Magic Tree

One of the things I would like to do this summer is to finish my first Art quilt.

The art quilt I am talking about has never been photographed until now. I started it in January of 2007. I began this when I knew I wanted to make non-traditional quilts but was generally clueless about what people were doing in the art quilting world. So, I started a very large quilt, and have so far made it completely by hand. It is a gigantic reminder of why I don't make quilts this way anymore: It is taking forever! And since I've started making it completely by hand, that's how I have to finish it, correct? Wait a minute...

I think for the sake of continuity, I will continue to quilt by hand the sections that have been started that way. But there are a couple of other sections that I think can get the machine quilting treatment. I originally had an idea that this quilt was going to be so amazing that I would enter it in quilt shows and it would win. I have been to a few quilt shows since then and I realize that the winning entries are so far out of my league, that I really don't have to worry my silly head about that. I can make the thing any damn way I want to and just enjoy it.

I know that these are crappy pictures. I took them on the livingroom floor. I would have liked to have hung this quilt on the clothesline in the sunshine to photograph it, but it was raining. You can't see the fabric, much less the quilting.

I haven't looked at this in a while, and I can see that I want to add something to the orange "mountains" on either side of the magic tree. The mountains are the part that I think will get the machine quilting. By the way, that is the title, Magic Tree. I sketched a bunch of trees until I came up with this one, which I like very much. I intend to use this tree image again, someday, in other quilts.