QA had a sleeve pattern some time ago. I thought this was a creative slant on the sleeve idea. This is the first time I have sent a picture to the blog from my phone. I may do this more often over the next month as I will be traveling and my computer is going to the hospital.
And a Flowering Snowball
As an added bonus, I finished one Flowering Snowball (Cross Block) last week. I particularly like this one, because it has the coffee print. I think I am close to the end of piecing these blocks. I want to do a self border so I have to make those blocks. It is just a feeling, so we’ll see how it progresses.
Quilt Fabric Manufacturers
Annie of Annie’s Quilting Stash Podcast has cataloged a group of fabric manufacturers and gives links and list of designers for each manufacturer. It is a podcast from earlier this year.
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Projects Calling
I couldn’t stay away from my workroom on yesterday. I found a playmate for the child and left them to their own devices (except for an occasional admonishment to go outside away from the screens) while I sat and sewed. I sent Aja’s Bullseyes off to her, as I may have mentioned, last week. She received them Thurs or Fri, so I only had my blocks to work on.
This calling business was a bit disconcerting, because it seemed like my mind had a mind of its own. Normally, I will sew a bit, do the laundry a bit, sew a bit more, make my weekly phone calls, sew a bit, change the laundry and do the dishes and sew a bit more. Yesterday my body and mind were united and they were having none of it. I went to the workroom and basically stayed there. No dishes, no laundry and the dinner didn’t get started until almost 7pm. IT WAS FABULOUS!!!
This is one of the blocks and I really liked it. I fussy cut the last circle and was sad to slice it up, because the flower is so perfectly displayed.
These are my blocks after I have added the last circle. The blocks in the upper right hand corner are blocks that weren’t in the photo I posted the other day. My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate all of the blocks.
These are details of the blocks from the upper right hand corner.
Now my Bullseye blocks are nearly complete. I have sewed the last circles on and trimmed all the blocks down to 9.5″.
This is how the back of a block looks after I have sewn the last circle and before I have cut the back of the second circle out. You can see that Julie and Aja have cut out the backs of the background and the first circle.
Here is how the above block looks after I have cut out the back of the second circle. This reduces bulk and provides lots of lovely circles for another project.
I finished the process of cutting out the backs of the second circles, and I have sliced the blocks into quarters. I am preparing them to be sent off to Julie and Aja.
Here is how I set up the blocks to slice them. I love the Creative Grid rulers, because they have a lot of different markings that allow you to line up the ruler so the block is sliced very precisely.
I keep two quarters of the block and send one quarter each to Julie and Aja.
Here are my slices. I just slapped them up on the wall, but I like the internal maze surrounded by a larger maze and may go with that type of design for the final design. I think I will have to put some of the stronger colors, perhaps red, in that internal maze so that it stands out. I will also want the self bordering technique to give the piece a finished look You can see it in Seeing Red.
Dots in Bird Form
I need more dots like a need a hole in the head, but the web is a great thing, because I can admire them without buying! Deirdre sent me this picture. I can’t see the dots very well, but I like the relationship of birds and sticks to the background.
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European Art Quilts
The European Art Quilt Association is preparing for their next exhibition, which looks like it will be in Birmingham in the UK. I saw this quilt on the page and really like it.
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Art Cartons
I never ceased to be amazed at the creative ways quiltmakers and fiber artists think of to entertain and inspire their colleagues. Deidre posted this great photo of the art she received in an art carton. I was really pleased that she shared. Check out her blog.
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Book Review: The Quilter’s Companion
The Quilter’s Companion: The Complete Guide to Machine and Hand Quilting by Katharine Guerrier
My review on Goodreads
Deirdre (http://www.deirdreabbotts.com/… sent this book to me as a byproduct of clearing out her studio. The subtitle kind of says it all about the content of the book, but it doesn’t tell you what great photos the book has. The photos are numerous, clear and detailed, just what I like in a quiltmaking book. Across from the title page is a page of off center star blocks all created in different fabrics. The first chapter has numerous quilts in different styles including a Baltimore Album quilt, a lone star, a 19th century pinwheel as well as a gorgeous orange whole cloth quilt. The book goes on to discuss fabric and supplies, including embroidery thread and machine feet.
