After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post…

So starts the post from Tartx about blogging without obligation. I have a personal goal to blog frequently, because I love to write and want to practice. I also adore making quilts and playing with fabric. Writing about those activities makes me happy and provides an enjoyable way to practice my writing skills. Still, I have enough MUST dos on my to do list (not leaving children at school to languish, feeding people, showering, etc), so I may not blog every day and sometimes I may not blog every week. I am committed to you, dear readers, and hope you will keep coming back for more. If you don’t want to manage a RSS reader or check back frequently, use http://www.page2rss.com to create an RSS feed for this blog.

Thanks for reading!

clipped from www.tartx.com

blogging without obligation

After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post on someone’s blog starting with “I’m sorry I haven’t posted in awhile.” I decided it is time to rethink what makes a good blog and the expectations that have come to be part of it. I am thinking that no one should utter those words again . . .and with that thought I give you Blogging Without Obligation.

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Book Review: Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop

I have also been reading Ringle and Kerr’s Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. I especially got into the text yesterday morning before I got up. I haven’t completely finished the book, but here is my review, such that it is. When I update it, it will be updated here.

Quiltmaker's Color Workshop: The FunQuilts' Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics by Weeks Ringle

 

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book gives quiltmakers points and tools for selecting colors. It does not steer you towards the accepted methods of selecting colors, such as the ‘focus fabric’ method. Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr bring their experience from outside the quilt world to quiltmakers by introducing techniques and methods that quiltmakers are not normally taught. Lstening to instrumental music and identifying the colors the reader sees in it as well as trying to replicate textures in color are two methods discussed. There numerous other suggestions by the authors for methods of selecting a unique palette.

Selecting fabrics is just the start, however.

One of the best things about this book is the definitions. They have definitions of hue and value and color that actually make sense; definitions that the average reader can take away and use.

After the definitions section come the exercises. These exercises are made up of three parts: color variations, individual exercises and group exercises. The pages where Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr display color variations in quilt format gives the reader a practical sense of the use of color. Part of this exercise shows the proportion of color used in a quilt and what happens to the overall look of the quilt when colors are added and removed.

I haven’t done any of the individual exercises, but they are quite accessible and one of them (listing all the colors I can think of and then marking my favorites) is quite tempting.

The group exercises, which took me awhile to notice, make me think of a class where, over the course of a period of time, a group could explore color together.

The three parts of this book made me look at colors in a new way this morning after reading several sections.

As with all quilt books, there are projects and patterns. These don’t annoy me as much as patterns in other books, because the authors discuss their Big Idea in the course of the pattern.

This is a book that I would encourage people to read and keep near by for easy and frequent referral.

View all my reviews.

Swaps with Love and Affection

Be*Mused also talked about a swap post by Calamity Kim that I thought was useful if you are thinking about participating in a swap.

I haven’t participated in a swap since the advent of Web 2.0, so I don’t remember what it was like except for the stress I felt. If I were on the receiving end of Jan’s doll quilt (from Be*Mused blog) I would be thrilled, but we all know it isn’t always like that. Review Kim’s tips and tricks before you sign on the dotted line.

Swap Etiquette

I want to write about Swaps and I want this to be upbeat and positive.

 I have also been in some amazing swaps where I was the receiver of a box , that once opened,  made me feel overwhelmed with love and affection.

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Yokohama Quilt Show Photos

No, these are not my photos. Movinghands, over on Flickr, has graciously shared her photos from the Pacifico quilt show with the world. Be*mused was kind enough to point the posting out on her blog.These have a different look than the PIQF photos I posted last month. More subtle colors and applique’. I have just been looking at Gwen Marston books, so applique’ is on my mind. Enjoy.

clipped from flickr.com

Yokohama 2008

Yokohama 2008
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Update 3/26/2013:
The photos above are no longer available. You can see quilts from the 2008 Yokohama quilt show here.

More Meeting Tidbits

Here are some general shots of the meeting and the shop.


Above is the work that my group did on the longarm. After the general demo, they broke us into smaller groups, had another little lecture on actually using the machine and then we were allowed to try it. I stepped up to the plate and tried the machine out first. This means that I set the tone and you cannot see my work. It wasn’t that interesting – just a bunch of loops. Linda and Mom went after me and you can see their work is a lot freer and a lot more individual.


Here is the big computerized machine that they program to do create certain designs in certain areas of a quilt. While nobody actually said, it sounds like they don’t do very complicated free motion quilting. I think this means that while I may do some longarm quilting on my own, I will still use Colleen for the quilts I want done a certain way.


Here we are at our worktable sewing. We had to share the room with the Strip Club who were meeting on a day that they normally don’t get to meet. We weren’t that happy with having to share the room, mostly because we weren’t expecting it, I think. The two women closest to the camera in the middle of the table were from the Strip Club. Justine, in red, actually knew one of our members and may join the group. The big arrow points to my machine and my piece. In the lower left you can see Mom’s machine and in the lower right you can see Julie’s hands working on her DH’s Snidely Whiplash cape.

Spiral Creations

We had show and tell at the CQFA meeting. Linda always shares with something interesting and this meeting was no exception. She showed Sea Glass III.

This piece is about 8″x10″ and is gorgeous! I adore it. It comes out of a lot of work that Linda does. She is always working and moving forward in her art. I admire her greatly. You can see more about this piece on Linda’s blog.

