2 Quilts Have Returned: Passionate Purple

As you may remember, this is part of a series of Bullseye quilts I am working on with JulieZS and Adrienne.

I tool Thursday off of work so that I could rest up for my quilt marathon. One of the things I did was to go and pick up my quilts from my longarmer. Passionate Purple was one of them. Now I just have to finish it. However, after looking at the quilt for a few days, I am thinking that I may take it back and get her to do some more quilting on it. It just isn’t flat enough for my tastes. I don ‘t mean flat as in I pieced it badly and it pooches. I mean flat as in the quilt is quilted within and inch of its life and there is no pooching from unquilted areas.

Here is a little of back. Perhaps you can see how much unquilted space there is?

Here is the full piece. I don’t think you can see the quilting at all in this picture.

I am struggling a bit with my camera lately and am hoping it will not die.

Hideous Tarts

Ta Da!

The Tarts are ready to quilt. Don’t have a heart attack when you see the grey border. I know it is ugly fabric that does not coordinate with the bright cheerfulness of the rest of the quilt. It is a quilting border and will be removed or cut off after the quilting is done.

I worked on the last bit of applique’ over the weekend and sewed on the quilting border. Except for the basting, the Tarts are ready to quilt. I didn’t realize that this piece was acting like a creativity dam. It was stopping up my creative problem solving for other projects. As soon as I did the applique’ and put the border on, I felt like I could do anything. It was an awesome feeling.

I tried a number of slight variations in location for the stars, for about 2 minutes, and then I just appliqued them on. Mentally, I am done with the project and hope I can make it through the quilting.

I am pleased with the way the block looks.

Lesson: stop thinking and just do it!

Inspiration Thursday

Tomorrow is my longarming day. I plan to quilt FOTY 2009. As a result I have quilt designs on the mind.

What do you think of that swirled design? I am thinking of looking at it as a line drawing. This is not the design I plan to use for the FOTY 2009. It is just a photo that spurred some thoughts of quilt designs in my mind.

Various & Sundry Wednesday

Janome

One of the great things about being a fan of Janome on FB is that they interact with their fans. I love that. I love it that they actually answer questions. Periodically I have a question about a foot or something. If I post it on their wall, they get back to me/the other fans quickly. So much better than email! It is wonderful.

I am preparing for a class this weekend with Dale Fleming. The supply list has some odd things on it and I have been working on collecting them. Good thing I started early. One of the things on the supply list is a zipper foot. I have a zipper foot for my Janome 9K. It is, however, a heavy machine to take to class and I was hoping to be able to take my Jem Gold to class instead. The Jem does not have as many capabilities, but it sews great and is much lighter. I didn’t think my question through very well, so they didn’t have enough information to answer my question exactly, but they did point me to a GREAT blog post about putting in a zipper. The Dale Fleming class isn’t about putting in zippers, but I can still use this information.

I tried the zipper foot on my Jem and it doesn’t work, so I will be hauling the big machine to the class.

Later, Janome posted a sewing machine cover project. They actually tell you how to make the cover fit your sewing machine rather than giving a pattern for one size. I have been using a plastic bag and I am definitely going to make one of these covers. I know not all of you have a Janome, but you can certainly use the projects they post and the information they offer with your own tools and supplies.

Giveaway

Did you sign up for the giveaway? C’mon, you know you want that silk. You can do it. I don’t mind taking your one last braincell to sign up for the giveaway after the fight you broke up between the kids, the dog running away, dinner not ready when you got home, that lost thing at work you just had to stay behind and find. I really don’t mind. Check out that blog post, leave a comment here and JUST DO IT!

Podcasts

BryeLynn over at Sew~Stitch~Create found 3 new podcasts:

Around the Web

Sew Mama Sew posted an interview with Denyse Schmidt on her blog. They talk about her workshops and a new book coming out. There are really nice descriptions of her various workshops offerings and some nice photos to illustrate the various points in the interview.

An additional interview was posted with Nancy Crow on the Quilting Arts website. A lot of the answers really talk about the creative process, space and how it impacts production of quilts.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the Happy Zombie blog. I went back there yesterday looking for the post about the New Wave quilt to show my mom and stumbled on to her enthusiastic and excited post about her new fabric line from Lecien. One of the things she showed was a color card. I clicked on the link because there were LOTS of dots and I cannot resist dots. Lecien has a great selection of dots on their site.

