Autumn Antics

My love to create in miniature and the opportunity to work with an unknown partner, made this an appealing challenge. I connected easily to Sharon as she has visited Ireland before and although we live on different continents we belong to the same church. Her more traditional designs juxtapose with my art quilts. It was easy to agree on a theme of Seasons and in particular Autumn through our mutual love of the warm colours. The little red squirrels have always delighted me on my walks in the natural woods around Emo, a small local village near our home in the Midlands of Ireland. They are indigenous to Ireland. I received written permission from Paul Whiteley to use his detailed photographs of them and used my own photographs of the mushrooms growing on our lawn. The background is machine pieced strips of hand and commercially dyed and printed fabrics. The red squirrel and mushrooms were made separately by fused appliqué, enhanced by free-motion thread work and then appliquéd onto the background. Free motion quilting was done on a sit down sewing machine. I hope that Sharon, my new quilting friend will like the quilt I made and that the two of us can meet one day in person. It was a wonderful experience to build a relationship with someone as passionate about quilting as I and a privilege to belong to the international Quilting Community. Thank-you TQS!