Tag: Inspiration

So, Shoot Me

I was reading some “back issues” of Mark Lipinski’s new blog, Pickle Road and saw this little nugget form him. He is absolutely right. I have been talking about visual journal and I just need to do it. I am also going to try to LOOK at things better. Perhaps the mess in my laundry room will become great art!

SET A GOAL FOR THE NEW YEAR

You know, dumplings, we don’t live in a vacuum. If you want to be inspired and want to grow in your quilting or crafting hobby, it’s important that you venture outside of your comfort zone, away from your guilds and sewing groups, to explore what the masters have accomplished before you. Trust me, taking yourself on mini-trips like mine to the little but mighty Allentown Museum can bring you more soul and quilting satisfaction than you might guess!

Make a deal with yourself in 2008 to try my Divine Experiment and to push yourself creatively by experiencing new artistic venues — like museums, concerts, library visits, anything you wouldn’t normally do during the course of a week — to watch the magic happen in your life!

blog it

Stars and Desire

Today I was thinking about stars and thought it would be a good time to show you my Flickr set of stars. I thought I had such a great collection, but when I went to look at it again, it seems paltry. I don’t think it really is; I think my vision is skewed from looking a Judy Martin’s Star blocks recently. She has a ton!!! I am eyeing those Feathered Stars as I think about more dot projects. Then again a project like this in all dots would be quite appealing. Have fun looking at the Stars!

Nina brought this interesting thread to my attention. It is called Desire Memory Thread from DMC. It looks like wire, but says that it is soft. Hhhmmm. It looks promising, but until I feel it, I am not sure how it could be used. I have an idea that I could use my glass beads with it. I would really like to make a bracelet or something with those beads and this might be the piece of the puzzle that pulls the project together.

Nina saw it in Stitch magazine from the UK. I haven’t ever seen that magazine, but may have to seek it out. I used to be able to find such magazines at Marquardt’s in the City, but the last time I went by they had closed. It was one of those great old fashioned newsstands on a corner near Union Square. The huge wonderful neon sign had been left up, which was nice.

Visual Journaling


I have been thinking and talking about visual journaling for several months. I have finally put my money where my mouth is and done it. I don’t know why this view, but something about the 24th Street sign and the fact that I had time called to me. Some things I will consider for next time:

  1. Practice looking. I don’t think I am really looking.
  2. Choose a smaller bit of the view.
  3. Eliminate detail. Just work with the essentials.

I think I am past the hump and hope that I will do more.

The Trees

Some time ago, I talked about organizing my quilt photos on Flickr. For a number of photos, where I saw themes emerging, I used sets. This means that a variety of quilts from different shows might end up in the same set because they have a similar theme. I meant to talk about each set and highlight them for you and haven’t yet gotten to it.

Since I haven’t been sewing much (though I do have a few things to show you and talk about), I thought I would show you the trees. Trees have been on my mind lately, because they, IRL, are all nearly naked, though there are a few that still have some straggling red leaves on them.

When I was organizing the photos, I didn’t set out to have a set of trees. As I was looking through the photos, I saw a number of trees and thought there were enough to create a set. Mostly there are quilts, but there is one inspiration for a quilt photo as well. I thought it was really interesting to see the different interpretations of trees. Some of you are probably remembering that I pointed you to these photos already. You are correct. I am really not being lame. I just have trees on the mind. If you have a quilt photo depicting a tree that you would like to include, let me know.

Winter Houses

Since I can’t seem to think of anything of my own to write, I have been surfing looking at things for inspiration and to show you. PamDora’s Box is always great, but I saw these houses and immediately thought of winter. I am not sure why as there is no snow, but the dots in the sky remind me of snow flurries and the pale lavender might be snow in a sunrise. Enjoy!

Flickring All Weekend

I spent a lot of Sunday uploading quilt photos to Flickr. I also spent Monday night, Tuesday night and a little while this evening on the project. I believe that I now have all of my digital quilt photos up on Flickr. In any case, there are about 3500 pictures of quilts.

Some observations:
1. I used to take a lot fewer photos than I do now.
2. Adding the digital photos to Flickr is wonderful, because you can organize them in sets. Each photo can be in multiple sets. This means that the Pineapple photo on the right (as usual, if this is your quilt, I will be THRILLED to put your name here!) is in the PIQF 2003 set as well as the Pineapple set (kind of like iTunes allows you to have one song in multiple playlists). I love this! It allows me to think about quilts in a number of different ways.
3. 2003 and three was a good year for quilts. The quilts are more vibrant (less brown, I guess) than now. The designs are good and the techniques are top notch.
4. I scrolled through many, many of the photos as I tried to organize them and it is quite wonderful just to look at a bunch of different quilts.
5. My photography has gotten better.
6. I was also able to discover interesting quilts about which I had forgotten, including a few more Pineapples hidden in the dark corners of my hard drive. .
7. I wish I could blog sets of photos, but it doesn’t seem like I can. Perhaps I can add a link to an entire set of quilts, so you can see them as I blog about them? Here is a link to a set of tree quilts. You can tell me if it works.

I am considering sending my prints off to someplace like Shoebox reprints and getting rid of the boxes and boxes of quilt photos that I have under my desk and in my bottom drawer. I really don’t know what I will do in the long run with all of these quilts on Flickr, but for the moment it is interesting to me. We’ll see what develops.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Back!

I am back from the wilds of Monterey where I was well taken care of, refreshed and rejuvenated.
This is a little scene that I saw at my friend’s house. I loved the machine in front of the thread. She has a wonderful eye and everything in her house is subtlely colorful, beautifully arranged and restful.

Her garden is wonderfully wild. Also restful.