I was pleased to see a link to my blog on the blog A Stitch in Time. One of the things that interested me were Carol’s digital photography lessons. In the post that I read, she talks about and shows a lot of examples of light. Remember when I went to the scrapbook day and talked about the video I saw on improving digital photography?

Mark Lipinski posted that he needs a kidney transplant on his blog earlier this week! It made me think about a lot of things. One of the thoughts was about how much we don’t know about people out in cyberland.

Rice Zachery-Freeman (Freeman-Zachery??) of Voodoo Lounge and Creative Time & Space (this book is in the AQ Bookstore, so if you want to buy it, it is just an easy click away!) fame and podcast had a really interesting post about an quilt project author who wrote a magazine article. In the article the author claimed that, according to Rice, the most interesting part of the article was a “trade secret.” Not only was the post interesting, but the comments brought all sorts of other issues surrounding writing. One issue was should craftpeople write for free? My favorite was is everyone who claims to be an artist an artist? Another issue was whether the editor should have worked more with the author on that “trade secret”.

I am not saying what is right or what is wrong, but I like it when people call writers and editors on things that the reader may not find right. I am not advocating violence or antagonism, but a good, healthy, respectful debate.

As I said, I am not sure if I know the article in question, but what struck me was the sentence (FYI: third hand via Rice) “it is a trade secret.” While I am not a lawyer, I do work with a bunch of lawyers and I see what it takes to deal with the law. Time and money, first and foremost. I don’t like it when people throw around legal terms, which seems all to prevalent in the craft/quilt world these days. Everyone is entitled to their copyright. Still, there are rules about how people can write about your copyrighted materials. Everyone is entitled to trademark their logo or design. You have to do the work, though; you can’t just say that you have trademarked something. It takes a lot of research, effort and some cash (or credit, as the case may be). Trade secrets are whole different ball of wax. I don’t work with lawyers that ask me much about trade secrets, but I am pretty sure you can’t just say that some process you have thought up is a trade secret.

Anyway, check out Rice’s blog post about this issue. I am sure she would love to know what YOU think.

Life on the Edge

I am looking for a nice pattern for a walker bag. My granny, who we are now calling Super G, fell over the weekend and now has to walk with a walker. I think a walker bag would be handy and make it look pretty. I haven’t trolled the web, but will. If any of you have found a good pattern for a walker bag, please leave a comment and let me know.

Have a great day!

Spoon Jewelry

My sister went to A Work of Heart last week. She asked me to go, but I had stuff to do, was tired and thought Spoon jewelry would look lame.

WRONG!

I should have known that between my sister and Andrea, the owner of AWOH, that something wonderful would come out of the class. These necklaces are really nice looking. I probably couldn’t wear them because I am allergic to nickel, but I can still admire them.

Artquiltmaker Giveaway

I did the One World One Heart blog round robin thing, as you probably noticed, back in February. I had hoped that people would take some time with their comments, and join the CPP. I see a lot of new readers, but not many commentors and no new CPP participants. That is ok with me as I write the blog for other reasons that for readers. I just love it when I get comments. I also love it when people post their creative prompt responses.

So, here is my latest scheme to get some participants in the CPP: a giveaway. Yes, I am going to be giving away some SILK.

I am giving away luscious silks from a tie factory that used to be near me. I have about 15 bundles of approximately 10-20 10″ squares and I am giving them all away. There are rules, oh yes, but I am giving them all away and I have a bin full of them. What I will do is keep track of who complies with the rules and if only one person follows the rules then one person gets the whole big box of silk.

Notes on the silk: it frays a lot; one of the bundles will be one square short, because I used a piece for the Petal Apron. The patterns are all subtle and color coordinated within the bundles.

Rules:

1. To get an entry you must leave a substantive comment. It may not say “please enter me in your giveaway.” You can say that, but you won’t get entered. I am the arbiter of substantive, but it basically means, read a post and comment or ask questions about what I wrote. Let’s have a conversation!

2. To get TWO entries or TWO additional entries you must create a CPP response starting with last Friday’s Prompt. Follow the CPP guidelines to post your link.

3. If you want to leave a comment on this post telling me your thoughts on silk squares or what you would do with them, you will get an entry, too.

