.

Winds of Time

Favorite Book was the theme for this time around, and I spent a lot of time thinking about all the books I've read over the years. I can't say that there is any one favorite book, to be honest. I have lots of favorites. 

When you see my quilt, you will assume that my favorite book might be Don Quixote but I regret that I have only partially read that book. Perhaps one day I will finish it. My quilt reflects my choice to go with a faovite quilt book - sorry if that's too off theme, but it was all that appealed to me. This particular book is one I pull off the shelf quite often, looking for inspiration. The book is Art Quilt Collage by Deborah Boschert. I've yet to try all of her practices she suggests in the book, but this time I did choose a few while creating this little quilt. 

My husband and I spend more time than most driving around the countryside looking at wide open fields, wind turbines and other features of the landscape. On our last outing, I was struck at how time changes things. Fields sprouting wind turbines when times ago you would only see corn or some other crop for miles. Size and proportion change, from the small windmill to the soaring wind turbines dwarfing the now lonely family farm. 

While my quilt is not exactly a collage, it does attempt to show before and after through stitching and a little bit of mixed media. Nestled between the barn and the gigantic wind turbine is the old skeleton of a windmill, a shadow of what once was. 

It is my first attempt at block printing, carving the windmill from a freehand drawing I made. I declared it not bad for a first attempt! The little barn and house are freehand cut out of scraps. I machine stitched them down and then added doors and windows by hand. 

The large wind turbine is green, to indicate the "green energy" idea. The sky is a blue fabric print with clocks, as you can see, to indicate the passage or winds of time. The yellow polka dot ground was chosen because I like yellow and the circles remind me of the motion of the turbines and windmills. 

The quilting is just a simple wave across the quilt, like a wind blowing through the open fields. The finished quilt is 8 inches by 23 inches. 

Another challenge done, and I enjoyed coming up with this one! 

Wendy

Keep Swimming

 My favorite nonfiction book is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.  Annie used her nature observations as jumping-off places for essays that combine poetic images, quotes from past researchers, and facts about nature.  It is not an easy read, but it is a book that reveals something new each time I dip into it.

It is the mindset of the book that has remained with me the strongest. To paraphrase a three-page section, in the time I am writing this, the galaxy is careening, hundreds of solar systems are being born, the sun’s surface is exploding, winds are blowing, caribou are moving across the tundra, sharks are moving up and down the coast, a moth is crawling, a snake is stirring (Dillard 97 –99).  

For my quilt, I didn't try to reproduce any of Dillard's personal experiences; I chose one of my own that echoed her mindset.  It is my attempt to capture one moment at our pond's edge, when I saw a big old turtle swimming by, while birds twittered and shrieked from the trees, and minnows splashed in the shallows, and dragonflies guarded their territories.

"Keep Swimming", a quilt that celebrates the book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

All the blue fabric in the birds was hand-dyed by me; the other fabrics are batiks.  I beaded around the outlines of most but not all of the creatures.

detail of a bluebird and a minnow

I spent enjoyable hours on this quilt, and I had the new BTS album Arirang on repeat while I did so.  The first single they released was "Swim," so it seemed apt to name this "Keep Swimming".  :)

If you would like to read more quotes from the book and see a few more details of the quilt, you can visit my home blog at textileranger.com. 

A Hobbit Hole

 

There are no prizes for guessing which book I chose!

I had a hard time deciding as I've had so many different favourite books at different times of my life but Tolkien has been an enduring companion to me throughout and The Hobbit is my chosen tale.

There are so many wonderful quilts that were crying out to be made but I settled for a modest, understated Hobbit Hole framed with a gold ring. 

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what others have made :)