Julie has written an article about taking Pamela’s class with a lot more photos, so you can get a different perspective here.
Kaffe Fassett Spots
Be*mused turned me on to Kaffe Fassett’s new dots. She says has been trying to cut back on buying dots. I haven’t and keep buying more in case they stop making them. Follow her directions below to see Kaffe Fassett’s dot collection. Even though he forgets to put the fabric lines in his books, the man know how to design fabric!
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Reflections on Pamela’s Class
I know I overloaded myself with photos posted to Artquiltmaker blog on Saturday after the class with Pamela, so I must have overloaded you all as well. This post is about focus and reflection on the class.
Here is my first draft, so to speak. I had looked at my previous effort, from the first class with Pamela, before this class and had an idea that doing a related quilt would be a good idea. I was also looking at Collaborative Quilting by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston last week, which made me think about houses. The sun and the flowers are in common, I think.
One thing I realized is that I have not been working with scale much lately. The Pineapple, the various square pieces including Thoughts on Dots did not require me to work with scale in any meaningful way. I did pay attention to dots were in the various prints I used for Thoughts on Dots. I didn’t have to worry about scale overall in terms of the elements of the quilt. So, this piece made me stretch. When Pamela came around to help me the first time, scale was what we focused on. I needed larger flowers and larger rays of the sun.
Final piece (sans quilting)
It wasn’t quite so easy as making some elements a little bigger, though, because I had the previous garden quilt (below) on my mind as well. Some of the intermediate “drafts” of this piece had many more flowers. You can see the various drafts in Saturday’s post.
I brought scraps per the directions, so I didn’t have a lot of choice of background. I had a lot of variety in fabrics, but not a lot of variety in size. My scraps are relatively small in general, so I put some darks in (per Pamela’s instructions) and really had trouble working with them, as I also mentioned. I have not been working with black and the checkerboard is interesting, but it doesn’t read as a cheerful fabric to me. I have gotten some feedback that it isn’t too dark, so I am considering it stretching and moving on.
Pamela’s technique of cutting directly into the fabric is a very freeing way to quilt, however, and I think it is good for me. Now that I have two of these garden type quilts, I might try to make two more and have a quartet. We’ll see.
I enjoyed her handstitching techniques with Perl Cotton as well. One of the things about this is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. The stitching adds to the charm, but I don’t think it looks like the fake folk art kind of look. I could be wrong, of course!
My 2006 Pamela piece. I am more excited about getting back to it now. I machine stitched some of it down, but plan to go back and work some more with the Perl Cotton on the flowers, especially.
I highly recommend Pamela’s classes. She is a quilt teacher, but she has been trained in art and knows about design principles. That is the focus of her class with fabric as the medium. She seems to truly want people to do good work. I am glad she directed me, in her gentle but firm way, to scale, because that is what I needed to work on.
Yarnstorm Does it Again
Yarnstorm and Be*mused (I have added them to the Blogroll) are my two new favorite blogs. I love their work, their photographs and, occasionally, their writing. Yarnstorm finished her Allotment Quilt, which is gorgeous.
A Day with Pamela
I made it to the Pamela Allen class at EBHQ.
This is all the stuff I took to class, except my sewing machine is not in the picture. (above). The pieces you see are pieces that I made in a previous class with her at Quilting Adventures.
Pamela’s work (below)
Tooth Fairy
Tooth Fairy (detail)
more Tooth Fairy detail
This is what it looks like when I work in a class. (above) What a mess!
My background for the House & Garden quilt. I really can’t help starting new projects in her class.
First draft
Pamela working on my piece
Lots of flowers and flying dots.
Not so many flowers and flying dots.
Not so many flowers and no flying dots.
Final composition. I like it, but I have to admit that I had a very hard time working with the darker colors (the black around the flowers and the blue/black checkerboard. All I could think of was that I wasn’t used to it. I haven’t been using much black lately and, as you know, have been trying to make cheerful quilts. This quilt-let seems a little dark to me.
Pamela working with Julie
Julie’s piece. I love the line up the left hand side.
