Playing with circles

I love teaching. There is something so rewarding taking a idea, developing it into a design and then passing it on to others and seeing them run with it.

That is exactly what happened with my Zen Quilt. I needed to create a design that made good use of circles as I was supposed to demonstrating one of Simplicity's circle acrylics. I had also just bought a fat quarter bundle of Moda Christmas fabric that had a bit of a Japanese vibe about them, and so taking inspiration from those calming Zen Gardens, I came up with this!

A zen garden is a miniature representation of a landscape and nature which is an aid to meditation. The boulders represent mountains, and the ripples in the gravel present water flowing through the landscape. My circles represent the boulders and the quilting is the raked patterns in the gravel. I am very pleased with the results and they great on camera. It caused such a stir that I put it on in the shop as a workshop. And these ladies kept busy!

The different colours and fabrics created different moods and they are all looking fantastic! It proved so popular that I will be running the class again in 2014. It really is a hard life!!!!