There is a show in NYC featuring quilts from The Folk Art Museum. Dates, times, photos below.

https://apnews.com/article/quilt-exhibit-folk-art-museum-4f236fad74a0d131baa7a21f347179f0

 Here is the first picture of the new project. This piece of fabric is cut larger than necessary to allow for distortion by the applique process or any design changes that occur to me. Right now the plan is for the center to be about 38 inches square but set on point. Clearly this is another "spring" quilt with all the nice flowers and colors but this is just the center section. Eventually it will be a diamond shape in the center with some sort of design next and then corners that include more flowers and fancy birds in each space. So even though this looks square right now, just imagine any one of the "corners" pointing upward and you will get a better sense of what the orientation will be.

It is neither entirely symmetrical nor a mirror image but each section is substantially the same if not identical. There will be plenty of space for nice quilting but the finished project will be closer to a twin size than a bed size or a wall quilt.

Interesting developments all over the place politically and journalistically. I never saw either Tucker Carlson or Don Lemon do their shows although like most people I did see snippets when I read the news. The nicest thing I can say about either man is that he wasn't Walter Cronkite or any other real journalist and I won't miss them even in the limited exposure I have had. We don't need personalities, we need information, so a pox on both their houses.

 Seven years ago I made a quilt inspired by Kretsinger's Paradise Garden quilt from the 30s. Several other women made similar quilts around the same time, one upping each other. While I do like those quilts, they also have  elements that don't appeal to me so even my first redo wasn't a redo but a reimagine. I gave that quilt to a friend when I left Utah and it still hangs in her house. For that one I took the center section, changed the orientation slightly and put the new quarter sections in the corners. You can check out that quilt on this blog from 6/05/2016 or look for it under the name a reader suggested: Spring.

My new project keeps the floral medallion in the center but moves some of the flowers around and changes others to flowers I like better. I plan to make this more or less round group of flowers into a center diamond configuration and then make four corners to frame that. I am planning something between the center and the corners but I haven't quite worked out what that something will be. This is going to be a long term project but I will post pictures during the construction although I don't have any yet.

 The new quilt is done. The baby isn't due until July, plus babies really should not sleep with soft bedding such as quilts before they are 12 months old so there isn't any rush. One of our sons is coming for Mother's Day so I will just give it to him to take to Utah. The new parents do live in Alaska but I don't doubt that there will be a visit to Utah at some point.

When I started this project I was calling it Unchain My Heart but I decided that wasn't appropriate for a baby gift since the song is about breaking up a romance so I just called it Hearts Full Of Joy. I am glad I finally used those old hearts and I got to use some whites and off-whites for the background. This was fun and easy and brings a smile to my face.

 Earlier I wrote about working with some pre-cut hearts to make my latest quilt project. This, too, will be a baby gift quilt. Years ago when my youngest son was in college, a few of his friends moved in with us. Our house at that time was a 100 plus year old white elephant with 11 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and 5 fireplaces. Five of the bedrooms were on the third floor, an area that we never really used before the boys moved in so  it wasn't as if anyone got displaced or disturbed. I was pretty strict with them about some things such as noise and they were completely responsible for their own spaces. 

Now more than twenty years later, one of those young men is married and expecting his first child sometime in late spring or early summer. In the colder months in Alaska where he lives now he works as a heli-ski and back country tour guide and in the warmer months if he needs work he does construction for his father-in-law. So this little quilt will end up in Alaska.

The picture above shows the little quilt in its current state, so not finished.