Wow–I didn’t realize I’d gotten way off my posting schedule–sorry about that! The Great Falls Studios Spring Art Festival was tons of fun last weekend, but the people in charge of scheduling the venue accidentally overbooked it, so we had to take the entire show down Saturday night and put it back up again at 6 AM Sunday morning–it’s taken me all week to recover. Thanks to all who stopped by the show–it was great to see you!

In the last two weeks I’ve also curated and hung two group shows for Great Falls Studios, one at the Great Falls library at 9830 Georgetown Pike, and one at Keller Williams Realty at 6820 Elm St. in McLean. If you’re in the area, stop by and take a look.

I’m thrilled to report that “Jazz Rhythms,” at right, was accepted into the Denver National Quilt Festival. The show will be held April 29-May 1, 2010 at the Denver Merchandise Mart, 451 East 58th Avenue, Denver, CO. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get to the show–my quilts get to travel more than I do!

For those who have been following my progress, “Jazz” is part of my Color Block series that uses improvisational piecing of fabric in solid colors to explore color and line without the distraction of pattern in the fabric. This is the largest piece in the series, at 57″ h x 36″w. Creating these pieces is intuitive and spontaneous, which is rapidly becoming my favorite way to work. I created the units in “Jazz” without any plan in mind, put them up on my design wall in the studio and played with them until I had an arrangement I liked. I particularly enjoyed adding in the wonky stripes to move the eye around the piece. I liked them so much that I took the quilt partially apart after it had been quilted to add more! Not something I would usually recommend, but in this case it seemed necessary. “Jazz” is handquilted with perle cotton in concentric circles to soften some of the hard lines of the piece.