Be Still

At last months NC Quilt Symposium I worked on a second painted piece in my class by Hollis Chatelain based upon a photo I took last fall in the NC mountains.

We spent several hiking days in the Blowing Rock area and I took tons of photos. This is one of my favorites.  I call it Be Still because you can only catch these moments if you are still and look for the little things along the trail.

I was ran out of time in the class and had to bring dye home to finish the background - and it wasn't quite the same color blue so it has a bit of a mottled effect.

I added some watercolor pencil work in the thistle.

After that I did a bit of thread sketching both on the thistle and the butterfly.

Then I layered it for quilting using wool batting.  I did an non-square edge treatment to help get rid of some of the blue that just didn't work and started quilting.

I learned lots in the class and I think this is the first class in a long time in which I came home and actually finished the projects started in class!  Can't wait to do some more dye painting.