Tag: Various & Sundry

Various & Sundry #21

Google Tile
Google Tile

I saw this tile recently. I really like the colored tile surrounded by the vast amounts of white and then with the circles in the border.

Other Artists

Claudia of Machen & Tun blog has posted a photo of her gorgeous Summer Sampler in the Quilting…for the Rest of Us Flickr Group. You can also read about it (in English and in German!) at Claudia’s blog. Her post is well supplied with gorgeous photos. One of her blocks is a Judy Martin block, by the way. I like it that she made the quilt her own.

Jon Crispin, a photographer, has posted photos of suitcases on his blog. The suitcases belonged to residents of an asylum in New York state. His photos are gorgeous. The images contained int he photos are so evocative. Right now I am wondering what people would think if they found a suitcase of mine and looked through all the stuff I take with me, especially if I was coming back from a trip where I bought fabric!!!

Adrianne of Little Bluebell has posted a gorgeous pillow inspired by Camille Roskelly’s Swoon pattern. She also describes making some changes as she went along, which I am all about encouraging. I was particularly interested in this project, because of all my adventures in pillow making. I think this project looks great!

A group of bloggers is challenging each other to be creative (hey! come over here and join the Creative Prompt!) by finishing up their first challenge, Light and Shadow. They have a group blog, which talks about the project. Members of the group are:

I saw reference to this project in a post when I was perusing Carol’s blog, A Scot in Tennessee. I had been working with the blocks she made for the Stars for San Bruno project and thinking about her. Glad I went over to take a look, because this is a worthwhile source of inspiration!

Media

I have always been fascinated by paper and making books. If I hadn’t found quiltmaking first, I probably would be doing more of that now. Jennifer at CraftSanity talked about making envelopes, tiny books and handmade paper on one of her TV episodes. As an aside, I think making envelopes is really useful, because then you know you always have the correctly sized envelope.

Mary Mack did a really nice review and discussion of Aurifil thread on her blog.

Even if you are not a knitter, and I am not much of a knitter, the Cast-on podcast is excellent. It is well produced and interesting. There is a large backstock of episodes, too, if you need something to which to listen on a long train or car ride.

Some time ago, I received a newsletter from Judy Martin saying that her new book, Patchwork Among Friends, had shipped. I haven’t seen it, but I have always enjoyed her blocks, her cutting methods and her tone. She writes “I didn’t think much of Patchwork Among Friends (the title I’m talking about here, not the book contents) when we started this process, but it has really grown on me. I think it captures the vibe I’m trying to convey. Quilters tend to be social animals. Even when they don’t need any supplies, they often end up at the quilt shop because they crave contact with people who share their passion. How can we tap into that? How can we further promote that? My book is first and foremost a pattern book, but in the up-front material and with each pattern I try to show you ways to share parts of the experience with others.”

One thing about Judy Martin’s books is the directions for pressing. She writes “each quilt in Patchwork Among Friends has pressing directions and diagrams featuring pressing arrows. Each quilt is also presented with a page of alternate colorways or settings, depending on the nature of the particular quilt.” Perhaps she will also include, if she doesn’t already, my latest rant, which is the size of units that make a up a blocks, so people can get a little assistance with precision.

Elizabeth Hartman is working on her second book, which is scheduled to be released May 2012. Modern Patchwork will be published by Stash Books. The word on the street is that it will contain 12 patterns and is targeted at quiltmakers who want to move beyond the basics without sacrificing ‘modern’ style. The quilt on the cover is a hexagon quilt. If you can’t wait for the book, check out my hexagon tutorial.