The section on cutting and stitching techniques covers templates as well as rotary cutting along with tips on sewing curved seams and inset seams. Hooray! I am really glad to see this information covered, because I think quiltmakers need to know the full gamut of quiltmaking techniques so they can make informed choices about their work. Pressing, preparing applique’ shapes and how blocks can be broken down are also all covered in this section.
The book goes on to discuss projects, but in an interesting way. There is a sampler project, a Pineapple Project, Lone Star, log cabin and foundation piecing.
The book finishes up with quilting, of course. The chapter is quite comprehensive, starting with preparing your equipment, marking and using stencils, straight line and free motion quilting and hand quilting.
I think this is a great reference book, because it covers all the things that a quiltmaker might have a question about. It shows how to make the Cathedral Windows block, which I may never want to make, but I am interested in how it is done. The author also talks about corded quilting, which I actually might want to do someday. This book is modern also, because it covers newer products such as spray baste and those spoon type thimbles.
This is a very comprehensive book with a lot of great pictures.
Collage Unleashed
Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista
My review
I just bought this book to get some visual journaling inspiration.
Bullseyes – Another Round
Friend Julie sent me a second package of Bullseyes sometime last week and I decided I needed to get my act together and sew them up.
Adrienne’s blocks detail.
The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after I put the circles on.
Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle.
The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle.
The rest of my blocks. I was surprised at how much non-purple the other girls used, but then I remembered that that is the fun. DUH! I have cut all the squares for the last round and hope to sew them on this weekend. I recut a lot of them so that most, if not all are purple. I want to cut them up and send them off before I start off on my travels.
Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists
Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists by Lark Books
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Towards the end of the Introduction, the author, Martha Sielman writes “The book’s underlying concept of displaying up to a dozen quilts by each of the artists does limit the number of quilters included in the book, but it also allows the artists’ work to be seen in much greater depth.” I hope that this statement, and the resulting format of the book, is the first step in quilts truly being recognized in the art world. The underlying difference in this book and many other quiltmaking books is that there are no patterns. In the art world, there are probably an equal number of art books detailing how to make an oil painting or dissecting the steps to sculpture as there are books simply depicting an artists work. In the quilt world, dedicated publishers lament the lack of interest among quiltmakers for books with only pictures and inspiration. Then they publish another pattern book. The proposed series of Art & Inspirations books, such as Art & Inspirations: Ruth McDowell books is a perfect example. The series went for two books, was deemed a failure and abandoned. If the quilt world can send its artists out into the world in books such as Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists (The Masters), then quilts will be welcomed in circles where experts previously thought quilts were only made by their grandmothers.
The first artist in the book is Jane Sassaman. Ms. Sassaman displays a wonderful array of quilts, from the gorgeous Willow to the spiky and, slightly scary Trouble in the Garden. Details of the various quilts show the texture created by the quilting and the detail of the line.
I was thrilled to see that the cast was not limited to the United States. Among others, Clare Plug of New Zealand and Elizabeth Brimelow of Britain were included.
Michael James’ pages were interesting. He showed, mostly, his new pieces and only a few of the pieces that made him a quilt household name. The examples show that having a style is a good thing, if you want to be known, because his new work does not immediately tell you who made the quilt.
I was interested to see a number of artists whose work has not been in the quilt news lately.
Wendy Huhn was pictured and I had not seen her work in a show in a long time. I like her black humor and the juxtaposition of the images with the softness of the quilt medium.
I was surprised at some of the quilts which were included. They seemed to be included because they are popular. Several photos show, basically, photographs placed on a piece of fabric, layered and quilted. Granted, they are technically perfect, the colors are gorgeous, and may be following the tradition of whole cloth quilts, but they don’t use the shapes or lines of patchwork to enhance the work at all.
