I saw these great dishes at Cliff’s Variety yesterday. I noticed they are by Jackie Shapiro. I don’t know if it is the same Jackie Shapiro that designed the Botanical Pop fabric by Baum Textiles/Windham Hill Fabrics. BTW, I still want some of that turquoise dot that was part of the collection! Anyone who finds 4-6 yards of this fabric will get, at least, a tote bag. Of course, I will pay your costs and shipping for the fabric as well.
French Bull Brand
I don’t want a whole set of these dishes, but some bowls might be nice.
A few days ago, I pointed out Suzanne Cabrera’s blog to you. Here is a watercolor from one of the artists, Casey Toussaint, Suzanne highlighted in her blog. I really enjoy art of ordinary things and this watercolor of the dining room fits. I have been trying to do that with my creative prompt responses and think I am getting better. I have a lot of practice sketches to make before I get to this level, but I’ll get there.
My brain is full, so this is going to be another catch up kind of post.
1. Bonnie McCaffrey – Bonnie did an vidcast interview with Paula Nadelstern around Paula’s exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. The devil part of my brain is plotting ways to get to see that exhibit before it closes on September 13. A visit doesn’t seem likely from where I am sitting, though you never know and hopes springs eternal, but there is a catalog, Paula Nadelstern’s Kaleidoscope Quilts, which is a must have on my list. I like Paula’s two previous books. They spoke to the smart quiltmaker in me.
2. Kelly Rae Roberts – Kelly Rae Roberts wrote a book called Taking Flight, which I reserved at the Library, but hasn’t come in yet. You can read about the book on her website in the book section. She is more of a painter and collage artist than quiltmaker. I took some time with her site this week (minutes here and there) and love the fresh feeling. I am trying to find the right look/feeling for ArtQuiltmaker.com so looking at the colors and embellishments on blogs is a continuing task. One of the things I like about her blog is the house tour. She shows all the nooks and crannies of her Seattle home. My mind boggles at the cleaning that must have gone on beforehand!
3. Picking out Paint – I am famous for picking out the most expensive and hardest to get item in any category regardless of how much I know about the topic or category. We have been trying to find the right shade of red for our dining room. Currently we have Lowe’s Valspar Cherry Divine, and Tibetan Red from Lowe’s Waverly Collection. The Cherry Divine is ok, but very pink and the Tibetan Red was absolutely a deal breaker, because it was much too brown. My friend Jessica talks about the ‘taupefication of America.’ My general principles of advocating cheerfulness, and Jessica’s comments make me refuse to participate in anything smacking of brown in my house. This place in the process meant a trip to Benjamin Moore yesterday where we found the perfect red, Red Statement from Pratt & Lambert. Perfect. Absolutely the right red and $60 a gallon AND it comes in only one product. No samples and you have to order the gallon from the Benjamin Moore store in the sky or somewhere and no returns. Sigh. My knack strikes, and burns, again. We checked out several other reds, most of which were in the same category as the Red Statement. We finally ended up with B.M.’s Poppy and Rapture. We’ll see. You never know, we may end up with paint that costs $60/gallon on one corner of our dining room. Doubtful, but it could happen.
4. Beefing up the CPP – I really want more people to participate in the Creative Prompt Project (CPP). I love the artwork that comes every week from the current participants, but I want more!!! I thought that some people may not have a place to post their work, so I created a Flickr group where members of the group can upload their drawings. I hope you will take the time to join and upload your photos. I have also heard that publishers troll Flickr for emerging artists.
5. Good News on the Tarts – Finally some progress on the last bit of the Tarts. As you know, I have been toying with replacing the Flying Geese with something. I have drawing some larger cups, a stack of small cups, tried some mini-cupcakes, a whole variety of things. Nothing was quite right. I felt stumped.
I lean my rulers up against the wall and rest them in the hinged area of my sewing table. This isn’t a great location when I am sewing something that pushes against them. They tend to fall behind the sewing cabinet, which means I have to haul the thing away from the wall and hope that I haven’t broken a ruler. When I was working on the latest tote bag, I had moved them to prevent this situation.
This plus the 9K being on vacation allowed me to have a virtually unobstructed view of the lower right hand corner of the Tarts.
