My Work Out Buddy

Last fall my quilt art group (Art That Works -ATW) had a challenge to create a monochromatic piece.  I quickly decided what I wanted to do.  I have a potted plant on my back screened in porch that my lizard friends love.  I have fun watching them when I work out on my elliptical. Trying to beat the heat in the summer I often wake them up and if they could talk I am sure they would be saying "Do you know what time it is lady?" 

So I had design and knew I wanted to do a pieced background similar to the one I had used in a quilt I had made as a wedding gift for my niece Margaret.

Then I went to my guild meeting (Cobblestone Quilters in Charleston) and saw a lecture by Bonnie Hunter about how she organizes her scraps.  She did a great lecture and her quilts were wonderful.  I can home and decided to use square pieces instead of random curved pieces hoping that it would make the process faster.

Except for one problem - I didn't do the math.  The piece I am working on in approximately 30 inches square and I decided I wanted the background pieces to blend together.  One inch squares seemed to be the way to go.  30 inches times 30 inches = 900 pieces.  I quickly ran out of the green fabrics I had and decided that there was not enough variety anyways. 

So out came the white on white prints and the Setacolor Paints.

I painted and cut and painted and cut and painted some more and cut some more until finally I had the background done (a little less than 900 pieces - I didn't put fabric behind the leaves or basket.

Needless to say - the piece was not finished by the challenge date.  I did get the top pieced and quilted the outline of the leaves. 

Last month, Judy Heyward did a wonderful machine quilting class for our group and  I decided to use one of the patterns she taught for the background quilting and I am again making progress on the piece.

I plan to thread paint the lizard - something I have not yet tried.