- “Expectantly Waiting”-Last Thanksgiving my husband and I drove up to the south hills. While there we stopped to stretch our legs and it was at a waterhole for cattle. You know those very large round metal things that hold water. Can you tell I am not a cattle rancher. Anyway there was an old willow there that had to be at least 20 feet across. It was massive and the limbs were very thick and just had a lot of character to them. As I walked up to it I had to maneuver around the cow pies and that interesting with my new knee. I was taking a picture of the willow when I saw the birds nest nestled inside the limbs.
Wow this could be another art quilt design. Birds nests are one of my collecting things and in my sun room there is probably 6 birds nests. 
One time my husband helped me bring home a giant birds nest that had fallen to the ground at one of our friend’s house. A very large bird had built it above their front door. Yes it is now part of my collection. Anyway when I got home and downloaded my pics there was this great picture. I decided to use it for the center of my new art quilt. While painting it the eggs appeared and then as the circle effect developed so did the birds. Magpies are part of the never ending parade of nature in my yard. I painted them on a separate piece of fabric and then raw edge appliqued them to the quilt. At first they were to represent how magpies like to eat the eggs of other birds because they are the bird world predators, but decided that was a little to literal for me. I repainted the eggs in the nest to look like magpie eggs. The limbs on the outside of the art quilt were also painted and then appliqued on. The last thing was making texture on the limbs and using scraps of fabric I used stamps, pens and different tools to decorate them. Then cut shapes and raw edge appliqued them to the limbs.
Using the raw edges of the fabric for the bark made it look like you would want to reach out and touch it. As I was quilting this art piece I wanted to make sure the quilting in the background had the same movement as the limbs in front. So you will notice that the quilting lines are curved for the most part continuing the curved shapes of the limbs. This art quilt is called “Expectantly Waiting” and will be entered into the Art and Soul contest in April 2018. Working on this art quilt has jump started me to create more art about nature.