Art Deco Cups and Coffee Pot
Those cups jumped out at me. I pulled the block off the wall and traced the cup. The pattern is long gone. I also flipped it so the handle will be pointing right instead of left. After a bit of fiddling with lines, I put the preliminary drawing up on the wall. Perfect. It is perfect in tracing paper, so I will need to audition some fabrics. I finally feel like I am back in business with this piece.
Art Deco Cup - cropped
6. Vicki Welsh’s Field Trips in Fiber – I made her latest FFiF list again with the latest tote bag! What a thrill. The great thing about Vicki’s list is that it is a great pointer to other fabulous quilts and fiber projects. It showcases a lot of work that I might not otherwise see. Thanks, Vicki.
7. Glass Fusing – I am a big fan of those pottery places where you can paint the cup or plate of your choice. You might remember that such an outing was what I did for my birthday. A visitor at the recent CQFA meeting talked about a place, Create It where you could not only paint pottery, but also fuse glass. A small group of us are going there tomorrow to try it out.
I was exhausted today when I arrived home from work. Fortunately dinner was ready, which gave me some energy. after plowing through a few chores. I sat down to look at some blogs. Be*Mused has this great photo of her applique’ work. What I like about it are the patterns in white on black in the background.
Leah left a comment here and, kindly, included her blog address, so I went and took a quick look. Her blog is very colorful! I loved this curved New York Beauty piece that she shows on her most recent post. It reminds me that I could just draw something like this and sew it.
One of the great things about looking at new blogs for me is that my mind opens up and I look at things in a new way. Or I see the same things in a way that inspires me to think about them in a new way.
Thanks to Leah for stopping by and for updating her blog!
I have come across some interesting websites lately. Also, many things have been running through my mind. As a result, today is Catch Up Saturday! That means that you get a bunch of random links, some photos that have been hanging around, and other miscellaneous stuff.
Janome 9K
1. In my post, Caring for Tools, I talked about taking my Janome 9000 into be repaired. Cost=$$$$$. The monster needs a new screen; apparently it could not be recalibrated. What a shocker; I need to find a consulting job to cover the cost. Anyone want to buy a quilt? 😉
The cost notwithstanding, I have more good things to say about Lafayette Sewing Center. Before they started the work, they called me and went over the estimate with me very carefully. I spoke with Audrey who said that she wanted to make sure I wanted the work done and understood the costs so I wouldn’t get sticker shock. No assumptions there! Great service.
2. Suzanne Cabrera did a series of drawings of her home, which I really like. They are simple in an architectural kind of way. She has added comments about various pieces of furniture, which satisfies my need for words. She also has a sense of humor in her drawings, which I appreciated in her post about learning to cook with her husband. See them at her blog, An Open [Sketch] Book.
3. Felt Food (FF). I love felt food. It makes me smile. I first got interested in felt food when I heard CraftSanity podcast episode #66 (what else? My one source of craft information!) with the owner of Lilly Bean Market, Hillary Seabolt. Her sandwich is still my favorite. I saw some pictures of felt food somewhere recently and that has reinvigorated my Felt Food Mania and led me on a multi-day Felt Food Flickr Journey (F3J).
The F3J led me to general felt creations such as softies (we called them stuffed animals back in the day; apparently that term is no longer PC), including a journey around London by Lumpy Bear (made/arranged? by GiantButton), felt sea creatures including a Hammerhead Shark and squid and an unzippable ocean complete with islands by Lizette Greco.
You have to look at this stuff to believe it!
4. Stewart, Tabori & Chang and Melanie Falick: Once again, I was listening to CraftSanity podcast #30 the other day (I really do do other things besides listen to CraftSanity, I promise). Melanie wrote Knitting in America, seminal book on the state of knitting in the US. She is the craft editor at STC AND has her own imprint. WOW! I have heard of her before, because I love STC books and she is the editor who acquires them. I really loved hearing about her journey to that job and found a lot of similarities to my life (you can stop laughing now, thanks). She gave really practical ideas about getting a book published, especially in the area of writing a book proposal. Thanks, I needed that! That was really food for thought for me, since I have a dream…..
You can follow Melanie on Twitter at STC_Craft or take a look at her website.
