Slow Sunday Stitching | QUILTArtbymegan

My friend Paula, who likes working in tiny pieces like me, made me this paper-pieced heart before she moved. The heart measures one inch square and has 12 pieces. So cool, right?!

I made it into an ornament for this week’s Project Quilting Challenge which had the theme of finishing an incomplete project. So I made this cutie into a little ornament that will go on my idea board once my new studio (formerly a storage room/bedroom) is complete. That way I can look at it every day!

Like the many fabrics in this heart, my friend has encouraged me to reveal all the parts of myself not just to her but in my art as well. We weathered joint events and separate ones and always found something to smile about. She made me feel important and seen… and let me see her as well.

Do you have a friend like that? It’s such a special relationship that I’m not mourning her moving across country like I thought I might. Instead I’m delighting in hearing about her adventures in snowy Boston and looking forward to seeing her again. Nope, I don’t know when that’ll happen. But with a bond like this I’ll be making it a priority.

Plus, I can’t find a single photograph of the two of us. How crazy is that?!?! Something to be remedied for sure. 🙂

I’m linking this post up to Show Off Saturday, Slow Sunday Stitching and Tuesday Archives.

This week’s project quilting challenge is sunrise/sunset. My quilt is called “Brutiful,” a term I heard this morning in a TED talk by Glennon Doyle Melton. It’s a mash-up of the words brutal and beautiful. Isn’t life both most of the time? This term is perfect for what I’ve been thinking about while designing and making the quilt this week. (Yes, only 7 days to make quilts in this challenge!) It’s thinking about a sunrise in autumn while in a deep dark pit. It’s the hope that in the brutal beautiful still exists and is accessible. With that in mind here’s my process story in photographs.

Here’s the finished quilt. It’s 30×40 inches and has machine piecing, hand embroidery, hand quilting, and machine quilting. I did them in that order too. It’s bound in black so as not to distract from the dream. The sunrise is yellow, orange, and pink crumb-pieced blocks.
Click here and check out the other sunrise/sunset projects. Vote for your favorites and be inspired by the art!