Beads in Quilting

 I took a class from Thom Atkins, a quilter, who embellishes his quilts heavily. This is my little "sampler" from that class. On it, I tried out all the new techniques he taught. The beads come in all shapes and sizes and there are an endless numbers of stitches you can use to create different textures. He has a book called,

 Beading Artistry for Quilts. 

Mermaid Magic

Accepted to the Santa Clara, Ca. Pacific International Quilt Festival show. 

This quilt was inspired by a Moda fabric. The flowers reminded me of the underwater sea flowers I have seen.

The fabric came in several color ways. I used the orange flowers for the mermaids hair also. There are so many creative designs in commercial fabric, they always inspire me.  It is 42"x 36" in size, hand beaded with pearls and Swarovski Crystals and machine quilted. 

Italy Remembered

Going through my "Study Quilts" I found some of my old favorites. These were small (8 1/2"x 11") studies that I used to experiment with new techniques. In this one, I was working with some new metallic painted fabrics that I thought caught the light and shadows on the hills in the Tuscany area.
Study quilts are a great way to try out a composition idea, a new material, or a new stitching technique.