Things are blooming in the quilt cave...

This is what is on my design board today...some new motifs I have been dreaming up while hand quilting away on "Baltimore Rhapsody."  I exercised great restraint in not messing around with them until the hand quilting was finished.  

Each blossom is half of a new block for a project that I think I will call "Belles and Blossoms."  Can you guess what the other thing in the block will be?  I know, I am a terrible tease...

The blocks will finish to 8 inches square, and there will only be six blocks in the quilt.  After hand quilting a 96" x 96" quilt, it was time for a smaller, more portable hand quilting project!

I think the whole project will only be about 35" x 46".  We'll see how I like it as it leaks out of my head and transforms itself into colorful cotton applique motifs.

There are so many project elements on my design wall and in containers on the shelf, which I will catch you up on in later posts.

I look at all these ongoing projects like pretty, painted horsies on a lovely, antique carousel...I hear the calliope music, I watch them all prance and dance around the quilt cave, and I choose one to "ride" for a while before putting it back on the design wall or in its container until the next spark of inspiration hits me.  Wacky, huh?

I really do love my little containers of snip-its and small scraps when I prepare the applique pieces.  These containers hold tone-on-tone fabrics, sorted by color (and sometimes size). They make choosing fabrics for doing scrappy applique prep SO easy and fast.  

Picking through them using my long forceps takes the clumsiness out of manipulating all those irregular little scraps with my dopey, stupid fingers.

Yahoo!  I hope you get to do something great in your sewing area this weekend!  Maybe I can show you some belles next time...

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)