Chilly outside, quilty inside

We're into the winter deep freeze in Manitoba right now, and I have my winter quilt up over the fireplace to mark the seasons-- winter and Christmas. I made this (timidly, I might add) as my first venture into free-piecing with Lazy Gal Tonya in her winter class a year ago. My letters have improved since then, and I'm more confident about free piecing and not worrying about adding or cutting off. I spent most of the winter hand quilting this in freehand fans, quite densely and so it didn't get up for last Christmas. Click on the photo to see the quilting details.
The quilt has been up since the first Sunday in Advent, and it will stay up into the winter. I like the double meaning of it -- the words are from the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas--- and it describes the snow and the weather here in the northern hemisphere. I don't think I've shown it on my blog at all, so here's something new(ish) to look at while I keep at my writing deadlines. I won't get to any of my quilts for at least a week or two.

I'm totally hooked on letters!

Although I'm new to blogging, I've been inspired by many of the blogs I've read over the last months. Those of you who surf Lazy Gal Tonya's blog might have seen me on the Winter Class with my Deep and Crisp and Even quilt. I had so much fun learning how to do letters that I've been making more.

For the last two weeks, I've been working on a quilt representing a biblical genealogy for a university course in the Old Testament I'm taking. It's supposed to represent the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, but I've been having far too much fun with this to consider it as an assignment. Five women are named in this genealogy (for various reasons that scholars argue about) but the point is how I've chosen to portray them. I've made their names in bright hand dyes and batiks, using Tonya's letter tutorial. Each of the three dozen men are represented in 2 inch strips in various blacks, greys and browns.

Here's the whole quilt -- it measure about 32 by 48. Right now it's a flimsy, but I intend to layer it with warm and natural, quilt around the names, and maybe quilt in freehand fans on the rest of it with a variegated thread.