Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I saw this and thought it would be a good response to the Air Creative Prompt. I think that was a hard one as there haven’t been many responses. I am jsut behind, which is why I haven’t posted my response either. Here it is!
Another crazy post about a variety of random topics from while I attempt to find my time management skills and tell you all the various things that have been happening.
I showed these blocks yesterday, because I went to Always Quilting today to see Terri Thayer speak and do a book signing. I took a look at the quilts on the wall and found out that this is an Always Quilting exclusive pattern that they call Crazy Eights. I kind of like what the name Infinity suggests, so I will have to think about what I am going to call my quilt and the block.
Terri and I had a tentative date to go out and talk about writing. I was pleased that we were able to go and have a quick coffee. I like Terri, because she is very approachable and willing to talk about her writing process. We ended up talking about writing and migrating blogs, book promotion and other time management issues.
Terri’s new book, Ocean Waves, is out. As soon as you are done reading this post, go and buy it. 😉 Terri will be at the Chicago Quilt Festival in a couple of weeks. You can buy it from her directly there and get it autographed. Of course, you can buy it from Amazon as well. Just buy it. Supporting local authors is how we get books that have to do with quiltmaking. Terri is in the process of negotiating for the next contract for books in the Dewey/Quilter Paradiso series.
I heard about Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy on the CraftSanity podcast. Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood has interviewed Ms. Paulson twice, once in episode 17 and again in episode 91. She has several things on her blog and website that I like:
I have been working on the Tarts. It is slow going. My latest task is to find the right color for the tea kettle block in the lower left hand corner. I did the design last week, but haven’t put fabric to machine yet. Photos soon.
And finally,….
As I mentioned I headed south over last weekend. While driving I found that the cherry trees were in gorgeous bloom all along the highway. The color of the flower petals seemed darker than the petals falling to the ground already in San Francisco. They may be flowering quince or some other flowering tree. I don’t know for sure. I just know that love the cheerfulness of the trees and how they make the City look when they all come into bloom at once. I, finally, had the opportunity and the time and the camera and the tree all in the same place at the same timeand was able to snap the picture above.
My sister is a very talented scrapbook artist and these are some pages that she made for us.
Yes, the ‘t’ is missing, but I found it and glued it back on the page. Now, all I have to do is fill the pages with pictures.
Enjoy and be inspired.
I thought today, with people out of the house, would be a good day to catch you all up on what is going on. It isn’t going to happen completely. I am going to do a quick update and promise more later. Promises, promises, I know. I have missing my blog writing, though, so you are not the only ones who are suffering.
I have a lot of photos to post and they take time to process. I don’t just want to slap a bunch up there. I have some fantasies of someone from a card company looking at my blog and then hiring me to share my photos so they can make a line of cards out of them. We can all dream! I know I still have a lot to learn about image processing before my fantasy will become a reality, but I do know how to crop, so I am going to do it.
I also have the Creative Prompt drawing to post for March 27 as well as a bunch of inspiration photos. Yes, I finally got my annual photo of a cheery tree in bloom with some wonderful closeups.
I have been working on the Zanzibar blocks for FOTY 2009. I cut the pieces for these a week or so ago, but just sewed them this morning. Some of the pieces were too long as I sewed them together, so I have to check my cutting and make sure I am not getting sloppy. That project progresses.
I decided to call the above blocks (from the project with SIL) Infinity blocks because they look a bit like an infinity symbol. I haven’t been able to find a name for them, but may when I go to Always Quilting tomorrow. I used the scraps from the most recent tote bag I made for one set of the blocks. I heard from SIL, too, after sending her a sample, that the block looked fine.
If you didn’t listen to This American Life this morning (or whenever the most recent show is aired in your area), go and listen to it. The show is all about the effects of the current economy and stress. I like this show, because they seem to talk with regular people. In order to get away from my stress briefly I went south last weekend to visit my sister. Ostensibly we were going to update our scrapbooks; really we hung out, went to scrapbook and quilt shops and visited the Granny. I was able to sort photos from a trip I took that I want to put in an album. I am ready to start putting them in an album. YAY! I am going back on the weekend of May 1 to start work on the project.
One of our stops was at the The Treasure Hunt, a shop the size of a small suburban house (NOTE: not one of those monster houses, but the kind your grandma bought in the 1950s and you visited all the time when you were a kid). It is located in Carpinteria, California (Treasure Hunt Country Crafts – www.carpinteriaquilts.com 919 Maple St, Carpinteria -(805) 684-3360). It is truly a not to be missed shop. Not only does it have a satisfying selection of quilt fabric, tools and supplies, it also has a knitting section and two small craft supply rooms. They have cheerful fabric there. There wasn’t much, if any, Civil War-baby poop brown-depressing fabrics. The impression I got when I walked in was CHEERFUL. Fabrics are organized by line or by type. Want to see all the colorways of a fabric design? They are right next to each other. They also had a dots section and a stripes section. It would be hard if you were looking for blue of a certain shade, but I loved-loved-loved the look of the store. The people working there were very helpful. They didn’t have the turquoise/azure blue Windham Botanical Pop fabric I need, but I would definitely go back there again. I may post some photos later. The ladies were anxious about giving me permission to take photos, so they said they would ask their boss and get back to me. We’ll see.
Blue Island Quilts is also nearby, but I didn’t go there. Maybe next time.
When I got the above fabrics home, I laid them on the floor and think I will use all of those in the bottom row except for the black-on-whites in one project. Not sure what yet, but something. I love the way they look together. It is also a different color scheme than I normally work with. I’ll probably have to add more fabrics to it (a lavendar, maybe?), but it is a wonderful and inspiring start to a project.