The people at Always Quilting were quite impressed with our machine quilting skills even though none of us had really ever driven a longarm. I think it was because, like Linda, we all have a little bit of practice machine quilting. I also think a lot of us doodle consistently.

Saturday Project

I brought two projects to the CQFA meeting yesterday and didn’t even finish one. Better safe than sorry, I say!

The first was the Pamela project that I started at EBHQ in a class with Pamela. I want to get this done before she comes out for the next class in April. If I can also finish the flower garden, that would be great.

I had worked on it, as you know, during the summer. I did mostly handwork. I came to a point where I decided I needed to machine quilt it and that sent the project to a screeching halt. This sewing time with CQFA seemed like a good time to get that machine quilting out of the way. I got about 2/3s of the way done yesterday and finished up the quilting today.

I always have a couple of issues when I am contemplating machine quilting something. Getting started is primary and the biggest problem. I never want to do it, don’t think I will be good enough, haven’t practiced in a long time blah blah blah. On this project’s machine quilting, I just went for it. I used a simple design and my regular open toe foot and just pretended I was sewing. The second problem comes up after I get going on the quilting. I start to see the quilting add to the design and some of the motifs not being quilted pop out. This makes me want to do more and more quilting.

I can never envision how the quilting will look while I am piecing and I always think of it as interfering with my great piecing design. It usually turns out just fine.

Here is some of the detail of the quilting part way done.

Longarm Demo


I went to the CQFA Meeting yesterday, which was held at Always Quilting in San Mateo. One of the reasons we went there was to get a demo of their longarm quilting machine and find out about learning to use it. I took the above video at the demo.

I tried out the machine as well and found it very easy to drive. Kit, one of the shop owners, had already loaded the machine with fabric for us to work on. She gave us a lecture on preparing the quilt for the machine and how their program of learning to load and use the machine worked. I thought she was a good lecturer and gave many good hints for preparing a quilt to be longarm quilted.

I have worked with a longarm quilter for awhile and know how she wants things prepared. I was surprised to hear that Always Quilting likes things a little differently done.

After the demo, we went to the back room, had lunch, worked on projects (see later post for pics of my work) and had our regular meeting.

I ended up signing up to take their their longarm quilting training in January. Their policy is to take the training and then you are allowed to rent the machine. I don’t expect that I will quilt all of my quilts myself, but I think it will be good to quilt some of them myself, and perhaps, less expensive. In any case, education is always a good thing.

All in all it was a fun day.

How I Learned the Librarian Glare

I have always been an admirer of tea towel embroidery. I have a lovel “collection” from my great grandmother and godmother of towels depicting wash days, various other chores, fruits and veg, etc. I like the idea of having things that you use every day be beautiful.

When I was a tot, my godmother determined that I needed to learn to do embroidery. She bought me the little squares of blue stamped cotton and floss. Every day we were together she would show me how to backstitch and outline stitch, etc. The one place we butt heads was splitting the floss into strands. On one piece, I used the entire width (??) of the floss to stitch some hair on a little blond cutie. My godmother was mad and that was the end of those stitching lessons. I had learned enough and put those skills to good use even today.

Flickr’s RitaPizza named me as a contact so I went to look at her pictures. This embroidery piece really caught my eye. I love the stylized face and hair and think changing the pinup inot a mermaid was clever. RitaPizza has a lot of fabulous pictures on her Flickr site that I haven’t even begun to delve into. Go take a look and enjoy her work.

Old Maid’s Puzzle by Terri Thayer

Spoiler Alert!!!!

Old Maid's Puzzle: A Quilting Mystery Old Maid’s Puzzle: A Quilting Mystery by Terri Thayer

My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think this books ends nicely, but VERY surprisingly. I was pleased with the ending, which I didn’t see coming at all. I am glad that Terri doesn’t torment her readers with bad situations and that Dewey was able to learn some lessons in order to move forward. I think that haranguing readers with problems of the characters who can never learn their lessons drives readers away. Terri does some things in this book, like fire Kym, which was totally necessary to move the story along. Getting Dewey and her brother back together was great as well. I was confused during the first couple of chapters. Concerned that I blew through them too fast, I am reading them again. I can see that this series will go on. Such series always make me want a compendium with bios of the characters, more background information.

View all my reviews.

Crazy Quilt Test

I talked about Barsha’s silk crazy in a Sept. 16 post. I kept not posting about this project for some reason. I think I just never got around to it. Here is the finished top. I still need to make the back, but it shouldn’t take too long. This will be a project I will give away, but to whom, I don’t know.

I made it with one of the packs of Moda squares I bought in Maryland. The fabrics were Friends and Flowers by Mary Engelbreit. I found that I didn’t have to cut and resew as many times, which was nice. I thought it was a good thing to do with those fabric packs. I found that I didn’t like the fabrics that much and was glad I hadn’t bought a Jelly Roll.

Be*mused Lovelies

I am wasting time again and went over to see if Jan at Be*mused had posted anything lately. I was rewarded to find some bits and pieces of lovely, cheerful sewing. She also mentions Liberated Piecing a la Gwen Marston, of which I am huge fan. Jan’s fabric combinations are gorgeous and, did I mention, CHEERFUL?! I love the blocks and pieces that she has made and can’t wait to see the outcome.

clipped from bemused.typepad.com

Holed up

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clipped from bemused.typepad.com
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