Group Sampler project. We had 15 minutes to make our part of this piece.
Julie’s two fish. Can you find the second one?
My fish – with dots, of course!
I am tired and about to sign off, but I thought I would put up some photos for all of you to drool over while I go recover from a FAB day. More tomorrow.
Various and Sundry (aka Frazzle-ization)
I sat down for a few minutes to try and get my head together in the midst of getting ready for a class and trying to organize a tour for Ms. Arteest on Sunday. Fortunately Pamelarteest is quite restrained (no weird supplies required) and I have everything for the class at home. I am also bring the two, as yet unfinished, pieces I started in her class at Quilting Adventures.
Self Portrait
and
The Garden
Still, the Sunday thing is proving to be a problem, because the BedaBreakers (Bay to Breakers) is Sunday, which cuts the City in quarters and makes the Park in accessible. We had planned to go to the deYoung, but with the B2B, there is no way I am getting within a mile of the Park. So, I had to spearhead making other plans.
Now I am taking a break in between all the craziness and putting the child to bed. I started clicking down my blogroll to see what was happening in blogland and came across some interesting stuff happening.
Ardent Peace is quiet as K seems to be ill and working all week.
Art Quilt Reviews has a review quilts from CQA in WA. I hadn’t heard of any of these quiltmakers, but I do like some of the work. I could use a good quilt show, but at the moment WA is not in the plans.
Deirdre is not showing much (did you see her PBJ??), but she is looking forward to some cool photos from her friends, Susan and Ivan.
Diary of a Mad Fabri-holic has done a meme, which I don’t really do, but has an interesting looking quilting on her Mother’s Day post.
Yarnstorm has a great photo of a glass and Be*mused still has the basket quilt up.
The last three all work on TypePad and their blogs are so clean and fresh looking. I went there thinking I might move my blog, but they charge for he privilege, so for the moment I’ll keep Artquiltmaker Blog here.
Joshilyn over at Faster than Kudzu is interviewing another author and Julie over at High Fiber Content (doncha just love that name?) is talking about needs. She has some great shoes showing, too. She doesn’t have permalinks, so look for May 18, 2007.
That’s the news from Blogland. I should have some interesting stuff after this weekend with allthe quilting friends in town. Stay tuned.
Not Enough Colors
Need More Colors.
I was thinking tonight as I stared at my Pineapple and Cross Block (Flowering Snowball) projects that there are just not enough colors in the rainbow. Each time I add a strip to the Pineapple, it seems like I have just added that color. Granted, the blues are different and they have bigger dots or little splotches, but sometimes I just think I need more colors. Not sure what those colors would be, but I do think I need more.
Life is Good
Despite my back hurting and feeling a bit unwell and trying all day not to tell off a bigwig at work for being self-centered and oblivious, Life Is Good.
Why?
Because of quiltmaking. I was able to indulge almost all day in some kind of quiltmaking activity. I listened to Alex Anderson’s Quilt Connection podcasts. While she is a little big giggly and squealy, once she gets into the groove, I really enjoy the info she provides. I listened, again, to a couple of podcasts, which sent me to Paula Nadelstern’s site and also to Jinny Beyer’s site. I also looked at Valori Wells site and found that she has a blog.
Paula Nadelstern’s kaleidoscopic quilts are amazing. I love her work. After listening to the podcast, I went to the library’s site and reserved her book, Puzzle Quilts. It is still available on her website, but I want to look at it before I buy it.
Jinny Beyer puts up a new block every week. I haven’t found one that I really want to make yet, but in terms of inspiration she is the go-to-girl. I have to admit that I don’t go there every week and look at the new block. I was also reminded that I need to look at her handpiecing book and find out what she uses to mark around her templates.
I don’t think I have used any of Valori Wells’ fabrics, but she is a good speaker and inspirational. After listening to her interview, I wanted to go home and find all of my large scale prints, download VW’s patterns and make a large scale print quilt! It is so thrilling to be able to listen to something about quilting, look at a website and then come home and look at the book and sew.