I was pleased to see the work of some favorites such as Caryl Bryer Fallert, Jane Sassaman, Pamela Allen, and Susan Shie. I was also thrilled to see work by artists with whom I was unfamiliar such as Ita Ziv. I love her piece, After the Rain.
My only suggestion would be to include the story of some of the quilts. For example, I think that Sassaman’s quilt, Glorious Greens was in the Women of Taste, but this book didn’t say anything more than the name, size and techniques.
It is really wonderful to go back and forth between various artists to compare their works. I also like the variety of artists who were included. I hope this is volume 1 of long and vibrant series. Go and buy this book to encourage Lark Books to produce more.
View all my reviews, including reviews of non-quilt books.
Goodreads Test
Goodreads has a new feature where they give the HTML for a review you have written. I am trying it out here. I originally wrote a review of Collaborative Quilting for this blog on October 21, 2006. I filled out a review today on Goodreads and thought I would check out the feature to see if I thought it would work for you. If it works, it will make writing reviews of books a lot easier. Note that if you click the “view all my reviews” link, you will get non-quilt related reviews as well.
Collaborative Quilting by Freddy Moran
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of the best reasons for buying this book is the huge number of photos. It is amazing how many photos of quilts and blocks the publisher was able to cram into this book for the price. I also like the idea of collaboration between the two artists.
Will You LOOK at those Dots???
The Quilting Stash podcast host, Annie Smith, interviewed Mary Lou Weideman in April. The show is really great, interesting as well as entertaining. I just listened to it this week and finally went to look at Mary Lou’s quilts. I have one one of her books, but the photos of these quilts are so cheerful. I think she is one of my new heroes!. Will you look at all of the dots she uses?
I was interested to hear, in the interview, that MLW creates her borders first. Look carefully at the witch quilt’s border. It amazes me that she can make the border first when it is so intricate. Definitely a technique I want to try.
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Annie Smith on Quiltmaking on the Go
Annie Smith, of the Quilting Stash podcast fame, wrote about quilting while she was tied up in her car. I listened to the podcast yesterday and then went to her blog today to see the photos. I was thrilled to see her sketches of quilts. First, the sketches themselves are great. Second, I was glad to see that someone else sketches out whole quilts and, third, I see that I am not the only one who gets inspiration from her surroundings.
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Cleaning up the Junk Drawer of my Blog
The title is paraphrased and re-imagined from a phrase that DebR uses on her blog, Red Shoe Rambling. I have a lot of little bits to pass on and thought this would be a good time to do it.
More on Gabrielle Swain
I forgot my camera on the second day of class. Karen, a fellow student in the Gabrielle Swain class, was kind enough to share her photos with me. We had a little session on features of her camera, which was fun and then we took some pictures. Karen let me look over her shoulder while she took photos.
In the above piece, you can see the color placement issue that I described in Gabrielle Swain Class, Day 2. The leaf is made up of separate pieces. If you can see how the veins divide the leaf, know that each of those sections is a separate piece of fabric. In placing the fabric, Swain explained to us how to fussy cut the fabric (using the light box) so that there are no huge breaks in the color of the leaf. I think the above leaf has more color breaks than I would expect there to be in a piece, but since GS did it, there must be a reason.
You can also see the quilting pretty well in the above photo. All of this quilting is done by hand.
I liked this quilt, because of the way she breaks up the leaves and the branches. I also think the few letters add a lot of interest.
My favorite quilt of Ms. Swain’s was called Even Change (not above, click the link). I think the one on her website might be different than the one she brought to class. Still, I like the idea of temperature that she used in this quilt. The idea was that if she used a cool tone on the background, Swain appliqued a leaf (piece of fabric) in a warm tone on top of that background, then she used a cool tone for the veins. Very successful.
Thinking about Proportion
Periodically, some technique that has been rumbling around in my mind as I try and understand it, clicks into place. What is rumbling around in my mind lately is proportion.
