I made ART!!!

This is what I did yesterday afternoon. It wasn't for me, and although it is art, it is not ART. It was freemotion quilting fun on a quilt-for-hire. This particular quilt was delightful to quilt. It was small and cheery, and invited interpretive quilting. Best of all, it was quick. woohoo!

But what I really wanted to be doing was something of my own. It's been a while since I've worked on my own work. I am in the process of beading a quilt, and I've gotten a bit carried away. Okay, so maybe that's an understatement. Maybe I got a LOT carried away. It will be weeks before that quilt is finished. When it is, you can be assured that I will post a picture.

Anyway, my new Quilting Arts magazine just arrived, and yesterday I was paging through it. There was a new challenge issued, called "Go Green!" The challenge specifications were preceded by an article of a "green" quilter. She uses stuff from around the house to make miniature art pieces.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of recycling...if you're talking about aluminum cans, plastics, newspapers, etc. But using dryer lint in my quilts? I just can't bring myself to do that.

But I CAN limit myself to using items that I have on hand, and that 5" x 5" size is actually do-able.

In fact, that's pretty small.

So I tried it. I started with a 6" square, instead of 5", and planned to cut it down, but the piece ended up 5.75" square. But that's fine with me. It's not for their challenge, it's ART. And I am NOT an artist...but I made ART!!
Isn't it cute? Don't you love it? I do. I started with a 6" foundation, then strip-pieced the background with scraps from my scrap box. Then I raw-edge, machine-stitched the seaweed, ala Rosemary Eichorn. I added some couched yarn from Charlotte, some bubble beads from my river, and some tiger eye stones at the bottom, rejects from the river quilt. The fish is where the "go green, recycle" theme comes in. It was an earring, that I'd bought years ago, thinking, "This would be cute on a quilt." But then I never did anything with it.

Just goes to show, that if you're desperately procrastinating on cleaning the bathrooms, you, too, could be making ART!!!