I would like to wish all of my American readers a Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful for your participation in the blog, your comments and your continued reading. I would also like to tell my international readers how grateful I am for your readership, your comments and your participation in this blog.
Pie in Progress
Yes, the prompt is a day early. I thought I would shake things up a bit and I had nothing planned for today. 😉
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted. Post yours and get kudos!
What are you doing? Reading your blogs, of course! I, on the hand, and slaving away cooking for the, approximately, 30 people who will show up and demand food tomorrow. My mom is helping. Mostly we are making pies, which will be done soon, if all goes well. If you want my attention, you have to wait. 😉
It is getting to be the time of the year where I need to hound you about making gift bags out of fabric rather than buying gift wrap. I should have hounded you two months ago when you weren’t panicking about how fast the holidays were approaching. I do dislike being a nag, though. Lynn left a comment last week, so I went to peruse her blog and came across a tutorial for gift bags. She makes a casing and uses a clever method for not threading the ribbon through later. I’ll have to try out her tutorial. I’ll let you know if I can do it!
Look for a couple of upcoming giveaways. You know substantive comments and creative prompt responses are my thing so start preparing! One giveaway will be a bunch of selvedge edges. I have been saving them and thought that might be a nice little treat for one of you. Another will be a book. I just have to write the review. Stay tuned on that front and don’t say I never gave you anything!
I am fortunate to have 2 dads. One of them is VERY handy. He used to have a handyman business and can really fix anything. He fixed my old iron! the cord was severed and he soldered it together and I have been using it again. YAY!
I followed a link from one of the Quilt Market blogs and found the Sew Serendipity book on clothing sewing patterns. The clothes look interesting and wearable. Am I going to start sewing clothes? I don’t know.
I ran across a new way to look at fabric over at Glorious Color. The method they are showing is not about the pattern, but about the color. If you need a certain color, click on that color and the site shows you the fabric that is similar to that color. I think it is a great way to fill in holes in a quilt project.
A Work of Heart has a video up on their blog that shows the Spontaneous Scrap journal (remember mine?). It is a quick and fun video. Once you look at that video you can link out to YouTube and see the other videos by the artist, Mary Ann Moss. She shows a variety of journals from other people. I enjoyed the video and journal about Carol’s Istanbul journal.
I know you are thinking about pie and have completely forgotten about the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Did you see the winners? I can never enter. I love the quilts I make, but these are so totally out of my league. How about a category just for me? 😉
12 Days of Christmas Selvedge
Isn’t this a weird selvedge? There are 12 little bubbles, but most of them are white. I thought it was strange to have that many different colors of white (not that white is a color, of course).
I am always looking for inspiration. You have been the beneficiary of some of my musings in the form of photos I take as I travel through my life. Recently I saw a blog post interview with Kate Spain, where she talks about her inspiration and how it leads to designs. I thought the interview was lengthy enough to get some meat out of it and interesting enough to keep me reading.
Not that I need anymore projects, but I went trolling through Judy Martin’s site and saw her Blustery Day pattern again. Love it! She periodically puts up free quilt and block patterns. Nice!
WTTW out of Chicago has a video about the blankie collaboration that FunQuilts works on with developmentally disabled adults. If the link doesn’t take you immediately to the video, check the scroll bar for the correct video. The navigation from the link was a little funky.
Here is the finished (completed! done!) Red Journal that I started on Halloween at A Work of Heart. I went to the second (and last) class on Sunday and finished. I could have done a lot more embellishing on the pages, but my ephemera wasn’t that good and I wanted space to write. Yes, I want to use this as a journal and not just a scrapbook. If my ephemera was more personal, then it would have been a good scrapbook making project, but I like the idea of writing in something that I made.
Red Journal - page 1
Above is the first page. You can also see the Malka Dubrowski fabric that TFQ gave me as a gift. I like the idea of see it more often. I may not really like writing in the Red Journal, but it is only 40 pages, so I can blow through it fairly quickly. What pen to use will be an issue. I see a Sharpie in my future.
Red Journal - pink crayon
The pink page looks like it was made with a crayon. I don’t remember doing it, but it came out of a big box of paper I had saved. I like it. We’ll see if I can write on it.