TFQ and I saw this class sample at Black Cat Quilts when she was visiting in April. It is from the Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr book, Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: the FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. Gretchen was out of the book so I had to buy it from somewhere else. That meant that we couldn’t look at the book or the directions for the quilt.The pattern is pretty easy, so it doesn’t really require a class or a pattern.
I was shocked when I did buy the book, because 1) the colors were a shockingly ugly combination (TO ME). I have little to no appreciation for the colors in quilts made from reproduction fabrics; 2) they put that ugly quilt on the cover; and 3) how small the blocks actually were in the pattern in the book. The above picture shows blocks that are approximately 8″x4″. It was high up on the wall and there wasn’t a ladder available for me to climb and measure the blocks. Also, I forgot my tape measure. Anyway, in the book the pattern directions tell you to create blocks that are about 3″x5″ (the size of an index card). Huh???
Well, obviously, the maker of the class sample was perfectly able to enlarge the pattern. This where I started to think about proportion. I find that the proportion of the blocks in the picture above to be good. I haven’t made one of the smaller blocks, so I can’t say whether I would like that size.*
My thoughts about proportion, which started with this book/class sample encounter, have to do with how to figure out how to find the right proportions (without a lot of complicated math, thanks) of a block. It is easy to say “ok, the pattern says to make this block 3×5, so it would be easy to blow the block up to 6×10”, but what about if I want the block to be 8x something. I have a little fraction to decimal cheatsheet and I want a proportion cheatsheet as well. Let me know if you know of one.
I do have EQ6 and will probably work on it there.
Note we did get permission to take the photo.
*Aside: the smaller blocks might be a good FOTY project.
Prismacolors
At work and personally, I am doing a lot of self examination. In the course of this, we were talking about Myers-Briggs types and how some types don’t like opening gifts in front of people. That brought up a discussion of gifts and how I would really like a super large set of Prismacolors. Gabrielle Swain suggested getting the large set so that I would have every color I ever needed. I have been using a set of colored pencils that were part of my school supplies list when I lived in Austria. They are a few years old, but they have great names like hellgruen and dunkelblau and they do the job. The friend subsequently mentioned that Aaron Bros was having a monster sale and I could get a set for half off. I went to Aaron Bros last night while I was running an errand at Target and looked.
First, I was shocked at how few art supplies Aaron Bros actually has now. Their whole upper floor was filled with framing services and ready made frames. I had no idea frames were such good business.
Anyway, I didn’t buy any Prismacolors, because the 40% off sale was over. Dick Blick has the set of 132 pencils (list $190.00+) for $89. That seems like a good deal.
Swain also mentioned the Prismacolor Art stix. She made them sound like they were some special/new kind of pencil. I looked at them at Aaron Bros and they looked more like pastels to me. I am not into messy, so I don’t know if they are for me. I think I bought a couple last week and will try them out.
I am also interested in the Derwent Inktense pencils. I suppose I should learn some techniques for colored pencils, so I can really test the various pencils in an informed manner.
Making Many Bags
I figured out why it is a GREAT idea to have multiple tote bags hanging around. To date, I have made 6 bags and have 2 or 3 cut out and the fabric ready for at least one more. I have been thinking, and discussing with TFQ, the point of making many bags. The obvious answer is that it is fun to make bags. It is great fun to use large pieces of different fabrics than I wouldn’t normally use for quilts. It is also fun to buy fabrics, such as the cupcake fabric for a purpose. I came across the true answer last Friday, as I prepared to go on a trip.
The true answer is that you need extra bags so you don’t have to clear out the other bag you haven’t unloaded!
Yes, life has been crazy and I haven’t unloaded the dot/flower bag, so when I went to pack for the trip to the lake, my choices were to unload the bag or do something else. I was, as usual, in a rush and late, so I just grabbed the Alexander Henry bag, filled it up and left. Right now, I have two bags laying on the floor of the workroom full of various activities. I guess I am already packed for another trip!
The dot/flower bag also needs to be fixed. I didn’t catch all of the hem when I hemmed the top, so I need to resew that. I started to unsew it and resew it, but haven’t finished.