Angels and appropriately also good news!

I found I did not want to leave any unfinished projects while I was gone so today I went full force ahead and finished Sanna's angel spread. I had been working on it for a while but did not know the exact size till Sanna's album actually arrived here. Now I could finalize all the bits and pieces and I know I say this with every album but I'm ever so pleased with it and hopefully Sanna will be too!

The first page features a piece of my fabric collage, together with angels cut from a fabric and applied unto the background using fabric mod podge. The bottom blue bit was left over from my June Journal Quilt and I knew it would go well with Sanna's blue angels so I made a larger piece than I needed. I added beads as a halo around the angel's head and also beaded around the angel quotation which reads:

If I have freedom in my love

And in my soul am free;

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.

Finally I added the large letter charms on the bottom. They are both glued (to stop them from moving!) and held down with a bead.

Page 2 is entirely made up by one of my fabric collages (I will use it again printed out on fabric for my December Journal Quilt in due course). Some of the angel images are from www.collagestuff.com and other images have been torn out of various magazines. I also used napkins on the collage I added some decoupage images (South Blackberry Design on Ebay) with matte medium so they look a bit waxy. Added another quotation:

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From Angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold;

"Peace on the earth, good will to man

From Heaven's all gracious King",

The world in solemn stillness lay

Again I've beaded halos around the angels' heads and also around the quotation.

I have received some great news by e-mail. My quilt Rising above the waves has been accepted into the From the Heart exhibition: a special exhibit of European Art Quilts, which will be travelling as a Special Exhibit with the Mancuso World Quilt and Textile on Tour XI, beginning Aug 16, 2007 in Manchester, NH, then on to PA National Quilt Festival, Harrisburg, PA, Sept. 6-9, Pacific International Quilt Festival, Santa Clara, CA, Oct. 11-14 and Greter Chicago Quilt Festival, Chicago, IL, Nov. 2007. I've added some pictures of the quilt itself (see above) and a detail for you to have a littel look!

This quilt was made in reaction to the theft of my Blue Waves quilt (see the full story of that sad event on www.picturetrail.com/friedaquilter in the relevant album), to show that I did eventually manage to rise above the waves caused by that theft! The quilt was heavily hand quilted with embroidery thread and also hand-beaded.

I'm so pleased to have left a more or less clear worktable in my studio and once I'm back again I'm all ready to start tacking a large quilt which will probably be called Tod und Leben in due course. I'm not that partial to tacking but as after that I get to start stitching and beading which are my absolute favourite parts of quilt making, I guess I will just have to get on with it asap so I can start enjoying myself. Still waiting on some gorgeous yarn from an Etsy shop for this quilt too which hopefully will be here by the end of this coming week, just like me!!