Stonescapes

I recently spent four great days on a quilting retreat. I sewed many panels for the turquoise section of "Shelter." I also brought with me work in progress on "Stones." The image to the left is two small pieces, finished up as coasters (about 4"), done with hand-painted fabric for the stone shapes. I'm working on different sizes, compositions, shapes, seeing how pieces like this might work together into a quilt.










I had also, some months ago, tried doing something that focused on color alone, using small rectangles of Kona cotton, but it turned out very boring (about 10x13"):


While at the retreat, I thought of trying rectangles (forgetting I had done it before), but now using hand-painted fabric. Here are two versions. I'm quite happy with these. Each are 7 rows x 7 columns, but the pieces in the second are a little larger than in the first. First is 8.5x11", second 12x14". (Color difference due to night/day photos.)



This second piece was originally larger—9 rows by 10 columns:

But having more seems to take something away—the piece becomes more like a tile floor, and one's attention is drawn less to the beauty of the little rectangles, some of which are like little landscapes. (I think if you click on the images, you'll get a bigger version.)

Now on to figuring out the quilting (something very simple) and finishing technique (probably a pillowcase binding).