New desert pieces

I'm working on more pieces for my Louisville show, "Homegrown Stories," which will have three artists sharing the entire PYRO Gallery. My take on the theme is "At Home In the Desert." 

The idea for this piece (above) was to layer sheers over the big piece of fabric that I painted. It was supposed to give the effect of the desert sky above mountains and green desert, but I don't think it works.

So I think I might cut it up and shift it around to be totally abstract, then layer it with sheers.

I'm nervous about just cutting straight into the fabric, so I took a picture of it and printed out two copies to cut up and play with. I think I'll go with this one. I cut it in the picture above and then shifted the blocks in the picture below. I haven't gotten up the courage to cut into the cloth yet!

Or should I stick with the whole cloth?

But I did finish this piece, "Sonoran Desert." My sister, who belongs to PYRO and is organizing the show, wants the three of us to each create an 18x24-inch piece in blues and greens to hang together as unmounted work. She's a painter, so hers is on a piece of canvas with raw edges. My quilt also has raw edges.

It started as a vertical, but when I realized that hers was a horizontal I changed mine to match. Here's my "palette," a jumble of blue and green fabric on my sewing room floor.

Ta da! Now it's a horizontal. Then I machine quilted it (see the first photo).

I was struck by how my succulent on the back patio echos the greens in my quilt.

Finally, this is my quick and cheap Halloween costume. I'm a Spice Rack!!! (I got the idea from Instagram.) And my shirt is the same blue as the desert sky. Having matching blue tape was serendipitous and totally unplanned.

Have a colorful day