Various & Sundry #13 2013

On the Web

Anna Maria Horner talks about giving herself a break. While the comments are just a few sentences, they made me think. It almost made me wonder if the universe is sending me some challenges to get me to give myself a break.

If you want to read a really nice and sweet 1st blogiversary post, check out Valerie’s post in celebration of her first blogiversary. Congratulations, Valerie!

Katie pointed me to a great interview with Lily Ashbury on the Fat Quarter Shop Blog. One of the greys will work with my background idea for Easy Street. Yes, I bought fabric. 😉

Pam and Darla talk about nerdiness quite a bit. If you want a non-quilty take, check out the N3rdc@st, episode 1. I downloaded it, because I thought there was an interview with Sarah Addison Allen, of Gardenspells, The Sugar Queen, the forthcoming Lost Lake and the The Peach Keeper fame. No interview, but there discussion of nerds was kind of interesting. The podcast, well, the first episode, at least, wasn’t as well produced as some of our quilty podcasts, but we all improve.

I really liked this post from The Cutting Table talking about Sampler Quilts. Moda retweeted it. Thanks, Moda!

Periodic Table of Sewing Elements
Periodic Table of Sewing Elements

I saw this very clever Periodic Table of Sewing Elements on the Scientific Seamstress, first on FB then on her blog. She has files on the 2011 post that are high enough quality for you to download and print or have printed in high quality at a copy center. This post also discusses her thought process for making over her sewing space. Great food for thought.

The show featured in this blog post will be the last for the guild. The guild has dwindled to 10 members. The quilts shown in the photos aren’t particularly traditional, which makes me wonder why other quiltmakers in the area aren’t joining this guild and keeping tradition going? The KCMQ is huge in the area. Can’t they join forces? I am sure I am missing the politics of the guilds in that area and politics are probably the underlying issue. I hope something replaces that show; it sounds great.

Interesting quilts on the Modern Bias Blog. I also like the quilting on the flying geese quilt.

This blog post was painful to read at the beginning as I know exactly what the mom was feeling, but as I read through the post, I saw the blossoming and expansion of creativity on both sides.

Moda posted a review of the True Cut system. I am keeping my system in place, but I find it interesting to read about new quilt technology. I do use the True Grips, as I have mentioned. They are great at helping to prevent rulers from slipping.

I saw this picture on Twitter and thought it was very clever.

Straight from ResearchBuzz: “Check out this cool Web app that turns a collection of Flickr photos into an “average” photo. This morning’s photo is an “Average” for five photos tabbed Lincoln Memorial.” I haven’t tried it yet, but I think it would be cool to try it with my Ferry Building photos.

QNM put up a very interesting layout for a sampler quilt. Everything is on point and the center block is larger. The colors are depressing and I would love to see this in pink and orange, but the layout is great. Thanks to Pam for pointing it out.

Amy Butler is now teaching online via CreativeBug. Have you seen the courses?

Fabric, Notions & Tools

I saw the blog of a Quiltmaker who is really putting the leaders and enders idea to work. She discusses fabric storage and scraps on her blog. Thanks to Adrianne for pointing it out.

Who knew so many people were producing acrylic templates. I did a search on Etsy and really had my eyes opened! Richard, of the Russian Rubix fame, has his shop up and running, so go get your templates, so you can sew along with Susan and me.

You might have seen Alex Veronelli (of Aurifil fame)post about being at the Checker Open House. Checker is a distributor of all things quilty. There are 3 posts about the open house from their newsletter. Take a look at Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 to get the inside scoop.

Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner mentioned Art Bins in a recent podcast. I use them also for storing progress projects. Katie said that she can fit everything for a project in one, which I can’t do. She might find larger ones than I have found. I like the one that measures 3.5″ x 14′ x 15.25″ (approximately) for projects. I used one to keep the Flowering Snowball parts all together. There is a larger version (15.2 x 14 x 6.2 inches), which holds a lot more, but still not all of my fabric. Remember I tend to use a small amount of a lot of different fabrics for my projects rather than larger amounts of coordinating pieces. The handles are great and keeping most of a project together, especially the cut pieces, patterns, etc is useful.

