March On

It has been a gorgeous early  March day here in Atlanta and I've spent as much of it outside as I could manage. This morning our sweet Lady and I had a long walk around the neighborhood. She was determined to prowl a run down street at the edge of the neighborhood where she is likely to uncover discarded chicken bones, but I prevailed and kept us on prettier streets.

Then a wonderful friend who helped me to learn all about native plants and gardening in the South came to visit. We walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and had a peak at my sad post winter garden. The weeds are thriving from winter rains and a singular lack of attention on my part. I love gardening and especially like to watch the spring garden come to life, but for now at least my passion is focused in the studio with fabric and thread.

Which leads me to my third outdoor pursuit on this beautiful day. I photographed some quilt blocks. Following lessons learned from Caro Sheridan's Craftsy class "Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer", I found a spot with bright shade and an interesting but non-distracting background, hung up my closeline and went to work.

This is the Craftsy 2013 Block of the Month for March. I love the way the reds and oranges play off each other to create an optical illusion of  three dimensions. 

here is a closeup of the fabric which is from Robert Kaufman's Spot On collection, 

And this is the March block from Amy Gibson's Sugar Block Club.

Each of these blocks is so crisp and dramatic, it's hard to imagine what the finished quilt will look like. Amy is leaving the final composition up to each quilter. I have some ideas - thinking about making lots of additional blocks in quarter size and then using them as sashing. As my mother would have said, "We shall see".

And this is a good example of why you need to be aware of shadows and sunlight. It's a terrible product photo, but it does give you a sense of what a great day we had going on. Spring really is the best season Atlanta has to offer, and I'm going to have to find a way to balance outdoor time with my desire to be in the studio. Did I mention the studio is in the basement? And it has small little windows? Right.