Tessalated Tile
5. Beth sent me this image when she lived in England. I had asked her to take photos of mosaics and tile. This is a particularly good design for quiltmaking, because it would just be squares and rectangles. Yes, you would have to plan a bit, if you were doing anything more than a 2 color quilt, but it would be quite stunning once finished. Note the L shape at the top.
6. Toy-a-Day: This project is definitely like the Creative Prompt (which you should join) but much more intense. The Wild Things characters, KISS, Pikachu, the Mario Bros, Michael Jackson and Michael Gorbachev are all included in this project. I noticed that the author has PDF downloads of some of his toys so you can make your own.
I have been thinking about big, thick, gold, French-Louvre type frames lately as we work on refreshing our living room project. I want to frame an old beveled mirror in that type of frame. This fits right into my thought patterns.
Laume also has some thoughts about inspiration. If you have someone who has inspired you, I would love to hear about it. Post your thoughts to the comments section and I may write about those comments later.
I come from a long line of needlewomen, some of whom I have written about before. One of my great grandmothers would crochet bread bags into little rugs. These rugs were pretty sturdy and we could wipe our feet on them when we came in from outdoors. They just got hosed off when became too dirty.
My mom tried the technique with plastic grocery bags and they worked ok, but weren’t as sturdy. Still it is a good recycling tip, don’t you think?
Actually, that’s a good post theme – who inspires you? In your art or in your life? Pick one (or more) people who have made a difference in your world and let them know. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just drop them an e-mail or give them a call, mention it the next time you see them face-to-face. It will make their day, maybe even their week, I promise you.
While you were sipping your cappucinos this morning, I was finishing the edges of my very first ATCs – Artist Trading Cards – and dashing off to meet with my fellow CQFAers.
Maureen had suggested that we do a swap of ATCs. In the spirit of the Creative Prompt project, I decided that making them would be good for my creativity. And it was! I did them when I came home from work on Tuesday after one of the most grueling work days I think I have ever had. Immersing myself in some fiber took my mind off of the lunatics downtown. I didn’t have much brainpower and, thus, didn’t overthink the design. All of the fabrics came out of my scrap basket. I wasn’t sure what to use for the center so I used two layers of Pellon Stitch and Tear, which I use for stabilizing machine applique’. The ATCs felt right in terms of stiffness and I didn’t have any problems with sewing through the 4 layers. It all seemed to work just fine.
ATC backs
The ATCs are 2.5×3.5″ inches and I know that there are a zillion sources for instructions all over the web. Typical of me, I didn’t look at any of them. 😉
Sometimes I just need to do the work. I figured they were small enough and I could toss them if I didn’t like them.
I grabbed more fabric out of my scrap basket for the backs. The red dots and the Denyse Schmidt flowers are my favorites. One of my criteria was that I had to be able to write on the back, so my favorites weren’t ideal. The other plainer fabrics were better. I tried to use the stitch lettering that I used to use for labels on these ATCs, but my machine is starting to act up 🙁 and I couldn’t get it to work.
MPL's ATCs
Maureen’s ATCs include the car in the group. Maureen is a quiltmaker I really admire, because she is constantly trying new things.
Her ATCs were a revelation, because they were all different! Mine are sort of different, but really the same. Maureen created different designs on each card. WOW! Not sure why I didn’t think of that, but perhaps I will do something similar next time.
Terri let me know that Diane and Nancy’s ATCs were mixed in with Maureen’s. I didn’t pay close enough attention to know whose are whose. Sorry ladies!
I thought I would make more of the same for next time, but after doing the swap, I think people will be looking for something new and exciting.
Terri's work
Terri is a mystery writer who incorporates quilts and quiltmaking into her stories. If you haven’t read Ocean Waves, Old Maid’s Puzzle, or Wild Goose Chase, get yourself to the Library or bookstore! Her ATCs had a mystery theme and were business card size. Terri used the business card sized advertisements as the backing! Clever!
In addition to paper and fabric, Terri also added 3D ribbon and rubber stamping to her cards. I have rubber stamps! Perhaps I will drag them out for the next round.
