Artquiltmaker Blog

I have a lot on my mind…again.

My Tivo is taping Fons & Porter periodically. I didn’t ask it to do so, but it started doing it on its own and then I started to watch them. It is nice to be immersed in quiltmaking for a few minutes and get a different perspective. Recently, they had a show on a baskeweave quilt. The photo is from their website. I love the idea of this quilt, because it is not simple patchwork done in rows. The maker has to insert pieces into the middle of already pieced rows in order to get the basketweave effect. The project was originally published in February 2007.  I would like to see if it is actually make-able. It looks pretty straightforward on the show and the video, but you know how that goes. I’ll have to look around at the library to see if they have it. I found that with my Quilt Out Loud membership, I was able to log into the Fons & Porter site, so I have to look around there as well. If I ever had that magazine, it is long gone.

Clipmarks and my Internet security system are not liking each other, so I will have to try and explain about Bemused and the online Quilts Japan preview rather than show you. I was reading the Bemused blog and she mentioned her love of Japanese quilting magazines. She also mentioned that Quilts Japan has an online preview. That means you can page through the new issue. YAY!!!

As soon as I remembered to click the page LEFT button, it worked great. Remember? They read towards the left.

My regular podcasting people, Jennifer at CraftSanity, Amy at the Creative Mom podcast and Annie Smith of Quilting Stash/Simple Arts, are not producing podcasts fast enough for me. At the rate I consume them I could go through about 3 hours of them a week. Of course, I can’t whine or complain (I am certainly not whining or complaining, just stating a fact)  since the podcasts are FREE, the hosts work for free and I guess don’t get paid. Not having new episodes each week, however, means that I have nothing to which to listen. This has forced me to search iTunes for new material. I found some interesting works.  IMy two current favorites are CastOn by Brenda Dayne and An Illustrated Life by Danny Gregory.

One of the things I like about Brenda Dayne’s podcast is that it is about fiber and not just knitting. I wouldn’t call myself a knitter, though I do know how to knit and I admire knitting and would like to knit more, yet, Ms. Dayne does not bore me with the minutiae of knitting. She does talk about the minutiae of knitting, but I am not bored by it. She talks about other things, too. And the way she talks about things is not boring, it is professional, and, real sounding. She squeals with delight in a professional sounding way.

Danny Gregory, author of An Illustrated Life, Creative License and dannygregory.com did a series of podcasts in conjunction with the publication of An Illustrated Life a few years ago. I talked, briefly, about that book here on the blog in the past, but didn’t review it thoroughly. His podcasts are about 30 minutes long. Longer segments are broken in two parts. He has a wonderful voice and his conversations with artists who contributed to the book make me appreciate the book a lot more. Perhaps I will look at it again and give it a thorough review.

So far, I have listened to Danny talk with Peter Arkle and Roz Stendahl. I also listened to the Voodoo Lounge interview with Roz and I, now, want to be her. She is amazingly creative and practical in a way where she seems to use every moment of her time and get a lot done. I liked her interview with Danny Gregory, because she says that shopping (e.g. going and looking for the perfect pen to sketch with, or, in my case the perfect green fabric) is not a substitute for creativity. I think she also inferred that you cannot count shopping as part of your creative time. She has a follow-up to that comment on her blog.

One of the things I like about these non-quilt podcasts is that I get exposed to other artists and start thinking about creative things in a different way. I am not going to give up quilt podcasts, don’t worry.

I have never heard of Peter Arkle before. Peter Arkle is a commercial artists/ illustrator. He also does something called The Peter Arkle News. It is a newspaper containing stories of his everyday life. I love the idea. He started it just out of college (??) to show potential employers he could create and idea and follow through on it. It is now an occasional publication, which he calls ‘wheneverly’. As a librarian, I’ll have to use that instead of ‘irregular.’

One of the things I love about podcasts is how I get to hear the story of people’s lives. As I listen to more and more podcasts, I find that listening to professional radio is starting to be a bit boring or….not as interesting. I always liked Terry Gross, but now I’d rather know about her life than listen to her interview people all the time. I am interested, usually, in the people she interviews, but would also like to know about her. I like stories about people. I like to hear about the wonderful things ordinary people do. Have you done an StoryCorps interview? Take your grandma or your dad out to a StoryCorps booth and do one. Or use your new Flip. What is your story?