I listened to a couple of new podcasts this week – new to me podcasts, let’s say, because I don’t want to call anyone out – and I realized that new podcasters have big shoes to fill. For beginning quilters we have Frances and Katie. Frances has a lovely voice and a great sense of humor. Katie is fearless and shows videos of her sewing room! Tanesha provides the art quilt aspect along with fabulous books reviews. Sandy is really creative and professional in her productions. The other podcasters provide their own unique take on quilting. Susan provides some history. Darla is great at describing her process, providing assistance on technical issues and doing math (thank heaven!). Each of them, and all the others, give us a little glimpse into their lives, sometimes share a mini-rant (always with a sense of humor) and tell us about their quilting. Someone asked me recently if I would start a podcast. I was flattered, but I won’t. I couldn’t begin to compete with awesome ladies. I’ll write here and horn in on Mark and Sandy’s podcasts every now and again.

Judy Martin wrote a nice post about attending Quilt Market.

And if you want just a funny read that has nothing to do with quiltmaking, read Joshilyn Jackson’s open letter to the Fat Girl at Hot Yoga in New York.

Jennifer over at CraftSanity wrote, last week, about a new round of layoffs at the newspaper where she and her husband work. She has a great attitude about ‘choosing her own next adventure.’ Times are challenging for many of us, so I hope you will remember that people like Jennifer are making wonderful work and your dollars during the holiday season would make a big difference to them. Small Business Saturday is on November 26 and I hope that you will consider including Jennifer’s looms, Artquiltmaker cards and a few other treats from Etsy makers on your holiday shopping list.

WIPs/UFOs

Some of you may have noticed that I have been talking about the 26 Projects lately. In Judy Martin’s newsletter there was a discussion of UFOs/WIPs. One reader said “There is no shame in an unfinished quilt. Tell your readers to ditch the guilt and cherish the joy.” I want to be clear that my life will not be over if I don’t clear out some of these projects. I refuse to make my self miserable just because of these projects. I would really like to ‘render a disposition’ to each one to clear out brain space, but if I want to make a new project I will. Flip-flopping? Yes.

Tutorials

I am developing quite a nice collection of tutorials. It is fun, if challenging and time consuming to write them. I haven’t found a good way to write them yet, though I think that photographing every single tiny step and writing a bit at a time is key. They take me 4+ hours to write, so I hope you appreciate them!

I am working on one that is how to make Flying Geese. I keep seeing different methods and I thought it would be a good idea to put them all in one place and let you choose which works best for you. Quiltmaking, IMO, is all about finding the best method for the quiltmaker (YOU!) so that your projects come out the way you want them. I have or know about the following methods, so if you know of any others, please let me know.

  • regular cutting of triangles and sewing together
  • Deb Tucker ruler method
  • Quilt in a Day ruler method
  • sew squares to rectangle method
  • sew small squares to large squares and trim method

Products and Fabric

Shop Hop Bus Tour! See the New Pieces Blog for information.

Alex Veronelli posted a color ranking of Aurifil colors. The color I used most, #2600, a light grey, is #2 in the ranking. I guess I am hip and cool in this context. 😉

I was going to buy Ruby from Bonnie and Camille, then Julie from Intrepid Thread showed some samples at a BAMQG meeting and I decided not to buy any. However, I keep seeing it everywhere, especially in this post and here and lined up nicely here, shown tantalizingly here and here. I can’t stop thinking about the line. I wish one of my local shops had the whole line. Oh wait! I don’t have a local shop. ERGH! I think the key, if I were to buy it and I am not saying I am, is buy it, wash and press the pieces and make something right away. Sigh. I am sick. Sick, I tell you, sick.

Quilts

I saw this quilt on the Quilt Market Twitter Feed and thought it was a very interesting row quilt. Interesting in that there was a lot to look at. BTW, were you able to keep up with the Quilt Market Twitter Feed? OMG! It was crazy! Every time I looked at Twitter there were 37+ new posts ALL with photos. Crazy and wonderful. So much colorful goodness to which to look forward.

Tutorials

Oh Fransson!’s Elizabeth Hartman has a nice tutorial on the free motion quilting pattern she calls ‘dogwood.’ I wonder if her next book will be about free motion quilting.