4. No whining or snarky comments!

5. You can enter as many times as you want.

6. I reserve the right to change the rules at any time.

Don’t get your hopes up that I will be dong a giveaway every week, because I don’t plan on it. I am not ruling out future giveaways, but they are not a goal. As a result, this may be your only opportunity, so join in!

Cartier Again

I went to the Cartier exhibit with my MIL on Friday. The exhibit will be leaving in the next few weeks and I didn’t feel like I had seen enough the last time I went. I wrote about going a month or so ago. My mom and I were scheduled to go, but she worked so much this past week, she wanted to rest before she had to go to her weekend job. Instead of just thinking “oh, I’ll go by myself”, which probably would not have happened, I immediately called my MIL and asked if she wanted to go. I am glad I did, because it was great to go again and it was great to spend time with my MIL. Yes, I love my MIL and she is not, in any way, shape or form, evil like books and comics imply about MILs.

Ok, I am totally lying about that being my tiara, but if I had a tiara, it would look just like that and I would wear it all the time. This is the tiara of a princess of Belgium. It was my favorite piece in the whole exhibit. The thing that really attracted me to it was the swirls in the center. They reminded me of the P&B fabric I used for Spiky Stars some time ago. I would like to perfect that design for quilting on the longarm.

I felt really inspired by the pieces in the show.

I can’t help but do a lot of drawings when I am at an exhibit: read, look, draw. It is my mantra. I felt especially inspired yesterday as I could really look at things. Nothing was a surprise, because I had been before and I was able to focus on the details.

One thing I noticed is that all of the lines were doubled. In the the infinity type design above, I didn’t draw the double line in my book. It had a double line where I have drawn one line. I want to play with that drawing a bit and the above work is just a reminder.

The oblong/square I have drawn on the page above was really intriguing to me.It wasn’t quite square or rectangular. I think it was officially rectangular, but I really had to look at it to figure out why it wasn’t exactly square. It had a kind of Trip Around the World look to it and I would like to explore the shape a bit more on some graph paper.

I was not supposed to be taking pictures, which the guard told me nicely, but in no uncertain terms. The lighting was not conducive to photography, which is why the two pictures I took are so crappy. I posted the flamingo to show the way the artists put the colored stones on part of the piece. This was a good reminder that coloration in a quilt does not have to be symmetrical.

Also, the contrast between the types of pieces shown (tiara above vs. flamingo) was quite striking. It really showed the breadth of work that Cartier did.

I really enjoy seeing other types of work. Not only am I inspired, but feel very appreciative of the wide variety of artistry available in the world.

Aurifil Thread Thoughts

Somehow, in my travels around the web, I was pointed to Blue Moon River (News from the Studio of Susan Brubaker Knapp, her blog). In the April 15, 2010 post, she tells the world that she has been selected for the Aurifil A team.

I have seen Susan’s work in Quilting Arts, but otherwise I don’t know her from a bar of soap. Still, I loved her post and told her, in a comment, that she is soooooo lucky. Susan’s post is really great. She has a lot of interesting photos and discusses Aurifil in a fun, but also informative way.

The Aurifil A Team is, apparently, a group of quiltmakers who get a bunch of Aurifil thread to use and remark on. Beyond that, I am not exactly sure what the A Team does, but I want to know so I work towards being chosen!

I was introduced to Aurifil back in about 2001 by Kathy Sandbach and I had no idea that Aurifil would become such a phenomenon. I took a machine quilting class with her at Marin Quilt and Needlearts Guild Seminar back then. She sold us ziploc bags full of Aurifil 50 wt cotton Mako. I was a bit leary, because there were no labels and barely any markings. Still, I shared about 12 spools with my mom. I still have a number of spools from that batch which are only partly used. I use them regularly,, but don’t use some of the specialty colors as much as I use the grey. I have become a complete Aurifil convert. I am working on using up all my other thread so that I can justify buying more Aurifil. What I would really like is the Aurifil suitcase. 😉

The suitcase is an outrageous wish as I have no place to put the suitcase. I also have PLENTY of thread.

I have only tried the 50 weight. I would like to try another weight, but my ideal would be to go somewhere where they had the different weights and I could try them out without buying one until I was sure which one I liked.