I love this tree quilt. It is one of those Miami Christmas quilts. I admire the way she put together the fabrics. I found this blog when I was working on my end of the year post and I was looking for the name of a pattern I bought to make the “It’s a Wrap” quilt by Sandy Gervais (obviously, I found it!). Not Your Run of the Mill blog seems to be associated with a shop, but I wasn’t able to find a direct link to the shop, though it looks like she has some interesting things.

My guild, CQFA, is doing a creativity project in 2010 and I am the first presenter. I did a lot of legwork in anticipation of the prep meeting in November and then was unable to attend. Dolores, from CQFA met me about an hour south of here on Thursday. We had lunch, looked at quilt and creativity books and talked about what I would talk about. I feel much more prepared for my presentation than I did before. I, frankly, had no idea where I was going or what I was going to say. Dolores is extremely creative. Sadly she has no website and no blog, but you can see some of her work that I have posted. Perhaps I will post notes or something on what I talk about. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with things that people expect me to do lately. Not to mention the pressure I put on myself! I think I will have to practice the word ‘NO’ in 2010. We’ll see.

By the way, the Dynamic Quilt link in my sidebar provides a list of my delicious quilt bookmarks. If you have any interest in what quilt sites I am looking at, click there and you will see some of the sites I have bookmarked.

Matt Sparrow is talking about creating a TMZ type quilt website. It should be interesting to see what comes of that. I wonder if there is enough quilt news and gossip to make it worthwhile?

Nobody can tell me that I do not have the best MIL in the world, perhaps the universe. I love my MIL. She told me recently that I was the best daughter-in-law.;-)  I was helping her wash silver after Christmas dinner. I don’t think the dishwashing was the issue. I like to think she just likes me. Anyway, part of my MIL’s fabulousness is that she gives us money every year for Christmas. I used to spend a weekend gift shopping with her, but she is no longer interested in shopping, so she gives each of us, usually, a magazine and money. If you do not select a magazine, you get some soap or something “to open”. Usually, I hoard my money jealously and wait to spend it. This time, I spent it almost as fast as I could on the fabrics in the photo when I was at Back Porch fabrics. I bought some more pieces of the Lonni Rossi fabrics. I used most of the FQ pack I bought on Marilyn’s Multi-tasker. I have another project in mind for them and wanted to include some in my FOTY quilt. I may wait and include them in FOTY 2010 as I still have a lot of fabric to cut and wasn’t sure I could commit to washing and cutting and sewing all of those additional fabrics before midnight on 12/31. As I write this, it didn’t happen.

For FOTY 2010, speak of the devil, I am thinking of doing another one patch, specifically diamonds. I like what I learned from combining fabrics when I make the Zanzibar blocks. I know I told myself I would create a design that used new and old fabrics like TFQ does and I do see the value in that. As the year came to a close, though, I felt quite stressed about this project. I wanted the cutting and piecing to be done by the end of the year and it just didn’t happen. It was totally my fault for leaving the washing, ironing and cutting until the last second, but still. I have to have fun with my quilt work, so I am cutting myself some slack.

If I do diamonds, I just have to decide what size. I almost bought some diamond rulers at Back Porch, but resisted until I could see what I already owned in the diamond arena.I was thinking of something like a 60 degree ruler.

As of January 4, 2010, I will be working more hours. For various reasons, I have always worked part-time since I left graduate school. My husband, however, has been our house-husband for the past year (almost). Sadly, I cannot afford to pay him at all, even though he does an excellent job. There are just things we need more money to pay for such as healthcare, so more hours at the day job for me are required. I am VERY fortunate that the work is there and the company is willing to allow me to make the change. I am sad to be giving up some of my free time, which I love. I don’t want to make changes in the blog in terms of posting less, but we will see. I haven’t gotten many comments in the past 1.5 months, so perhaps I don’t need to post as much? Again, we will see.

Although, New Year’s Day was yesterday, I want to wish all of my readers a great day and may 2010 be MUCH better than 2009!!!