Various & Sundry #20

Media
Swatch and Stitch is a blog and the posts recently have been very colorful.

Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, formerly of FunQuilts and now of Modern Quilt Studio, have a new magazine. It is called Modern Quilts Illustrated and you can see a preview on Craft Nectar from October 25, 2011. Each issue will be $14 and a subscription for 3 issues will be $30. Call (708) 445-1817 to get an issue or a subscription. (No affiliation).

I get the Fig Tree Quilts pamphlet periodically. It is called Fresh Vintage. When I receive the newsletter/pamphlet, I usually think I should cancel, because it is very thin and I usually just skim it and put it down to read more thoroughly later. This time, I actually did read it more thoroughly and realized that there is always a very useful tidbit or review in it. This time there was a blurb about using a fabric line. Joanna gave a rule that makes a lot of sense: use 80% of the fabric line and 20% of other fabric in your quilt. Isn’t that great? Doesn’t it make sense? I think it is a great way to make the quilt in which you have used one line of fabric, your own.
Deirdre’s QR Quilt is finished! More info at http://www.deirdreabbotts.com/2011/10/21/qr-code-quilt/ If you can get the code to work on a Blackberry, contact her.

I got on the phone with Mark Lipinski yesterday and talked to him about some crocheted flowers I saw on the blog/website of one of his guests, Margaret Hubert. They struck me, because one of my great grandmothers (my grandmother’s father’s 4th wife, I think) made me a red had that snapped under the chin covered in these flowers in multi-colored yarns. My head looked like a garden. She didn’t like the thank you note I sent her so she never made me anything again. If I can find the hat, I’ll post a photo. It is so funny that those flowers are back!

Speaking of Mark, did you see the video he and Jodi Davis did?

Technology
Many of you have seen or created or used QR Codes. They are the black and white squares that are popping up all over marketing materials. My friend, Deirdre, also the web/tech guru of this blog, has made a QR Code quilt. It is wonderful – soft on the inside and techy on the outside. You will need a QR Code reader on your smartphone to read the code and be taken to the website to which the quilt leads. Awesome!

Web in General
Why are you here?
Why are you reading this blog? Do you have certain expectations of what you will read? Am I meeting your expectations?

Why am I asking you this? (So many questions!)

There was a post on Camille Roskelly’s blog recently. She highlighted a comment from someone who was irritated that Camille was posting pictures of her kids. The commenter insisted that Simplify was a business blog and that Camille should stop posting about her kids.

Camille seems to get a large number of mean comments. Perhaps it is because she gets so many comments?. Perhaps it is a numbers game? I like her blog. I like seeing her kids (those kids have gorgeous skin! It has to be Photoshop, right?); I like the creativity of her photos.

I feel bad for her. I feel bad for anyone who puts their thoughts out there and gets mean comments. I don’t mean constructive criticism. I am talking about mean. I once got a comment where the poster said “…too bad your color choices are so hideous.” I didn’t think she was correct, but I still remember that comment. I am sorry she thought my color choices were hideous, but I would like to know why she felt the need to tell me in such a brutal manner. I am under no illusions that I get it right all the time, but hideous seems a little harsh. It was probably someone I work with getting back at me for making them to their job.

I can also appreciate that people have different expectations for a designer’s blog. I also feel that people are entitled to express their opinions and/or to click away from the offending post or blog.

I am here because I enjoy writing. I have a separate non-quilt project going and I need practice writing. This blog is my practice. It is an added bonus that I get to write about fabric and quilts and creativity. It is even more of an added bonus that you, dear reader, read and comment once in a while. Thank you!

I don’t post much about The Young Man for other reasons, but I do reserve the right to post about him and other stuff, if I feel like it.

I feel like I am ranting a bit lately. I’ll try not to do it too often. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming….

If you haven’t seen SammyK’s Spoonflower site, you have to go an look. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Back? Good. Doesn’t s/he have awesome stuff? My favorite is the Chefalopod. I have to find a reason to buy that panel. It is so hilarious.

