Quilt class and farming revisited

Last weekend, I took another landscape quilt class with my sister.  The class was taught be Linda Schmidt and was hosted by my sister's quilt guild.  We learned all kinds of cool techniques to build landscapes with fabric and how to use various kinds of embellishments.  Here are my little class quilts ... WIP.

Seascape (rocks in foreground made out of Tydek envelopes!)

Beach Scene (I have yet to add the water at top)

It was a full day class but we had to be cleaned up and out of the facility by 4:30, and there was SO much going on (demos, painting, drying, heating, etc.), that I didn't stop to take any pictures.  I learned so much, and excited with the prospect of utilizing all of the things I've learned such as painting fabric, using puff paint, various embellishments (Angelina fibers, liquid beads, etc.).

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This weekend, I decided I needed to catch up with my Farmer's Wife blocks.  I've made a few here and there without documenting/blogging about them and put together several more over the last two days.

This is my little collection for 2012.  I'm up to 61, with 50 to go.  Ahhhhhrrrrgh.  I'm happy to have passed the halfway mark, but this is definitely a "love/hate" sort of project.  I really hate paper piecing tiny little pieces, so all of my recents are pieced with templates.  In cases where the templates aren't conventional sizes, I use freezer paper to cut out the shapes.  What I've lost in accuracy, I've surely made up in maintaining my sanity.  LOL.

Individual blocks can be found in my flickr stream.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Individually, they look kind of funky, but seeing them together is something else entirely; it's a spectacular jumble of quilt-y goodness.  This keeps me going, as well as seeing some amazing finished quilts in the flickr group.  I would be interested in hearing how others keep inspired while working on long-range projects.  ????  Leave a comment on what keeps you going.

Wishing everyone a great rest of the weekend and good start to the week!

Saturday walk at Oyster Point