Dana Barbieri has created this wonderful piece that is stuck, like glue, to my mind. I LOVE it and want to make one, perhaps two, myself.
My sister recently received the Cricut software which allows you to print letters out any size and any font up to 6″. My idea for my piece is to have her print some letters on scrapbook paper for me, find a rectangular frame at the Goodwill or other thrift store and then sit down with my art supplies and make something like it to hang in my workroom. I would also like to make one that says “Imagination.”
Have you ever been so inspired by a piece or the concept of a piece that you have made one of your own?
Words are very important to me. I like the shape of them – the way they look when written and the way they feel on my tongue, which is why the title is tools and supplies and not just supplies. Supplies would be more accurate, but I don’t like the shape of that word.
I saw this picture – found from a Twitter link – and really liked it. One thing I like about it is the abundance, but I also like the fact that the background is white. There are no distractions from the background in the picture. This style allows me to focus on the elements of the picture. Take a look at the website.
Some years ago I took a pillow making class at the Sewing Workshop. Sewing Workshop classes are fabulous: thorough, and inspiring. I am sorry to say that, although the class was fabulous (with Linda Lee, no less), the pillows are still part of my UFO pile. I recently saw Stitch magazine.
Stitch Magazine, Spring 2009
I fell in love with the pillow on the cover and may make some pillow covers using the pattern (or my version of the pattern) to brighten up some tired couch pillows to go along with the promised new paint job. If all goes well, I may discard the half made purple covers from the Sewing Workshop class and use the Stitch idea/pattern to cover those rather large forms (14″ or 16″) as well. For once I feel excited about throw pillows!
I also may make a pillow or two to raise money for Cleft Palete. MIL suggested using some poppy fabric for the centers. If I had some squares of that California poppy from a few years ago, it would be perfect, but I don’t, so I will have to make do.
Certain individuals are on a statewide board of directors for an organization that among other things, raises money for Cleft Palete. Each year, as part of the process of running for office, the nominees make gift baskets in order to draw people ino their suites/campaign headquarters. They raffle the gift baskets to raise money for Cleft Palete. Certain individuals came up second in the most money raised this year for his gift baskets.
The convention is always in May, so I, usually, cannot attend due to the demands of The Child. There is a small thing called school and another called food. Leaving him at home alone is really not an option. This has the effect of organization voters wondering if I support him in his volunteer endeavors. I think they might forget what it is like to have school age children. Anyway, I thought a couple of throw pillows would:
show my support
be something different that would draw the wives into the raffle
allow me to try something without having to commit to having it in my house
get some new readers to the blog
I might have showed this site before. I thought the pillows they show are similar to the Stitch magazine pillows and I could use their directions to supplement the Stitch magazine directions. More on Stitch magazine in another post.
In grammar school, I would sometimes walk with my sister over to my grandmother’s house after school. Grama worked, so we would be at her house alone, or with one of our aunts. Still, it wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. Soon, as children are wont to do, we found a girl on the next block and became fast friends. Her family had emigrated from Korea a short time before and her parents and older siblings were never at home either.
Homemade Paper Dolls
We discovered a shared love of arts and crafts. Paper dolls offered a cheap way of expressing our creativity. She could draw people in a style I now recognize as manga. Our friend was perfectly willing to draw dolls and dresses and other clothes and we would play for hours. I remember a discussion of her being a fashion designer where she told me in no uncertain terms that she was going to be a doctor.
I don’t remember why we lost touch, but we did, as children often do. I still have the paper dolls, however, and, as a result, I think about her on occasion.
Amy, of The Creative Mom Podcast, as she often does, brought paper dolls to my mind again with her episode #67, the Shape of Paper. She sent me on a trip around the web looking at various paper doll websites. I found a cool site, Kiddley, with some good basic paper doll outlines that offer a lot of scope for imagination. Wouldn’t it be cool to make fabric clothes with your quilt fabric? A great use of scraps!
I’d be interested to hear your stories of paper dolls in your life and see pictures of anything you make in the paper doll realm.
The four Teacher Pillows are complete. I have one more pillow form, but the Child is being uncooperative about the last drawing, so I may just save the pillow form for next year. I could take a drawing out of his drawing book and use that…. We’ll see. I think I am done with this project except for the wrapping the pillows in pretty paper.
Tangled Star - EQ6
The above is the outline/color drawing that can be printed from EQ6. It turns out that this was useless to me when I went to make the block, or so I thought.