Patterns
I have talked on and off about the Disappearing 9 Patch. I used it for the Food Quilt. Mrs. K asked me about the Disappearing 4 Patch, which I remembered vaguely from my mom talking to me about it. She found it and sent me a link. It doesn’t demand my attention, but I like the pattern more than I did the last time I saw it.

OMG! Camille Roskelly posted pictures of her individual Farmer’s Wife blocks. They are gorgeous! I want them. I’ll have to do something similar when I get enough of the A-B-C challenge blocks.

Color
I hope I can find enough content to fill up a color section. I saw this wonderful slideshow on color from someone on Twitter. I don’t remember who that smart, sharing someone was and I apologize, Smart Sharing Someone. I’ll try to do better.

Promising myself NO MORE FABRIC is a bad idea. Well, it is a good idea in theory, but, frankly, doesn’t work in practical terms. I do things like buy fewer fabrics in larger pieces. Well, that doesn’t help the closet situation.

It also doesn’t help that I continue to surf the web, especially following links from blogs like Camille Roskelly’s. I love her colors and her friends’ colors are the same. Today I followed a link to Pretty By Hand. Dead. I am dead. I saw that Lecien has a follow-up line to Flower Sugar. The Pretty by Hand writer (no idea what her name is…sorry) wrote about it. Mostly the same type of colors, better patterns. I am dead. Dead, I tell you. I need to sew faster and NOT look at any links sent out from Quilt Market. No matter what.

Other
I went to New Pieces to pick up the Zig Zaggy quilt. I took the opportunity to talk to them about quilting the Food Quilt. I was really impressed with their business-like attitude. The people who do the actual longarming weren’t there, but the two ladies who were there gave me a lot of good information. They told me, generally, what they do and what they don’t do. I really appreciate how upfront they were about it. They hauled out a laundry basket of quilted samples of their design. I thought that was a great idea! It gave me a good idea of stitch quality and variety of design.

 

Various & Sundry #19

Books & Printed Materials
I received 4 books recently from Lark. Hey! Thanks, Lark! I don’t have time to do full on reviews this time, but here are some mentions of 3 of them:

  • Dimensional Bead Embroidery by Jamie Cloud Eakin (hardcover): some really nice pieces in the large gallery; beading techniques you could use for embroidery on a quilt
  • Color, Texture & Casting by Carles Codina (paperback): very modern looking layout, great photos; shapes within photos that could be useful for quilting design inspiration.
  • Rachel Nelson-Smith’s Bead Riffs (hardcover): lots and lots of encrusted seed bead pieces, Billie’s Bounce looks like it could be a very cool Christmas garland.

The Quilters Strip Ticket that TFQ sent me some time ago came in handy the other day when I was making the binding for the Food Quilt. The number I came up with for the length needed for the binding was right on the chart! Often the number I have is different and I have to figure it out anyway, but this time it was there. I was pretty excited.

Tools & Supplies
I tried out the True Grips (remember the rant?), which I bought from the Intrepid Thread, and they are awesome. I put them on some of the specialty rulers I am working with at the moment and those rulers don’t slide a bit. I think I’ll have to buy more.

I got a bug in my ear to try a binding tool to make the ends of my bindings meet perfectly. I went and bought the Fons & Porter version at Joann, but also would like to try the Wendt version (Follow the link and scroll down a bit. If your LQS doesn’t have it and can’t get it for you, Joyce will) that Joyce of Quilting Adventures mentioned to me. I was amazed at how well it worked. It is confusing and the directions are complete, but could uses a few more pictures. If you are a member of QNNTV, there might be some videos that you can watch, too.

I was able to finish the ends of Pavers and Stars for San Bruno #2 really nicely. Much better than the big end lumps of the past. I am really pleased with how the ends came out. Now those two quilts are ready to have the binding hand stitched down. (and then there will be 24!)