LC's Work
Linda‘s ATCs look marbled to me. She is a talented machine quilter. She produces lots of small works frequently by participating in such challenges as the Fast Friday Challenge. She has recently been doing succulents, which she says are too dark for her tastes. Most of her work is very bright – lime green, fuschia, bright blue, etc as Linda uses lots of hand dyes.
Linda talks about her ATCs on a blog post from a few days ago. It looks like she made a big piece and then cut it up. Another great idea!
Bron's ATCs
I haven’t seen very much of Bron’s work and was really excited when she laid out her ATCs. Bron’s raven piece and her stamp piece both caught my eye. I couldn’t stop staring at them during the entire swap. I am not sure why. I guess Amy over at the Creative Mom podcast is on my mind both because of the ATCs and because of the birds.
Bron also chose to make different designs. Her media varied quite a lot as well. She used fabric, paint, paper, beads and different ephemera such as stamps. I picked up the stamp card from Bron’s offerings.
Bron's Stamp ATC
The colors drew me to this piece. They were really vibrant and attractive. I am like a bee in spring, I guess. 😉 I really liked the textures on this card as well as the airmail stamps.
VS works
Virginia is a quiltmaker I really admire. She has a quiet presence that smolders. When she finishes a quilt or a set of placemats or something, they set the room on fire: excellent stitching, perfect corners, wonderful fabrics and a great design. I really wish she lived closer as I would try to spend more time learning with her.
Virginia did photo transfer with fabric, paper and stitching. I wasn’t as excited about them because of the black and white. I did love the stitching around the edge.
Diane brought some as well and somehow I missed photographing them. Perhaps next time.
While I am not particularly interested in ATCs, I found this to be a good exercise. Not so much in what I made, but in seeing what everyone else made and getting inspired by their work. I may have a chance to try out some of these ideas as Maureen suggested that he group make this activity a regular part of the meeting. Hhmm…
I got a little behind photographing and posting blocks from my Infinity project. (I think last week was just a bad sewing-posting-making week). Anyway, here are some of the newer blocks. I made a few more after I snapped this pic and will post those later.
I was attempting to try out a different layout from the layout in the May 13th post. I like the four white squares together. I am a long way from the end, however, so we will see once I get more blocks.
SIL said she was sending me some blocks via DH-transport, so I expect those on Sunday. As usual, stay tuned!
I recently listened a podcast (CraftSanity or Annie Smith, can’t remember which) where the hostess interviewed the Lizzie B Cre8tive girls about their new book, Whimsyland. I am not much of a pattern person, so Lizzie B Cre8tive patterns never really registered on my radar until I heard them on podcasts. Also, the whole applique’ thing is love-hate with me, though you wouldn’t know it since I have been working on the Tarts for months
Anyway, I received an email from Liz and Beth about the fun tour that their editor, Kent, is doing of Europe that sent me to their blog. I laughed so hard when I saw these pictures that I just had to share. Take a look.
One of my first quiltmaking books was The Quilter’s Album of Blocks and Borders by Jinny Beyer. It is also one of my favorites because it is just a dictionary of block designs. It is NOT a pattern book. When I first started listening to podcasts two or three years ago I heard Jinny Beyer interviewed and she talked about her new and updated version, which I saw today on Amazon. It isn’t coming out until August. I can’t wait to see it and look forward to hearing Ms. Beyer interviewed about it again at that time.
Providing quilters, researchers, and design enthusiasts with a comprehensive tool for finding, identifying, and drafting more than 4,000 unique patterns, this encyclopedia of quilt block designs presents a method of categorizing designs that eliminates duplication and allows quilters to understand exactly how each one is constructed. Each design is analyzed in terms of the grid on which it is drawn, making it easy recreate the pattern in any size or color scheme desired. Each block is thoroughly researched and listed according the original name and date of publication. Double names and duplicates are cross-referenced for easy use. Packed with information and inspiration, this also contains photographs of full quilts, as well as a detailed bibliography and indexes.
I am not a big pattern maker, but I like to point out the products of hardworking quiltmakers. I have not had this pattern in my hand. I looked at it on the Etsy site and noticed that they have extension and Jelly Roll directions, which I think is a step in the direction of making patterns that people can expand out to be more personal. Good luck to Amy and Opal on this new endeavor!
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?