One of the things I like about this thread is that it works well in my machine. It doesn’t cause any problems.

I also like that it comes in a zillion colors. My favorite for piecing is the Light Gray #2600. Right now I am piecing with a slightly different shade, Pearl Gray #2615. TFQ said she had pieced with a color called Flesh (ugh! dislike that name!) #2315 and that color thread had simply disappeared into the fabric. I feel that way about the light gray as well, but am always open to finding the new perfect piecing color. I may try the Flesh, though, just to see how it works. The good problem is that once I buy a spool it seems to never run out. I was really shocked last week when I ran out of the grey!

Odds and Ends Thursday

It turns out that I love these Various and Sundry and Odds and Ends posts! I can collect a bunch of stuff I find interesting and then post it here for your enjoyment. The last one I wrote got a lot of interesting comments. Thanks, everyone!

Searching

I read a blog called ResearchBuzz for my job. I often find interesting tidbits that allow me to find more quiltmaking resources on the web. I also find that testing using quilt terminology is a lot more interesting that my work subject matter!

Recently, ResearchBuzz talked about the reorganization of photos and graphics at the Library of Congress. She writes “Oh wow, I was SO glad to see this article in the Library of Congress Blog yesterday. The LOC has an incredible archive of prints and photographs (over 1.25 million!), the but nav for them has always been icko. The blog announced a new version of the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, now available at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/.”

Of course, I did a quilt search and came up with some interesting photos. On the first page, there were a few from Gee’s Bend, one of Calvin Coolidge’s shoes, bathrobe and quilt! I noticed a number of the photos were taken by Dorothea Lange.

Fame and Fortune?

I mentioned that my blog was mentioned by Linda Poole on Pat Sloan‘s podcast. That was right after I received two books from Lark Books, so I was feeling pretty high on the hog. Today I was listening to the Sew~Stitch~Create podcast (#41, if you care) and BryeLynn mentions that she heard about me on Pat Sloan’s podcasts. She raves about my website and mentions the blog TWICE!!! I need to redo the website and am slowly (like a snail, actually) working on that. I thought it was really nice that she liked my quilts. Also, she thinks that Pat Sloan should interview me! I laughed at that, but am also very flattered. I am not a fabric designer and I only teach beginners at work. The plans I have are still plans, so I am not sure what Pat would ask me. She did talk about using the Creative Prompt Project for writing prompts for her daughter, which I think is awesome! What a great use of available resources. I can’t wait to see what her daughter comes up with! Finally, Brye thinks I should start my own podcast. We all know that is not going to happen. I like you thinking of me in one of those cute 1940s style suits with a smoky voice and would hate to ruin that illusion. 😉

On the Web

Have you looked at the Quilt Index lately? I am friends with them on FB and get a notice of their Quilt of the Day. I liked this quilt, Thomas Sykes Album quilt, that showed up last Thursday as their Quilt of the Day. they have new functionality where you can zoom in on quilt. They also put as much information as possible into the record associated with the quilt. I like to read that and think about the people making the quilt. Meg Cox, the new president, was on Pat Sloan’s podcast recently and discussed the project and programs. I’d love to have my quilts included!

Spiderwebs seem to be popular again. Oh Fransson has put up a small quiltlet with 4 Spiderweb blocks in it. She has such a wonderful sense of color. While her choices aren’t my style, I do like the combination. I have had in the back of my mind that should finish mine this year. Cross your fingers.

Jen of Quiltin’ Jenny is a new reader and one of those who commented on my Various and Sundry Thursday post from April 1. I went to take a look at her blog a few days ago and found that she does something called Wordless Wednesdays. One of the things I love about the web is that people are so clever and I get to see their cleverness. WW is a photo that she puts up with no words. I might try that instead of my Inspiration [insert day of the week here], except that then I would be stuck with only posting inspiration on Wednesdays. Hhhmm. Perhaps I will leave that great idea to Jen!

I went back a few days ago to see what was up and found that she had just finished a DENIM quilt. I am not a big fan of denim since I made the denim bag for my stepdad for Christmas (my mom calls it his man-purse!) and broke two needles in the process. I also don’t own jeans that I wear. I have a pair that I love, but they don’t fit anymore. 🙁

The other cool thing that I found is that I WON A PRIZE. WOW! I can’t believe it. Go take a look at Jen’s blog!