Patterns & Inspiration
Oliver & S has their first digital pattern out. it is called Puppet Show. It is a basic dress pattern for little girls. It looks nothing like a puppet show, but I thought I’d tell you. 😉

Media
Mark and Jodie were at Keepsake Quilting (also taken over by New Track Media!) and the KQ Kids posted about their visit. Some of the outtake photos were funny.

Did you like Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion? Well, go over to their blog and tell them so. They are thinking of bringing it back, but you need to put your money where your mouth is.

I am finally catching up with Creative Mojo. I have about 4 episodes to which to listen, so I listened to Creative Mojo 9-13-2011 the other day and it was a fabulous episode. It one that is going in the favorites pile. Harriet and Carrie Hargrave and Dr. Barton Goldsmith were on the show and those segments were the best I have heard in a long time. Harriet and Carrie were talking about teaching quiltmaking in conjunction with their Quilter’s Academy, Junior Year coming out soon. Harriet said that you can’t learn how to quilt by taking a project class. I think that is true, which is one of the reasons I offered to teach the sampler class. Before anyone has a heart attack and starts yelling at me, I do think that project classes can get people started and keep people interested. However, I do think that to progress, you need to know the basics of good technique. Dr. Barton Goldsmith was talking about self esteem and he said a lot of things that I say to myself (that came from my mother, probably) such as “don’t should on yourself”. He made a lot of sense and I have added his book, 100 Ways to Boost Your Self Confidence, to my to-read list.

On another Creative Mojo Show, Mark talked with the editor of Cloth Paper Scissors about their new iPad emag called Collage in Color. It looks like a free app with the short preview version of the magazine, if you have an iPad. The individual issues are $9.95. There is also a windows version you can access from the Interweave website. You only need to be connected to the Internet to download the magazine. Once you download it, the videos, etc all work without a connection. Obviously, if you want to to go an external website, you will need to be connected. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan on downloading it. It sounds like a cool way of looking at media. Stay tuned; I’ll let you know.

I wanted to remind you about Hearts for Christchurch. Evie is still collecting hearts and my friend, Faye, who lives about 4 hours away from Christchurch tells me that they are having magnitude 4+ earthquakes every day and may not be able to rebuild the downtown because of the instability. Students have dropped out of Canterbury University and gone to a different school and people are moving away.

Japan

Joplin

Christchurch

Alabama….are you next?

Make a heart.

Various & Sundry #18

I can’t believe that September is over – well, nearly, anyway – already! I hope you are doing your Christmas sewing, because it will be upon us before you know it. And those of you who don’t celebrate can just stop laughing! I may get you into my sewing room as a sewing slave. 😉

Tools
Did you hear that Anna Maria Horner is the new spokesperson for Janome? They made an announcement on the new AMH/Janome collaboration site. I wonder what happened to Marie Osmond?

I thought I had mentioned True Grips to you, but I don’t see a reference on any of my previous posts. I heard about True Grips in a recent issue of Quilts & More. They often have a little page of tools and supplies, with interesting blurbs. These caught my eye, because of my experience as well as Sandy and Frances’ recent comments about slipping rulers. Sandy is slowly changing out all of her rulers to Creative Grids rulers. I also like Creative Grids rulers, because the dots on the back provide some traction. TFQ and I have talked about Creative Grids rulers. She likes them, too, except for the big branding circle in the middle of the ruler that seems to always be right where you need to line up lines. Still, I would like to replace all of my rulers with Creative Grids rulers, but it is just isn’t practical. I’d rather buy fabric.

Enter True Grips.

Supposedly they keep your ruler from slipping (after you have applied them). I have tried Invisigrip and haven’t found it to do the job. Also, it is a pain to apply. You know those times where you are trying to get 2 feet of plastic wrap out of the box, cut and applied to the giant amount of leftovers that will take over your fridge? That is how I feel when I work with Invisigrip.