When I came home the Collaborative Quilting book by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran was calling to me -(read my post about it). Alex also interviewed Gwen and I was reminded how much G.M. is inpired by old patterns. She and Alex made the point that we are where we are today because of the ladies that came before us. They also talked about giving credit and it occurred to me that if you give credit, people will come to you because you have a link to your inspiration or because they know they will find the information from you.
I know some of you only come for the photos, so here is the Cross Block (Flowering Snowball) that I finished on Mother’s Day.
Great Idea for Templates
I know that templates are passe’ and nobody, but me, uses them anymore. I am going wax nostalgic (or give you some tips and tricks) about them anyway. I stumbled upon Be*mused, another blog, and found that she was doing an ongoing project requiring templates.
Be*mused is making a Wheel of Fortune or Whirling Star or Whirligig pattern (above). In her post on March 8, 2007, she talks about making the templates. The brilliant technique she uses is to add an additional quarter inch to the outside edge of the templates above and beyond the quarter inch that is already added to the entire template (and rotary cutting, for that matter), so you can sew them.
This is a great idea for this block and others where the outside edges are not going to match no matter what you do. The extra quarter of an inch give you that much more fabric to use when squaring up the blocks. The opportunity/ability to square up blocks makes the assembly of the quilt top so much easier and much less stressful.
One of the nice things about this block is that it provides the opportunity for lots of different fabrics. Another thing is that not everyone is making one. This is a great looking and interesting block and worth the extra trouble of templates. I found it in blockbase so you don’t even have to draft the templates yourself. 😉
Mother’s Day Inspiration
Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers, grandmothers, godmothers and those who act like mothers, help mothers and support mothers. I heard a nice blessing today as part of Mother’s Day: Bless all mothers, grandmothers, godmothers and those who act like mothers for you are the caretakers of the future of the world.
Big job, but a nice reality check as well.
I have been collecting photos of flowers for an eternity, because someday I want to make a flower or garden quilt. These are flowers from my BIL and SIL’s backyard and I have been admiring their shape for ages. Today I had my camera and good sun all at the same time. I was able to take a snap that I can hopefully use for my quilt someday.
This card was given to my MIL. I took a photo because I like the shadowing and the slight offsetting (is that a word??) of the flower on the right. I also like the way the artist used dots as the stems. I thought the shapes of the flowers were perky and fun as well. If you are the artist, I will gladly put your name and a link to your website here.
Julie Finds the Fabric
As you know, I used this Flea Market Fancy fabric by Denyse Schmidt for one of the Teacher Pillows. 
I used all that I had and decided I wanted more, so I could include some in the Chocolate Box quilt. Lazily I looked online. As I searched and didn’t find, I began to worry that I wouldn’t find any. I searched harder. I found a piece on eBay and bid, but someone else wanted the piece, too and bid at the last minute while I was at work, so I lost. St. JCN looked in Seattle, but no joy there either. I e-mailed various local shops to see if they had it, also to no avail. As I had less success, I became more desperate. Finally, after no success locally, I put out a call on a list of which I am a member and people around the country began looking for me, too.
Success!!! Julie over at High Fiber Content and good friend found it! Hooray. Read about her fabulous adventure looking for this fabric. She doesn’t have a permalink, so scroll to May 10, 2007. Since the great search ended I have been casually looking and this particular fabric just seems to be gone. Weird.
Teacher Pillow Success
First, some inspiration. I was inspired by Yarnstorm’s photos, so I took my camera with me yesterday and snapped a pic of these roses in my neighbor’s yard.
Now on to the Teacher Pillows.
They are done except for the hand stitching. I am thrilled that I survived. It is always touch and go at the beginning!
Above is the principal’s pillow. St.JCN said the violet was inspired. I thought so and am glad someone agreed. I saw the quilt that inspired the violet yesterday as it scrolled across the screen in my screensaver. I will post it here, if I find it again.
Above is the Assistant Principal’s pillow. I actually think this one came out the best of them all. I think having enough fabric to use on the back is key. I will try to remember that for next year.
