Serendipity Quilts

I love the word “serendipity”. From The American Heritage Dictionary - n. The faculty of making fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident [From its possession by the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip].

Serendipity Quilts is the name of Susan Carlson’s latest book. She is a quilt maker, teacher and author from Maine and the speaker at the QU fall lecture last Saturday evening. Susan is an “art quilter”. I’m not sure there is an official definition for “art quilter”. In my mind an art quilter is someone who only makes quilts to hang on walls. Susan’s quilts are fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed her talking about her quilting journey that started in her last year of art school. Her quilts are collages of fabric scraps. Basically, she glues the fabric scraps to muslin, stitches around the pieces and uses tulle to create shadows. I think I have that right. The image on this tote bag is of her quilt titled Tickled Pink. It’s hard to believe it was made with little pieces of fabric. This tote and the photo on her website don’t do it justice. I don’t know if I would ever make a quilt of this style. I’ve admired other art quilter’s work, too, but haven’t had the urge to create my own “art quilt”.

It has taken a while, but we finally finished our kitchen/bathroom paint job turned home repair job. I say "we" loosely - my husband did most of the work. My biggest effort was not getting mad when he started painting at dinnertime. I know this is an odd color for a kitchen, but I like how it cools down the wood cabinets, table and floor. I'm going for a less cluttered look, so I haven't rehung the plates and vintage crocheted hot pads. It needs something, though. Maybe a quilt under that clock? What do you think? 

Here is a shot of the little shelf in the powder room off the kitchen. I rearranged things a bit and added my little blue and white quilt.