Today is setup day for the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston, VA. The car is packed and ready to go when the venue opens this morning. And the sun is shining!

The show opens tomorrow, Saturday May 21 and runs through Sunday, May 22. Hours are 10-6 Saturday and 10-5 Sunday. There will be over 200 artists transforming the Reston Town Center into an outdoor art gallery, including painters and potters, sculptors and furniture makers, photographers and jewelers, and of course–decorative fiber. This is a fun show to do, not least because it’s in my backyard and I don’t have to travel far! It’s also one of the top shows in the country.

I’m in Booth 204 on Market Street.

Above is my newest piece–titled Journey Home–that I finished this week to hang on the back wall of my booth. It’s a relatively large quilt, about 48″ wide x 30″ high, and it would look stunning over a sofa, or a buffet, or a bed. I designed three big improvisational blocks and added some triangles into the mix–that’s where the “home” in the title comes from. Some of them look like house shapes. Then I set them asymmetrically on a blue background and stitched lots of intricate texture into the fabric.

Improv Blocks in process - Cindy Grisdela Art Quilts

Improv Blocks in process for “Journey Home.”

Here’s an image of the process. It’s a little messy but lots of fun. I keep all my scraps from other projects in baskets on my cutting table. When I’m ready to create, I dump out all the scraps in a particular color family and get to work. Sometimes the random placement of scraps next to each other sparks a new idea.

Each decision about color and shape influences the next–I usually only have a general idea of what I want to create and let the process evolve as I go along.

There are more process photos on Instagram @cindygrisdelaquilts or my Facebook page if you’d like to see the quilt being created.

I’d love to see you if you’re in the Reston area this weekend!