Reviews

Lark Books gets kudos for updating their Pretty Little Mini Quilts record on Goodreads to include a photo of the book. I use Goodreads to post reviews here, because it kills two birds with one stone and makes the reviews attractive.

I had emailed the lark Books people about the photo when I notified them about posting the review and never heard anything. I went last week to update my review with a photo. Having that big “photo not available” was unattractive and had been bothering me, so I finally went to do it. On a whim I checked to see if Goodreads had received a photo before I did the HTML work on my own and voila! they had received one from Lark Books. The update when much faster than I had anticipated.

Fabric Doing Good

Here is my excuse to finally try out making a pillowcase. I have been thinking about it for a long time and just never get around to it. American Patchwork and Quilting and AllPeopleQuilt.com have launched a project to donate 1 million pillowcases to a variety of causes supporting cancer patients, foster kids, domestic violence victims and nursing home residents. Jean at the Quilted Cupcake blog and podcast asked all of her listeners to make 5. She had a good reminder and that was that boy themed projects are less common than cutesy pie girl projects. I will commit to making one boy pillowcase and see how it goes. I was rummaging around in the bins in the back of the fabric closet on Monday and found a couple of large pieces of fabric that would work well, so I am all set.

You can download instructions to make a pillowcase embellished with leaves from their site.

Making

The members of one of the guild meetings I attend exchange ATCs. We invited some new folks one time and a few of them did not know what ATCs were. I found this guide on how to make them, which gives the basics.

Industry News?

Need some textile industry news? Want to know what is going on in Congress? Textile World is your place to go! Someone who I know from a work related endeavor who is not crafty or quilty sent this to me. The fun thing I saw when I looked at it yesterday was that the town I lived in in Austria is having some kind of textile industry event.

Mother’s Day Gift Guide

Book Review: Stamped Out

Stamped Out by Terri Thayer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have had this book on my shelf for a long time and finally read it. I needed a break from all of the quilting, design and creativity books I have been reading.

I was really pleased with this book! I don’t know that much about rubber stamping, so I was concerned I wouldn’t get main portions of the book.. I think that Terri Thayer did a great job writing about stamping in a way that didn’t talk down to people who weren’t stamping experts. Yes, I still have questions; this isn’t a how to stamping book, after all and I wasn’t bored by stamping detail. I also didn’t finish it thinking that the author was talking down to me.

I liked the relationship between April and Deana as well. Not perfect, but a committed friendship. I felt that Thayer wrote well about April’s relationships with her parents. I think a lot of times authors make everything ideal. This book was more interesting, because the relationships were more realistic without the ‘gore’ of real life. 😉

I think that Thayer’s hard won writing experience shows as well. She had a few books under her belt by the time she wrote this one and I felt it was a lot clearer. I liked the way it started. It drew the reader in without a crisis. I had enough information about the characters to know what was happening and want to keep reading. Throughout the book I did not feel as confused as I have felt reading other mysteries.

I don’t have the sequel, but may have to buy it.

View all my reviews

It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap!

As you probably remember, I tried out the Jelly Roll last week and got pretty far along making the blocks. I had a lot of events this weekend, but was still able to put the quilt together. It provided a bit of a quiet haven for me.

One thing I found was that some of the strips, such as the sashing strips were too long. I cut them all the same size, so I am not sure why that happened. As I sewed the blocks together, I was diligent about trimming the excess as well as pinning carefully. The quilt went together really well. I am happy about the matching of seams (most matched!).

I forgot to mention that I tried the Mary Ellen’s Best Press on this quilt. TFQ warned me that the strips were stretchy upfront, so I pressed all the strips with Mary Ellen’s Best Press (MEBP) before I did any cutting. I think it helped. The feel of the fabric strips after I pressed with the MEBP was firm, but not stiff or tacky feeling. I didn’t have any noticeable problems with stretching or bias. I bought my own bottle of it and will probably use it for half and quarter square triangles.

It is about the size of a large lap quilt. I went to sleep the other night thinking about borders. I found some half yards of some of the Merry & Bright prints that I might use for the border, but I am not sure about what configuration. I don’t have enough just to slap a couple of borders on it. The borders will have to be pieced in some way.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31