Red Journal - Star12
I really can’t say what possessed me to make the pages the way I did. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
I had homework and kept putting it off. After class last time, I knew there was no way I could finish all the sewing if I waited until the next class (Sunday’s). I was finally able to get to my Red Journal project in a serious way on Friday afternoon and evening. Essentially, in between the Frosted Stars and Frosted Stars Leftovers I worked on the pages of the signature.
Red Journal Signatures - in progress
I was particularly happy with this page, which was made from just an image that I had been saving for awhile. I was happy because I finally got to use it.
Red Journal Signatures - in progress
Making the pages took a lot of sewing. There are 2 signatures of 10 pages each, folded in half to make a total of 40 pages.
I really want to make another one of these journals. I can think of two people who would really like them as gifts. It is a ton of work, so I would only be able to make them for people who would really appreciate the time and effort. We’ll see.
As I have probably said 42,000 times, the outside of this journal is made from fabric I made by sewing scraps of red fabric together a la Shannon Williams.
The Cheerful Baskets is finally finished! I am pretty excited, because this quilt has been long in the making. TFQ had some trouble getting it quilted, so we dropped it off with Colleen in Long Beach and then picked it up at PIQF. She did the most amazing job of quilting it. The quilting is masterful.
TFQ put the binding on (in case I have never said, she is the fastest binder in the universe!) and I just finished with the label and sleeve.
Cheerful Baskets detail
This quilt will go and live at TFQ’s house after I get it photographed. She has a gorgeous periwinkle wall where it will look fabulous.
Don’t you love the red/pink and turquoise combination? I got a great idea for my red/aqua quilt. I love the quilt I saw on Flickr, but it didn’t feel right. I was thinking that I would do it, because I hadn’t found anything better.
Yesterday I was Internet-free (not by choice), but saw a new pattern by Fig Tree Quilts before the Internet died. 60 degree equilateral triangles hang down in one of the versions. This pattern caught my attention, but I didn’t really think much about it until later. Then I saw a few more quilts using this triangle on some taped Fons and Porter episodes using the same type of patches. One was called Kalamkari Strippy (#1307). I am feeling more excited about this new idea. I am also so interested about how the colors on my design wall and these two types of media came together to inspire me.
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted. Post yours and get kudos!
I made this top from the leftovers of the Frosted Stars. Looking at it in the picture I like it as is. However, I do think that the border is a bit too thin and will get distorted in the quilting process. As a result, I have been looking at borders.
Frosted Stars Leftovers w/Blue
I have enough of the blue fabric to go around the whole piece (but not to show the whole to you).What do you think?
Frosted Stars Leftovers w/Blue & White
Alternatively, I can go with blue and white. I kind of like the blue and white, but one of the boys pointed out that the white disappears next to the blue. I think the values are similar.
My other idea was to put a bit of a piping border in orange in and then add another red border. I didn’t have time to set that up so you could see what it looked like. Perhaps I will.
I know! I know! Thanksgiving isn’t even here and I have a response that includes Christmas. I am sorry! Really I am! I promise to honor Thanksgiving suitably next week. I have a different project where this will come in handy and the prompt lent itself to the response.
This weekend was kind of a sewing bonanza. I think I spent about 10 hours at the machine on Saturday, and another 6 or so on Sunday sewing like a crazed woman. The result is two backs and a top, a journal cover, a repaired bag and parts of the Frosted Stars Leftovers quilt. The Frosted Stars top is above. I changed some of Charlie Scott’s pattern, as I have mentioned.
Frosted Stars Top without Final Border
The quilt top, without the final turquoise border is all on the bias and I just don’t believe in giving a quilt to a quilter with a bias edge border. Yes, I am going to send this out to be quilted. I just want this quilt to stay relatively square and adding another border was required. I don’t know why a pattern designer would finish off a quilt with a bias border. Perhaps it is some complicated part of a learning experience of which I am unaware.
I took the easy interpretation out and used the concept of moving house in my response. I was intrigued by the view out the window look of my last response and wanted to work with that a little more. I still don’t have a really good handle on cars, but will work on that some other time.
I was inspired to do a second response to the Autumn prompt. I actually thought of this response first, but did the other one instead. This drawing was still on my mind, so I decided to get it on to paper.
I spent a good portion of my day off Wednesday piecing the sashing and the borders on to the star blocks. As you can see, I didn’t quite finish, but I am moving forward.