Pineapple blocks 11 & 12 are also done. They don’t fit on the design wall properly with all the others so #12 is hanging off. I think they look nice and cheerful. Not so dark as 9 & 10.
And now for a tip. I used the Jacquard fabric (see example in circle above) that you can run through your printer for quilt labels and for the drawings for the back of the pillows. It works because there is paper stuck to the back of the fabric that helps get it through the printer. You have to peel off the paper before you sew. (I suppose you could leave it on, but I don’t) This product works pretty well, except that if you try to sew through it when the wrong side is facing up, it gums up the needle and the stitches get really small. Normally I try to sew with it on the bottom. Today, I wasn’t able to sew with the printer fabric on the bottom for some reason that I don’t remember now. I sewed through it and immediately got stopped. I had a brainwave when I saw a pile of tissue paper. The arrow in the picture is pointing to the tissue paper I put over the Jacquard fabric just along the seam allowance. It worked like a charm. No sticking needle resulting in ugly stitches. I always press this printer fabric with a piece of clean, white printer/copier paper under the sticky part. I don’t let the sticky part touch the iron or my ironing board cover.
This Week’s Progress
If you don’t have time to read much today, here’s the short version: not much.
If you do have time to read the entire post today, the long version follows. 😉
Not sure why, but this week seems to have been especially busy. I think I may have accomplished a lot in the realm of quiltmaking and it just may not feel like a lot. Somehow not working on my own project and working on gifts doesn’t feel much like I am making progress. Perhaps, it is just that I am not making progress on my color studies or on my UFO list?
I wanted to put a small border on the above pillow for the Principal, but I was kind of stymied for what color. I originally thought of a strip of white piping, but decided I didn’t want to deal with making one. St. JCN, in all her wisdom, suggested a white strip, but, somehow, that didn’t seem right. As I was drifting off to sleep one night, the little voice in my head whispered: Violet. GREAT! I tried it (see above) and thought it looked good.
The reason I wanted a small border was so that the green border would not “bleed” into the green block. The violet seems to clearly define the block. I am pleased with how it worked out.
I also put a few more rows on to Pineapple blocks 11 & 12. They are getting there. 3 more colored rounds to go. I have the background strips cut for the next round, but haven’t sewed them yet.
Special Whine Redux
Earlier this week, as you probably noticed, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and the state of my pictures. I went back and looked at Yarnstorm‘s post called Square Dance and the photos she included. I realized that while her photos are totally fabulous, one thing about how she structured this post is that she put up her inspiration and then showed the quilt that came out of it. I really liked that. As a brief aside, I like the quilt-to-be she shows, because it is simple, but not boring. She is working with color in a way that I have been trying to do lately (see Thoughts on Dots and some of the other square pieces I was working on last year). She has done a fabulous job with blues, something that I greatly admire.
The other thing about Yarnstorm’s pictures is she has a great eye and she crops very well.
So, I will stop whining, crop my pictures and keep working!
Not Feeling Up to Snuff
Yarnstorm is my new heroine. She put a post with a postage stamp quilt inspired by blue cupcakes! I want to steal all of her photos and be her. My photos are completely terrible compared to hers. I am glad I found her, so I can be inspired.
Teacher Pillows – No Torment
Despite the fact that I still can’t measure, 3 of the Teacher Pillows are close to completion. The machine stitching is complete and I only have some final hand stitching to do on them and, voila, fini!
I thought to myself this morning that I should be able to finish three. I am not sure I really wanted to buckle down and do that many, but it got stuck in my head and here I am.
I don’t normally sew during the week, but I did some stitching on Friday afternoon. I was very slow and deliberate and not out to accomplish a lot. I just wanted to make some progress, no matter how little. I think that short session got me to the point where I could put three pillow covers together today.
Teacher Pillow – Front: I am really pleased with the way this front came out. I was not that thrilled with the Economy Patch that the child chose, but piecing more of the design in a smaller format really made it look good. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE the Flea Market Fancy fabric out of which I made this front.
