Word of the Day: Cooperation (January 17)

Today’s word is all about quilt guilds and quilt groups. Today’s word is all about leadership, teamwork and support, which are the hallmarks of quilt guilds and quilt groups everywhere.

“True leadership is a combination of initiative and humility. The best leader remains obscure, leading but drawing no personal attention…Credit is not to be taken, it will be awarded when people realize that it was the subtle influence of the leader that brought them success.”

Hard to imagine in this day and age, but a worthy goal.

Fabrics Not to Pass Up


I was at Always Quilting last week for my longarm class and bought these fabrics. I saw separate fat quarter packs with the orange fabrics and its friends (Fresh Paint by Moda, I think), as well as the fabrics related to the cherries. I wanted to buy both, but settled on what you see above. There was an icky green fabric like the orange one, but they didn’t have it on the bolt. I am thinking about making a quilt like Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs with the cherries fabrics and some others. I’ll have to put it on the list behind all the other projects I want to do!

Word of the Day: Time

” We must understand how the past affects us, we should keep the present full of rich satisfying experiences, and we should devote some energy each day to building for the future…so too should we consider the whole of our time when deciding how to spend our lives.”
 
While the quote obviously applies to saving money, and taking care of your health, buying fabric sprang immediately to mind.
 
Sometimes I go through a bin of fabric and wonder why I bought that particular yardage.
 
Sometimes I look at the fabric that I have and think that it is a hassle, because it is somewhat disorganized and I can’t always find what I want/need.
 
Often I look at fabric ads in magazines and think about what I could make with that fabric. Time factors into tthose dreams, because I would need time to go buy the fabric and make the project. It also makes me think of building up my dreams as well as my stash of fabric when acquiring new colors and patterns.
 
Buying fabric is about the past, present and the fugure, because it reflects who I was and the dreams I had when I bought the older fabric. It also reflects who I am in this time and space and the projects I am working on now. I am also building dreams and projects for the future.
 
I want to incorporate those fabrics from the past into current projects even if I use it in some way that wasn’t the original intention. I don’t want them to be discarded, because they are not me now.

Word of the Day: Positioning

This sounds like a marketing word or part of business negotiations.
 
The image that came to my mind, and is in the description in the book, is that of a heron standing in water. I really feel an affinity for these large water birds.
 
“Actions in life can be reduced to two factors: positioning and timing. If we are not in the right place at the right time, we cannot possibly take advantage of what life has to offer us. …When life presents an opportunity we must be ready to seize it without hesitation or inhibition. Position is useless without awareness. If we have both, we make no mistakes.”
 
In quiltmaking, we have to look for opportunities to learn. If a teacher comes to town, I need to take advantge of the opportunity to learn from that person. If someone is available to assist me with a problem, I should take the time to work with them.

Bright and Cheerful Prints From Melody Johnson

I just use the fabulous prints that I can buy. As a result, I sometimes get a complex because I don’t dye my own fabric. Melody Johnson has always made quilts that I admire, so I was thrilled to see some new quilts on her blog made with actual commercial prints! WOW! They are very bright and cheerful as well.

  blog it

Trying out Inks

I saw Pam Rubert’s sketchbook using these inks and I have been thinking of trying them. I would love to have a place where I could go and try out all the artists supplies that I would like to try without buying them.

FW Artists’ Inks

FW Artists’ Ink is an acrylic based pigmented water resistant ink in a range of 38 colours, all of which have either a 3 or 4 star rating for permanence.
Such a high degree of lightfastness over such a range of fully intermixable colours makes them ideal for use by artists in the production of pictures for permanent display.
Equally, however, colours can be substantially diluted to achieve the most subtle of tones, very similar in character to watercolour. Such washes will dry to a water resistant film and successive layers of colour can be laid over a highly predicable manner. FW Artists’ Inks work well through airbrushes and technical pens.
38 colours

blog it

Flower Tote Bag

I loved this fabric, which I bought back in November. As I mentioned last week, I finally got to making a tote bag out of it.

I am pretty pleased with how it came out. I love the bright cheerfulness of these splashy flowers. I think it is a good way to use those big prints.



On one of the last bags, I didn’t like the way I couldn’t see the pocket and the straps, so this time I used a blue for one side of the outside of the bag so that the pocket was highlighted. It means that the bag sides were different fabrics, but who cares? I am pleased with the way the flower fabric stands out.

I used a tulip stitch for the top stitching on the edge around the top. It is ok. There were parts where I had to sew over a lot of layers and the spacing got a bit wrecked. I am going to keep this bag for myself, because it is cheerful and I didn’t put any interfacing in it.

Word of the Day: Shaping

“We must give [situations in our lives] rough shape and then throw them down into the center of our lives…As we shape the situation, we must be aware of what form we want things to take. The closer something comes to completion, the harder and more definite it becomes. Our options become fewer, until the full impact of our creation is all that there is.”

When I start a quilt, the possibilities are endless. I start shaping the finished product with an idea in my head. Each decision I make limits future options until I have a completed idea. This is not a bad thing, it is the process of a project. Working through the process allows the final piece to take shape.

Word of the Day: Healing

“No matter how extreme a situation is, it will change.”

“Natural events balance themselves out by seeking heir opposites and this process of balance is at the heart of all healing…”

All life is continual destruction and healing, over and over again.”

“…healing will follow upheaval.”

Yesterday’s word, disaster, was all about change in my mind. Today’s word, healing, makes me think of change also and how people change after being sick. Sometimes they die, and sometimes they change their lives completely; they exercise, they eat organic food, think positively, don’t drink, etc.

In the sense of quiltmaking, we can start a project and ruin it in some way, either intentionally (it wasn’t working out, so we slice and dice it) or unintentionally (knock over the paint on to the project). This means that the project has taken an unexpected and unplanned for turn. A project won’t ‘heal’ itself. You have to facilitate that ‘healing’ by fixing it. Fixing it can mean incorporating the new reality into a new design or it can mean abandoning the project and starting something new.

Even an abandoned piece may get a new life down the road as a back or a stuffed toy or the answer to a disaster with another project.

Word of the Day: Disaster

UGH!

That was my first thought, anyway, especially after yesterday’s word!

“Disaster strikes at its own time. It is so overwhelming that we can nothing other than accept it.”

Personally, I think this is the most important thing, other than disaster is actually about change. It instigates or inspires or incites change, change we have to accept.

“Disaster is natural. It is not the curse of the gods, it is not punishment. Disaster results from the interplay of forces…”

“Disasters may well change us deeply, but hey will pass. We must keep to our deeper convictions and remember our goals. Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.”