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. Posting the direct URL helps to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted. Impress your family and friends! Post yours and get kudos!
iPhone app
The variation in brightness of distant objects (Wikipedia)
A discussion came up at the CQFA meeting on Saturday about Jelly Rolls. As you know, I used a Jelly Roll for the Zig Zaggy top, It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap and I am in the process of using one for the Frosted Stars. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had been hearing about Jelly Rolls and wanted to try one. Why not, right? It is always good to have an informed opinion.
One member had a few questions about them and so we started talking. Another member chimed in about how using someone else’s color choices took all the creativity out of making a quilt. She kind of went on and on for a bit about it. After she had finished I felt compelled to say that using someone else’s color choices might be a good way to learn to use colors that you wouldn’t normally choose. There is a gold in It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap that I wouldn’t ever pick myself, but works very well with the off shade of blue included in the Merry & Bright Jelly Roll by Sandy Gervais.
This conversation got me to thinking about color choices and how I work with color. I realized that I work in a couple of ways.
1. I choose colors in which I am interested in working. I see a color or a fabric and it gets me thinking about a quilt or a bag or a tote in those colors. At this moment, that means that I am collecting aqua and red fabrics and setting them aside in order to make a quilt in the future. I don’t know what quilt, though am leaning towards a basket quilt.
2. I also like working with whole lines of fabric. I like being part of a creative endeavor that someone else started. In a strange way, it is like a round robin. Like the It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap quilt, for which I made no decisions (pattern, whole line of fabric), I found solace in not making decisions. Also, if I am making a difficult quilt, like the Zig Zaggy quilt, which requires a lot of thought in construction, I find that putting the color choices aside allows me to focus on the sewing techniques and process.
2A. I am also enjoying the groups that Cynthia and her staff at Birch Fabrics/Fabric Worm put together. They are usually not a whole line of fabric from one designer , but fabrics that go together and have a variety of scales and designs. I haven’t actually made a quilt with one of her groups yet, but I am putting them together after washing and cutting patches in order to be ready to go when I start the next quilt. I am finding that I am also adding other fabrics in that I will go well.
Kirkham & La Playa houseKirkham & La Playa houseKirkham & La Playa house
3. Sometimes, I see something that inspires me.I have been driving by the house pictured for YEARS. In the last year or so, they painted it this rose and pumpkin color. I never have my camera with me when I go by, but today I was nearby and did have my camera so I swung by to snap some shots. I think I will make a quilt in these colors, but will add some violet as well. I think violet would look fabulous with the pumpkin and rose. There is an orange tending towards pumpkin dot (like the Ta Dots) that I have seen around. I haven’t had a chance to dig through my collection of dots to see if I have it, but it is on my list. Of course, I have to make visual decisions visually and will have to see.
4. Sometimes color doesn’t matter and I work with light and dark and a certain pattern. The Pineapple quilt is an example of this type of fabric selection. I am not sure if one would call this ‘color’ selection per se. Once inside such parameters, I do make rules for myself such as no like colors next to each other or only complementary colors next to each other etc. It usually depends on my mood.
5. Monochromatic color schemes, like the Blue Janus quilt are also intriguing me lately. I like the monochromatic color scheme, because it helps my eye discern the different types of blues, or reds or whatever color I have chosen for the color scheme. When you have 300 blues together they all look a bit different.
6. Rainbow/color wash type quilts have really been good exercises lately. The FOTY quilts have really been good for this. I have to admit that I am not liking the way I blended the colors in FOTY 2008. I don’t know what I was thinking. I do like the quilt, but in this color wash type of colorwork, the colors should blend more. It could be that my idea of this type of colorwork has evolved since FOTY 2008. I did a much better job on FOTY 2009. Maureen helped and I learned a lot from working with her on the colors. FOTY 2010 with the diamonds is next. We’ll see how that goes. In general, I like trying to blend the colors. I think the quilts are very attractive and they are an intellectual challenge to make.
Remember this bag? I was reading the Martha Stewart blog and saw it referenced again there. This version by Liesl of City Weekend fabric by Moda and her own company, Oliver + S. I am not a big fan of that green, but the whole look really works. I need to get the pattern out and make it! I have all hardware and have for awhile. Love those dots. I wonder if I have them? 😉
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