True Grips are little dots that you put on the back of your ruler that supposedly give it some traction. I don’t know if they are thin or thick. I hope they are not thick, because I don’t want to have to deal with a wobbly ruler. I have a lot of square and rectangular Omnigrid rulers that I would be happy to not have to replace. I checked out the Grace Company website, prepared to buy a couple of packages. $5.95 for the True Grips and $11.95 for shipping! Now Grace Company sells quilting frames and they probably have standard shipping rates. For a large thing, $11.95 is probably a good price, but for a little thing like the True Grips, $11.95 is not so good. Even shopping crazy person that I can be, I didn’t buy them.

I asked Julie to buy them. And she did. She will post them in her store soon and you can buy them for your non-Creative Grids rulers!

BTW, Intrepid Thread Julie is being (or was) interviewed on Quilter in the Gap podcast.

Adrianne pointed me to a blog post about pricing handmade goods at the Ink & Spindle (great name, huh?). Definitely food for thought.

Out & About
Another new quilt museum joins the growing list: the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiberarts. There was an article pointed out to me by Morna McEver Golletz, Founder, President & CEO of the International Association of Professional Quilters. If I were planning a quilt trip, I guess I would hit the IQSC first and then drive to WI to see this museum and then down towards Kentucky for the AQS museum. Of course, this trip is not only just in my head, but straight out of my head as well. I would definitely do research before I left so I would hit all the quilt museums that are popping up and coming of age.

Karey Bresenhan and her cousin, Nancy Puentes, are also starting a quilt museum in Texas.

SJMQT Badge
SJMQT Badge

This is the badge that was waiting for me when I went to the reception for my quilt at the quilt museum. I wrote about how weird (in a good way) I felt seeing my quilt on a gallery wall. This badge which clearly says ARTIST contributed to the feeling. Ever since I co-hosted Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski back in June, I have been thinking about art quilting, what it means to me and what I do. This badge was another piece in that puzzle. I keep meaning to write a blog post about my thoughts on the subject, but haven’t done it yet. What I have done is gotten back to working on a couple of art quilts. One is Kissy Fish and I am embellishing like a demon. I would really like to finish that quilt. The more I work on it, though, the more it asks for!

The Web and Social Media
I hate to be a crank, but I keep getting friend requests from people on various social media sites. This isn’t a bad thing, but I don’t know who they are or why they want to be friends. I am not a friend collector so I only want to be friends with people that I know. I always try to write a little note to the person with whom I want to be friends, even if I know them pretty well. At least they will know I am not a bot and it is really me. Am I too buttoned up?

Barbara Brackman has a wonderful Wedding Ring quilt on her blog post about the Quilt Complex. It is a wedding ring with a twist. I can see it being the type of idea that the Modern Quilters would run with. In a way, it reminds me of the more complex version of the Single Girl quilt.

Moda is having a Country Fair blog hop. I have dipped in and out, but haven’t made it a habit. Today I happened upon Barbara Brackman’s blog. It must be BB week for me! She had a chicken potholder project included in her Moda County Fair Blog post. She said that she “made several in different fabrics.” BB is very much into repros, which is not really my style. When I saw the chickens, I immediately thought of pink polka dots. I wonder how friends would like pink polka dotted chicken potholders for the entertainment value not for the decorating value! 😉

Media & Quilt World News
The Alliance for American Quilts needs volunteers at Houston to interview quiltmakers for a forthcoming book. Contact them if you can help out.

Dear Podcasters,
Please interview Ruthann from Mirkwood Designs, Toni from Silly Chick Designs and Jennifer from Patchwork and Pacifiers so we can find out how they are doing. Thank you, J.