Resource Teacher Pillow
This is how my version came out. I keep pictures of all of the pillows so I know what the past pillows looked like. That way I can use the same or similar fabrics and the teachers end up with sets of pillows if they teach the Child more than one year. This is the 3rd or 4th pillow I have made for this teacher.
Key for Foundation Piecing
This block is foundation pieced, so I also printed the segments (see below). When I looked at the printed segments, they made no sense to me. The design page ended up as a wonderful key to the colors and placement of the fabrics. I wrote letters on each piece, which correspond to the letters I wrote on the pattern pieces.
Pattern pieces ready to cut out and sew
You can see, if you click on the picture to make it bigger and look carefully a letter, a number and a color. The color notes which fabric I need to use. The letter corresponds to the letter on the design key, which I added to make sure I didn’t assign two segments to the same section of the block. The number is the piecing/sewing order. Doing the prep took some time, but it was worth it once I started to piece. The segment pieces/patterns really don’t look like they will make the Tangled Star block, so these strategies really helped.
Piecing Order detail
Above shows the segment after I have pieced the fabric on to it. The red and gold needed to be pieced first, which they were. I then trimmed them and sewed on the green. In this photo the green still needs to be trimmed.
Resource Teacher Pillow back
Above is the back. The drawing is a sort of label. The Child has a distinctive drawing style that the teachers seem to enjoy. I usually let him draw whatever he wants.
Teacher Pillow Labels
To make the label, I divide up a sheet of copy/printer paper into 4 sections. Then I draw in the seam allowances and have the Child draw inside the lines. Once done, I copy onto fabric backed with freezer paper or something. I get it from Dharma, but The Electric Quilt Company and many other companies sell similar products. Once the drawings have been transferred, I rotary cut the labels apart on the cutting lines and add each label as part of the back of the pillow cover.
Omega Block Pillow, Social Studies Teacher, 6B
I let The Child pick out the blocks. I do have to guide and encourage him a little as this is a boring exercise for him and he, usually, just wants to get it over with as quickly as possible. This year he took more of an interest. Above is the block (Omega) he chose for his social studies teacher. They just finished studying Greece, so I think the Greek alphabet was on his mind. He also informed me that Omega is his favorite Greek letter.
I printed out the rotary cutting directions for the Omega, thinking that I could just make it that way. The pillow forms were 14″ so I had to scale up which resulted in a lot of 16th inch measurements. After cutting about the 10th 16th inch cut, I decided that foundation piecing was the way to go.
Sometimes he gets a little too enthusiastic. He wanted me to make a Mariner’s Compass for his resource teacher and I flat out refused. If I am going to make a Mariner’s Compass I have to start a lot earlier.
Omega Block, back
The Child used a lot more words on his labels his year than he has in the past.
Homeroom Teacher, 6A
This is the first block I made. I wanted simple blocks. They got harder the more The Child was involved. He did the color selection on this one (orange and purple). I was skeptical until I found the flower print with a similar color scheme.
Homeroom Teacher Pillow, back
I hope she can read the back. It is really squished.
Teacher Aide Pillow
I really like the color scheme of this pillow. The Child went with the colors EQ6 had in their example and I think it works. I took the opportunity to use the blue in one of the Infinity blocks as well. The color scheme reminds me of the color scheme for a RUSH day I organized in college. We wore yellow, red and green dresses and looked really bright and cheerful.
Teacher Aide Pillow, back
I was a little concerned about the drawing on the back as the Aide does not look very happy in his drawing. I asked the Child about the drawing and, being a boy of few words, refused to discuss it with me. I asked if she always had a lot of filing to do and he said no. That was really the end of the discussion. Oh well, I have a policy of not censoring his art if it isn’t rude or p*rnographic, so she will have to make of it what she will.
I know that I ignored you all weekend. I spent about 24 hours over the three days sewing and really got a lot done. It is difficult to be at work today, because I am still desperate to be at my sewing machine. Needless to say, I have a ton to discuss.
Can you tell I am just desperate to catch up on everything? All of my posts lately are entitled “Various and Sundry.” I hope it gives you an idea from the title what kind of post it will be.
I am doing a project (another one? you say) called 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. You can find it and play along at ProBlogger. I am already 3 days behind, so we’ll see how it goes. When I first saw the ad for this project, I was arrogant enough to think I didn’t need such a thing. Immediately after that thought, I signed up, because thinking I couldn’t improve Artquiltmaker blog is a sure sign I need help. If I can make a few improvements, I’ll be happy. If I learn, I’ll be happier.
Reviews and comments about Handmade Nation are all over the blogosphere. I would like to see it as it sounds interesting. I haven’t, however, seen it playing anywhere nearby. I’ll keep looking.
Be*Mused had a lovely array of colors up on her blog the other day. She and I are thinking along the same color lines. Here color palette is the look I am going for with the fabrics that I bought at Always Quilting. I want to add something a bit dark just to take the edge off the bubblegum-i-ness. Not sure what, but I’ll have to look around.
I started listening to another episode of the CraftSanity podcast today. It turned out to be a joint podcast with Jennifer and Sister Diane of Craftypod. Essentially the two podcasters interviewed each other to give tips and pointers on starting your own podcast. Listen to CraftSanity podcast #14 and Craftypod podcast #24 to hear the different takes on the same discussion/interview. I love this kind of collaboration facilitated by the web.
I am cutting 6.5″ squares of blue fabric (like the Thoughts on Dots project) for a project and I have lost about 3/4s of the ones I have cut so far somewhere in my workroom. They will turn up, but it made me realize that I need to have some way of organizing projects that are in the germination stage. There are a number of projects for which I need to gather fabrics while I prepare to sew. I want a system where I can put fabrics and supplies in one place until I am ready for them to be front and center. I am envisioning a system like Jan at Be*Mused put up. She used IKEA’s Expedit shelves. I am not sure these shelves would work for me. I also need a bed in my workroom for guests, so I think my ideal would be the IKEA Billy system with a bed somehow integrated into it. In the meantime, I may just get some POTs and use those.
Finally, Retro Mama made a pattern f or fabric eggs and put it up on her blog. I love these eggs and want to make some to decorate for Easter/the Spring. It won’t work for this Easter, but I could make them for next year. We will see. There are just so many wonderful blogs out there!
Another crazy post about a variety of random topics from while I attempt to find my time management skills and tell you all the various things that have been happening.
Infinity Blocks
I showed these blocks yesterday, because I went to Always Quilting today to see Terri Thayer speak and do a book signing. I took a look at the quilts on the wall and found out that this is an Always Quilting exclusive pattern that they call Crazy Eights. I kind of like what the name Infinity suggests, so I will have to think about what I am going to call my quilt and the block.
Terri and I had a tentative date to go out and talk about writing. I was pleased that we were able to go and have a quick coffee. I like Terri, because she is very approachable and willing to talk about her writing process. We ended up talking about writing and migrating blogs, book promotion and other time management issues.
Terri’s new book, Ocean Waves, is out. As soon as you are done reading this post, go and buy it. 😉 Terri will be at the Chicago Quilt Festival in a couple of weeks. You can buy it from her directly there and get it autographed. Of course, you can buy it from Amazon as well. Just buy it. Supporting local authors is how we get books that have to do with quiltmaking. Terri is in the process of negotiating for the next contract for books in the Dewey/Quilter Paradiso series.
I heard about Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy on the CraftSanity podcast. Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood has interviewed Ms. Paulson twice, once in episode 17 and again in episode 91. She has several things on her blog and website that I like:
Posie Gets Cozy has a list of links to articles and blog posts about Ms. Paulson. Making Things for a Living by Becky from the Hidden Pearl blog is an interesting post/article about Ms. Paulson. The photos on this page are wonderful and I especially like the washtub of fabric flowers. I am also rather fond of the green on the walls behind the Posie letters.
Ms. Paulson has a webstore, where she sells the thing she makes. In it is a Gallery of Sold Things. I like the very appealing layout of the this page and think it shows the wide range of crafts she makes.
Finally, she has a close-up of one of the fabric flowers. I really like this one (it has dots!) and my mind is exploding with ideas for attaching them to tote bags. Or making bouquets that don’t die!
I have been working on the Tarts. It is slow going. My latest task is to find the right color for the tea kettle block in the lower left hand corner. I did the design last week, but haven’t put fabric to machine yet. Photos soon.
And finally,….
2009 Cherry tree
As I mentioned I headed south over last weekend. While driving I found that the cherry trees were in gorgeous bloom all along the highway. The color of the flower petals seemed darker than the petals falling to the ground already in San Francisco. They may be flowering quince or some other flowering tree. I don’t know for sure. I just know that love the cheerfulness of the trees and how they make the City look when they all come into bloom at once. I, finally, had the opportunity and the time and the camera and the tree all in the same place at the same timeand was able to snap the picture above.
My sister is a very talented scrapbook artist and these are some pages that she made for us.
Baby, It's Cold Outside PageChristmas With Page
Yes, the ‘t’ is missing, but I found it and glued it back on the page. Now, all I have to do is fill the pages with pictures.
I thought today, with people out of the house, would be a good day to catch you all up on what is going on. It isn’t going to happen completely. I am going to do a quick update and promise more later. Promises, promises, I know. I have missing my blog writing, though, so you are not the only ones who are suffering.
I have a lot of photos to post and they take time to process. I don’t just want to slap a bunch up there. I have some fantasies of someone from a card company looking at my blog and then hiring me to share my photos so they can make a line of cards out of them. We can all dream! I know I still have a lot to learn about image processing before my fantasy will become a reality, but I do know how to crop, so I am going to do it.
I also have the Creative Prompt drawing to post for March 27 as well as a bunch of inspiration photos. Yes, I finally got my annual photo of a cheery tree in bloom with some wonderful closeups.
FOTY Late March Blocks
I have been working on the Zanzibar blocks for FOTY 2009. I cut the pieces for these a week or so ago, but just sewed them this morning. Some of the pieces were too long as I sewed them together, so I have to check my cutting and make sure I am not getting sloppy. That project progresses.
Infinity Blocks
I decided to call the above blocks (from the project with SIL) Infinity blocks because they look a bit like an infinity symbol. I haven’t been able to find a name for them, but may when I go to Always Quilting tomorrow. I used the scraps from the most recent tote bag I made for one set of the blocks. I heard from SIL, too, after sending her a sample, that the block looked fine.
If you didn’t listen to This American Life this morning (or whenever the most recent show is aired in your area), go and listen to it. The show is all about the effects of the current economy and stress. I like this show, because they seem to talk with regular people. In order to get away from my stress briefly I went south last weekend to visit my sister. Ostensibly we were going to update our scrapbooks; really we hung out, went to scrapbook and quilt shops and visited the Granny. I was able to sort photos from a trip I took that I want to put in an album. I am ready to start putting them in an album. YAY! I am going back on the weekend of May 1 to start work on the project.
Treasure Hunt Fabric
One of our stops was at the The Treasure Hunt, a shop the size of a small suburban house (NOTE: not one of those monster houses, but the kind your grandma bought in the 1950s and you visited all the time when you were a kid). It is located in Carpinteria, California (Treasure Hunt Country Crafts – www.carpinteriaquilts.com 919 Maple St, Carpinteria -(805) 684-3360). It is truly a not to be missed shop. Not only does it have a satisfying selection of quilt fabric, tools and supplies, it also has a knitting section and two small craft supply rooms. They have cheerful fabric there. There wasn’t much, if any, Civil War-baby poop brown-depressing fabrics. The impression I got when I walked in was CHEERFUL. Fabrics are organized by line or by type. Want to see all the colorways of a fabric design? They are right next to each other. They also had a dots section and a stripes section. It would be hard if you were looking for blue of a certain shade, but I loved-loved-loved the look of the store. The people working there were very helpful. They didn’t have the turquoise/azure blue Windham Botanical Pop fabric I need, but I would definitely go back there again. I may post some photos later. The ladies were anxious about giving me permission to take photos, so they said they would ask their boss and get back to me. We’ll see.
Blue Island Quilts is also nearby, but I didn’t go there. Maybe next time.
When I got the above fabrics home, I laid them on the floor and think I will use all of those in the bottom row except for the black-on-whites in one project. Not sure what yet, but something. I love the way they look together. It is also a different color scheme than I normally work with. I’ll probably have to add more fabrics to it (a lavendar, maybe?), but it is a wonderful and inspiring start to a project.
As of yesterday, I am also no longer a small business owner. This means that I only have one job after 7 years of consulting alongside my regular job. I finally got a full night’s sleep last night (the stress was really doing me in), which is exciting in itself. I am excited to work on what comes next…writing?? quilt project designs??? I am wanting to get back to my career counseling to move the project along. That will have to wait, but I will do my exercises and make progress. You can bet that whatever it is will involve more quiltmaking!!!