Teacher Pillow – Back: I am not so enamoured of the back. I ran out of the flower fabric I used for the front and grabbed these fabrics. I didn’t just grab the blue randomly, but I am not sure why I chose it. My SIL came over and suggested yellow or pink (well, DUH! Why didn’t I think of that?), so I added the yellow to the outside. The back isn’t great, but done is better than perfect and, hopefully, she won’t look too much at the back.
The variety of colors, however, illustrate the way I made the back. I made two squares and then added a bit of extra fabric to the top of the front, hemmed it and folded it over. I will hand stitch down the folded over part.
Aide Pillow – Front: I sewed this one last (for the day) and it came out the best. It is small enough so the pillow form fills the entire cover.
Aide Pillow – Back
Resource Teacher Pillow – Front: the red, yellow and green color scheme has always been very appealing to me. I am pleased with the way this one came out although the pillow form doesn’t fill up the cover. C’est la vie.
Resource Teacher Pillow – Back: I had extra space on the drawing, so I added a photo. All the drawings and labels were scanned and printed on an inkjet printer.
The above photos show the different borders I tried for t he Aide pillow. It kind of gives you an idea of my process.
Not trying to make the envelope style pillow cover has been a big help. I have to say that I am still not sure what the right way to make pillows are and, as a result, I am wasting a lot of fabric. Part of hte issue is piecing the back using the drawings. For some reason that step adds enough of a wrinkle to make the project complicated. What I really need is a book like Around the Block that says how to make a pillow cover if you have a certain sized pillow form. Perhaps C&T will add such a book to their “Fast, Fun & Easy” series? That is one “Fast, Fun & Easy” tha I would buy.
Still, it makes me feel good to spread some quiltmaking and sewing out into the world.
Kaffe Fassett Confusion
While buying the Pokemon Diamond game guide for the child, I couldn’t help tossing a quilt book for myself into the virtual cart. Both books arrived earlier this week. In a lame attempt to avoid work, I started reading Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Road.
The Good: gorgeous fabrics, wonderful designs
The Bad: The fabrics are only shown in the quilts and referred to extensively as if there were a chart of the fabrics laid out on a page of the book, which there isn’t. After the first page, the text becomes very confusing.
The UGLY: I get the distinct impression Kaffe was just trying to churn out another book to coinccide with the new line of [mystery] fabrics. I dislike intensely ‘cheap dates’ and this book is not up to the others in terms of content and careful editing.
Still, I like this book, because the quilts are happy. He really has a way with those large and vibrant prints. My favorite part of the text is where Kaffe says “…which come from a wonderful antique book of 19th century book [sic] of French prints that we purchased at a textile fair in New York.” Even, though the editing is bad, this comment reminds me to get inspiration from other media and what I see around me.
The quilt designs, and this is mostly a pattern book, range widely and have a lot of styles that I enjoy: big blocks that show off the fabric, mosaic floor tile looking quilts, machine applique and some innovative ways of using simply shaped pieces.
One of my favorite quilts is Wallpaper Strips Quilt by Kaffe Fassett. You can see a picture of it (gorgeous picture, but not showing the whole quilt) over at Yarnstorm. She also has some fab flower photos, BTW. the quilt pattern is simply a bunch of strips lined up and sewn together randomly, then put next to each other and sewn together again. I decided that I will do this with the leftover dot strips once I am done with the Pineapple. Why not? Much better than having a bunch of 1.75″ strips laying around.
I also like the Crosses Quilt, which is made from 9patches, but colored in such a way that tic-tac-toe like crosses stand out. This artist has a view that will show you what I mean. Very clever!
Between this book and the Flowering Snowball (Cross Block), I looked at the Hancock’s catalog in a whole new way today. Those big 1960s style prints were just screaming at me. I resisted, because I would have to buy a boatload of them when I could really be happy with a large packet of 6″ squares. Still, it amazes what looking at something will do to how I see things.
Note from 5/26/2007: I found this link for the Lilies fabrics and the Lille collection here.