As of yesterday, I am also no longer a small business owner. This means that I only have one job after 7 years of consulting alongside my regular job. I finally got a full night’s sleep last night (the stress was really doing me in), which is exciting in itself. I am excited to work on what comes next…writing?? quilt project designs??? I am wanting to get back to my career counseling to move the project along. That will have to wait, but I will do my exercises and make progress. You can bet that whatever it is will involve more quiltmaking!!!
After the sale, I stopped in at Color Me Quilts (Color Me Quilts & More, 37495 Niles Blvd, 792-6567), which was in a perfect location to relieve some stress yesterday morning. I bought the stripe to go with the fabrics from The Treasure Hunt for the pink and brown project. The dots are, well, dots and how can I pass them up? I think they will go well with the cherries for the blue and pink project I am also planning. the blue dot will work well in Patrick’s quilt and the Pineapple. Cheerful, cheerful fabrics.
It is never too early to be thinking about gift bags, so I found some Christmas fabrics on sale and bought some of those to make gift bags for the holidays.
I am not a huge fan of Laurel Burch, but I don’t dislike her fabrics, either. The colors are a bit nontraditional, which I like. I saw a lovely white Christmas fabric, but it was too see through to effectively hide gifts, so I passed on it.
For now, thought I have to go sew a bit and get ready for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for reading and for your comments!
The Creative Prompt for this week is bold.
Be bold.
Act boldly.
Bold fonts.
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted in the comments area of this post. It is a good way to keep all the artwork together.
There is more information on the Creative Prompt Page.
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This photo was taken by TFQ on December 22, 2008 at 9am during Seattle’s December snowstorm. I know it was cold and nasty to be in, but the photo is so gorgeously inspiring.
I sorted a lot of photos this weekend from 1981/82. In the process of sorting, I came across a number of tree pictures. Remember those 3×5″ photos that used to come back from the drugstore? I have lots of them and a multitude of them are trees. Since the 1981/82 photos have not yet been scanned, and I have trees on the mind, I picked this out of my favorite Flickr photos. I think you will be seeing trees in future inspiration postings. Hopefully, I will have a tree inspired quilt in my future.
Quick post with mostly pics. Hope you enjoy the progress.
I have only three blocks left to make for the center of this quilt. I need to cut some more prints, though, as I am tired of the reusing the ones I already cut. I can use them in the border.
I made these last weekend and cut some fabric for two more tonight. Progress!
Here are the latest FOTY 2009 blocks. These blocks are so easy to make that they are like candy. You can’t make just one.
I am thinking that I will use these fabrics, except the bright white circles fabric, for a Yellow Brick Road type quilt. I wrote about these fabrics on January 17, 2009 and on February 23, 2009.
Create a piece of art of craft, a doodle or an oil painting on the thoughts evoked by the word ‘air.’
See the Creative Prompt page if you have questions about this project.
Post the URL where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted in the comments area of this post. It is a good way to keep all the artwork together.
The Creative Prompt Page, which has been updated, has a lot of information about resources, past prompts (all in one place!!!), and reviews of other creative sites.
Watch CBS Videos Online
I finally went and looked at this video. It has been making the rounds. I was pleased that quiltmaking was presented in a good light.
SIL and I are doing a swap with blue and white fabrics.
This is the block we are using. We didn’t have time to really organize ourselves while she was out for a brief visit a few weeks ago, so we did some organizing via email. I finally felt organized enough to make some blocks. The above block is one of the first group that I did. I plan to make two of each fabric and send one to SIL, in little batches.
I made the two batik ones later and will send SIL one.
The motif that the squares and rectangles make looks like some kind of knot. Since I didn’t know the name of this block, and I didn’t want to call it the Always Quilting block, I looked up the design in Barbara Brackman’s book, The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. I couldn’t find this particular block (Barbara, won’t you please update your book with newer blocks??? Thanks.), so I found a couple that looked like they were related.
BB:1117 is called Tam’s Patch. It has two corners with the rectangle/two squares combination, but the other two corners are just plain square patches.
BB:1104 (page 156-157) is called Squares upon Squares from Farm Journal.
I’ll look through some other block dictionaries to see if I can find a name for it.The reality is that you change one line and you have a new block. New blocks are invented every day.
I’d love to hear if you know the name of this block, or have a creative name for it.
I thought I would give you a view of my design wall. It is packed to the gills right now and I may have to drag out the portable design wall. You can see the Tarts.
In the bottom middle are the swap/friendship blocks I am starting to work on with my SIL.
On the left side are patches for the FOTY 2009 quilt, which is in its infancy.
I am thrilled with how much I am sewing! I never have enough time to do as much as I want, but I feel like I am accomplishing a lot and that feels good. Quiltmaking is actually taking over time that I usually spend doing other stuff, so my time management skills, in general, appear o the outside world to be deteriorating. I blame it all on podcasts, which allow me to immerse myself in quilting when I can’t even be at the machine.
I have been admiring a variety of photo sites lately. Deirdre put me on to the Photo Museum site. In my quest for cake inspiration I stumbled across this site and its artist, Cory Clifford. This image reminds me of Wayne Thiebaud.
Source: fineartamerica.com via Jaye on Pinterest
Most of what you can see is the Tarts Come to Tea, but some are other projects, which I will talk about later. Progress is being made, despite seeming to make only very tiny amounts of progress every weekend.
I thought of putting a cupcake in the line of cups instead of another cup for a couple of reasons:
Here is the new frothy drink. The one with the background plaid is gone. I have it in my scrap pile and it may be reborn as a teacher pillow or something. We will see.
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