Sheesh! Camille Roskelley has another new line of fabric for Bonnie & Camille called April Showers. She talked about it very briefly in a recent blog post. It is more of the same type of colorway that Happy-Go-Lucky had with the dark blue. I didn’t think Scrumptious was out yet and I am waiting for that line. I guess I had better go shopping. 😉

Downton Abbey fabrics from Andover for all you fans- coming in the Fall. You can download Mood Boards. Looking at them and the final collections might be a good way to inspire your own mood boards.

Juliana Horner, yes, Anna Maria Horner’s eldest daughter, has designed a fabric collection, which you can find at Joann.

Creativity

I really didn’t know where to put this story about living a life where you do exactly what you love every day. This blog post describes how I feel when I am working with fabric, but especially when I am making quilts.

A post by Danny Gregory echos how I have been feeling, especially the line about “nose pressed to the window.” I guess I need to get in gear and do some stuff before I take the leap.

I did a search for creativity in the podcast part of iTunes and found a number of interesting podcasts of varying lengths and topics. NerdEcon episode X was an interview and discussion with the author of Imagine. I thought it would be too dry, but there were some great tidbits that I was able to takeaway and will use for a big project in which I am involved.

Books

Classic Modern Quilts
Classic Modern Quilts

My friend, writer at Little Bluebell and the former president of BAMQG, Adrianne Ove, will be included in a forthcoming book by Kansas City Star, Classic Modern Quilts. See some beauty shots on their blog.

Projects

A question came up about the receiving blankets I made a few weeks ago. The receiving blankets are a great gift and moms love them. They also USE them, which is why I started giving the receiving blankets instead of quilts.

I use 1 layer of flannel. One reason I don’t double them like a quilt is that the mom can layer them depending on the temperature she needs. I buy 1.25 yards and square it up, then I do a double fold hem on the raw edges. I don’t hem the selvedges, but my friend does. I am too lazy. I use a decorative stitch and will, sometimes, stitch the baby’s name in the blanket hem, if I know it. Sometimes I stitch “Baby Jones” into the hem. I give 3 to 5 receiving blankets to each mom.

Remember the pillow covers I made a few weeks ago? DH made fun of me for just putting the new covers over the old ones. Well, what am I going to do with the old ones? On another pillow cover topic, to add insult to injury, the fabric doesn’t even feel nice against our skin. Napping on the couch isn’t nearly as pleasant with those pillow covers. Ergh!

I saw a pillow on the ailyn-Nilya blog that I couldn’t stop looking at. Finally I clicked on the link and ended up on Flickr in the Ferris Wheel group. Ferris Wheel? Yes, the pattern kind of does look like a Ferris Wheel and, while I love the imagery, I also thought that the pattern looked like Jack’s Chain. I looked it up in Jinny Beyer’s The Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns and the pattern is actually called Ferris Wheel – well, that is one of the names. It is also called Block Patchwork (boring name), Building blocks, Hexagon, Morning Glory and Wandering Paths, in addition to The Ferris Wheel. Jack’s Chain is similar, but has 9 patch blocks where the squares are placed in the The Ferris Wheel. Perhaps I will try The Ferris Wheel sometime. It looks like the makers used English Paper Piecing. I wonder if it would be horrific with Y seams? I should finish the Attack of the Hexies first.

Inspiration

I really like the images in the Basic Grey post from a few days ago.

Inspiration is a funny thing. You never know when it will show up, strike you, appear on your radar.

The hard part is what you have to recognize it when it shows up and seize it.

Seize it? Put it somewhere. Remember it. Keep track of it.

Here is what is inspiring me today:


A Little Sap

Carol's Kind Tweet
Carol’s Kind Tweet

Thanks to Carole for taking the time. Though I write this blog for myself, these kind of comments are another reason to continue on.