I have been listening to some new podcasts just to expand my repertoire. I don’t really need anymore, because I am, once again, filling my iPod with audiobooks. I have found that there are things I like about podcasts and things that I don’t like:

  • I don’t mind rambling and hearing a bit about the podcaster’s life
  • I dislike self deprecation
  • I dislike needless apologies about the length of the episode; just make it however long it is, that is why I have a stop button
  • I don’t need a music intro, but it is nice when people have them
  • I like it when the podcaster introduces him/herself and says the name of the podcast. The date is nice, too, but not a requirement
  • I don’t like podfading. It worries me and makes me wish the podcasters would just say they don’t want to take the time for recording anymore
  • I like hearing opinions, though not so much about politics or religion
  • I like hearing about what you like, the products you use and the fabrics that make your heart sing
  • Thank you for introducing me to new designers and websites

And podcasters….I really appreciate the time and energy you put into your episodes. Keep up the good work!

I am interested in the new Kindle Fire. I really liked the post on the Stash Blog about books as objects, especially her quote from Anna Quindlen about building enough bookshelves.

Various & Sundry 2011 #17

I was so thrilled at the response I received to my last Various & Sundry post that I am excited to start this one. I really appreciate the comments you leave and I do read all of them. One person didn’t agree with me on some points and I appreciated hearing her viewpoints, especially since she disagreed nicely and didn’t imply that I am an idiot! 😉

Projects

Attack of the Hexies
Attack of the Hexies

Attack of the Hexies is still going strong, though I think people are silently sewing them together. Sew Excited posted some tips on her blog that I thought were useful, especially for people who don’t sew in blobs, but like to sew in rows.

Pam over at Hip to be a Square podcast also posted about working on her hexagons. I thought about working on my hexagon piece over the weekend, but was derailed by the Food Quilt. She said she will win the race. I didn’t know there was a race, but I am already ahead.

Tools
Janome came out with a new machine over the weekend, The Horizon Memory Craft 12000. I would love to get one of those in the mail, kind of like the review books I sometimes receive, so that I could review it. I don’t think the machine actually hit the stores until October 1 and I didn’t pay attention to the launch party on Saturday, so I don’t know all the features and details. It looks like a hybrid between the Memory Craft 11K and the Horizon. I always thought I would buy another Janome for a lot of reasons, but after my recent servicing drama, I am not so sure. I have to be fair, though. I don’t know how much of the issues were the age of the machine vs. technician error. Buying a new machine isn’t in my future for at least the next 8 years, so the point is moot. It will be interesting to see what machines are available in the next 8-9 years!

Adrianne, over at Little Bluebell has posted a great post on color palette tools. While some of the tools are quite sophisticated and require special software, most are readily available to you on the web. Check out her post and expand your color horizons!

Media
Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood, Craftsanity interview maven gets interviewed n Petit Purls blog. Check out the post. I love the weaving loom photo. The paper envelope/book project Jennifer has on the CraftSanity site has, as Anne Shirley would say, lots of scope for imagination.

As if SeamedUp, Creating the Hive (slightly different) and My Sewing Circle weren’t enough, now we have Tomspoolery! They have a pink and green brand and launched in beta on 9/6. I read over the welcome message, which I thought was well done. How is this crazy competition going to shake out?

Other Artists
Camille Roskelley is part of the Moda County Fair blog hop. Her post was on 9/9. Her family has the most gorgeous skin! I love the colors of her blog. If she posted 5 times a day, I wouldn’t get tired of looking at the polka dot chair and the aqua she uses. Anyway, the post shows all the blocks she has made for the Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-Long and I love them. I want them. I don’t want to make them, but I want hers! I know I went back and forth about making them. Blocks are always tempting for me, but I just can’t devote the time right now.

Various & Sundry 2011 #16

CPP Responses
Danny Gregory doesn’t truly respond to the Creative Prompt, but his drawings can provide inspiration. He took his son, Jack, Paris and has posted wonderful drawings of their time there. Do not be intimidated. Be inspired. Strive to draw every day so you can achieve something like his drawings in the future. Everyone is creative and it just takes practice. