Sweet River Studios

When I first started learning how to sew, I decided to learn paper piecing. Paper piecing is very easy to learn. It's learning how to sew pieces of fabric together in a certain order and you sew them together by sewing on lines printed on the paper. Yes, you sew on a line so everything is straight and everything lines up fairly easily. My first paper piecing pattern, was the 4th of July quilt pattern by Judy Niemeyer from Quiltworx . The hardest part is literally getting all the fabric cut and taking off the paper. But I learned a lot about 1/4" seams, trimming, sewing and piecing all the parts together. I thought the instructions for the pattern was really well done and was easy for a non-sewer to follow. After the 4th of July quilt and my sewing skills improved, I got another pattern called Amazon Star. This was a very, very big quilt. I think it was 98x98" and I really didn't like handling something that big. That one taught me that I don't like Y seams. I go...

I like making quilts with patterns and I recently purchased a paper piecing pattern called Paradise in Bloom by Judy Niemeyer. I haven't even selected fabric for that one yet but I will. It's early stages for this quilt but I'm hoping to start it soon. Lately, I've been feeling the need to start another art quilt. I like the freedom of no pattern. It's mine and I can do what I want with it using whatever technique I want to try out. I've been thinking that I'd make something to do with horses. I originally thought I'd make a quilt featuring carousel horses using the four seasons as a theme. Then I got to thinking that maybe I'll just use real horses instead but I haven't really decided. A picture in my brain is starting to form and it's looking more and more like real horses that are running. And big. Did I mention that? Like 45x120" big. Like scary big. Then the artist part of my brain scoffs and says, "Go big or go home."...