Color Me Quilts fabrics
After the sale, I stopped in at Color Me Quilts (Color Me Quilts & More, 37495 Niles Blvd, 792-6567), which was in a perfect location to relieve some stress yesterday morning. I bought the stripe to go with the fabrics from The Treasure Hunt for the pink and brown project. The dots are, well, dots and how can I pass them up? I think they will go well with the cherries for the blue and pink project I am also planning. the blue dot will work well in Patrick’s quilt and the Pineapple. Cheerful, cheerful fabrics.
It is never too early to be thinking about gift bags, so I found some Christmas fabrics on sale and bought some of those to make gift bags for the holidays.
Future Bags
I am not a huge fan of Laurel Burch, but I don’t dislike her fabrics, either. The colors are a bit nontraditional, which I like. I saw a lovely white Christmas fabric, but it was too see through to effectively hide gifts, so I passed on it.
For now, thought I have to go sew a bit and get ready for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for reading and for your comments!
As I have a Janome machine, I get emails from them talking about new products. Mostly, I can’t use what they send because either I am too lazy to teach myself to use a new foot, I have no interest, I have no time or I am just not interested. Still, I like to see what is going on so when I buy that new machine, I will have something they can teach me at the class.
I was thrilled to see this site, sew4home, which Janome is sponsoring. I really think the layout makes sense and they seem to have a range of projects. I only looked at the cushion area because Teacher Pillow time is coming. I found the plethora of projects to be very appealing.
I saw this article on Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood’s Grand Rapids Press blog (isn’t it cool that they have a craft column??). This man is amazing and I just shiver thinkng about what the world would be like if everyone did something as creative.
“I think the message from me to the public is: If I can do this with a piece of paper, what can you do with your talents?” he said. “What can you do with the talent that God has given you?”
Every year, I try to figure out a fun and/or creative endeavor to arrange for my birthday. As I am trying to buy in my neighborhood, I decided that Color Me Mine, a pottery painting place was the way to go. I have been walking by it a lot and had been wanting to go in and do some painting. This was the perfect opportunity.
I sent invites to some of my girlfirends and a number of them were able to come along.
I painted this little bowl to match another bowl and a spoonrest I made a number of years ago when these types of stores first came on the scene. All of them also match my kitchen. In the pic above, the bowl is upside down waiting to be fired.
The funnest part for me was to see everyone painting and being creative even if being creative wasn’t their habit. I also really enjoyed seeing all of my friends, long and new, get along with each other.
I have been slack about posting my various holiday adventures, but, with this post, will try and redeem myself. One of the great things I did on my break over the holidays was go to the SFMOMA with friend Julie. My goal was to see the actual journals from the 1000 journals project in person. Julie has posted a great set of narrated photos about our adventures.
The 1000 Journals project has, for some reason, captured my imagination. Faithful readers will know that I have posted about it, gone to see the film and have been trying to get my hot little hands on one of the journals. The film depicted a lot of back and forth with the SFMOMA about this exhibit because Someguy wanted to allow people to add to the journals. A great idea, but the curators aren’t used to allowing people to touch the art. I was really happy that they finally were able to work everything out.
They ended up putting the project in the Koret Education Center. There are people there to watch you, somewhat, working on the journals, so it probably made them feel ok about touching.
Stupidly I didn’t plan ahead and bring an art kit like I had planned, so I rummaged through my purse to see what I had:
an old temporary drivers’ license
breast health center “how to get your results” sheet
pink pen
Golden Gate Ferry schedule from 1997
With the pencils, glue sticks, pens, etc that the SFMOMA provided my theme turned into bureaucracy. I was able to make a page with which I was pretty satisfied. As Julie said, it was hard to make art standing up. Not very comfy. Other viewers of the exhibit also have a different sense of personal space than I do, so I had to glare at some people who were just too close, and ask them to step back.
I was disappointed to see that some contributors had basically defaced the books with a message of anger and hate of their own. If I had had colored paper, I would have glued it over those messages, which, I guess, is defacing the books as well, in a way. There was a lot of 13 year old boy potty humor as well. Sad to think that people aren’t enlightened enough to think up something that they would be proud to have endure through the ages. Perhaps I am just being a snob because what they wrote doesn’t fit my idea of ‘good’.
I had fun. I found that I actually can do a visual journaling piece. It made me think that, perhaps, I have too many options at home.
I am happy that I got to spend the day with Julie (no children/young adults=freedom) and that I got see and write in the journals. I feel like I made a contribution. The journal I wrote in was number 754.
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’ 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
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.
This simple pillow proves that a home dec item can be very stylish and still easy to make.
