I'm So Blue

The April theme for our Small Wonders art quilt group was blue. Here is my submission. Blue made me think of my pregnancy and just after Joshua was born. There were blue onesies, blue blankets, blue toys, blue sheets, blue everything! And after he was born, I had the post-partum blues 
(turned out to be post-partum thyroiditis that was eventually diagnosed as Hashimoto's disease).

For each of these little quilts, I am trying to learn a new skill or try something that I haven't done before. I am really enjoying the play! And the deadlines help me so much with getting things done. 

I started with some collage on the longarm. None of the fabrics were fused-I just laid them on the base fabric and stitched around them with the longarm. 

I tried some handwriting on fabric to include in this quilt. I got started after viewing Deborah Boschert's tutorial. I really liked the process and will definitely include this method again in the future. 
This quilt has some machine quilting and hand stitching with floss and perle cotton. I also included some beading for a little sparkle. 
 

I manipulated the photo of Joshua to make it fit the blue theme. If you don't have photo editing software, PicMonkey is my absolute favorite website to use for this kind of thing.

  
It's amazing how the brain works in remembering things. As I look at the parts of the quilt, I can remember what was going on as I completed that section. When I look at the beading, I remember that my mom was visiting and we were watching The Day the Earth Stood Still (the newish version). When I was stitching the shapes down on the longarm, I had The Breakfast Club playing on the computer in the studio. 

This month's theme is music! I am sure you will be waiting eagerly to find out what I was watching as I worked on that one!