Monday, December 31, 2012

Playing with Patterns

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a peaceful and blessed New Year celebration. As always, ours is a quiet one at home by the fire, and this year we've kept the woodstove going pretty regularly since it has been a cold one.

I'm close to finishing the last Log Cabin pattern, hopefully another day of football bowl games tomorrow and I'll finish it. I took some time out to begin drawing a few more designs and began playing with the Log Cabin~Winter pattern's software. Now it was fun to stitch this pattern, but I don't really see myself doing it three more times in order to make one that looks like this, lol. But with the ease of software I wanted to see what doing it four times and putting it into a log cabin quilt formation would look like.

Here are the two variations I put together. I don't expect anyone to actually stitch them, but at least you'll know what they'd look like if you did!

Log Cabin~Winter Variation 1

Variation 2

That was fun, now back to trying to finish just one Log Cabin~Summer!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

New Design - Chrysanthemums

Asian Screens~Chrysanthemums

My design,Poppies
hangs on the wall in the dining room and I find as I sit at the table looking across at it, it just makes me smile. I like its size, its open spaces, its colors and the fact it reminds me of its inspiration, Asian screens in my favorite Korean historical dramas.

We are still firmly addicted to KHDs, the current one we're watching on Hulu is the Horse Doctor. Another of director Lee Byung Hoon's wonderful series - Jewel in the Palace, Dong-Yi, Yi-San, Huh-Joon - that always feature a gracious soul whose life is full of trials and tribulations that they quietly and courageously overcome.

The Horse Doctor

Like its predecessors, this series is also inspiring me with its beautiful sets and scenery which always includes some of the most intricate and intriguing screens. So I designed a companion to Asian Screens~Poppies and there may be more such themed patterns in the future. This one features one of the flowers I've always felt to be so naturally elegant and certainly suits the theme. I look forward to stitching it soon.

Something else that makes me smile as I sit at the dining room table and look out the glass doors is this little gal who now comes right up to the porch each morning and waits patiently for us to give her a piece of fruit. I hope we don't run out of fruit!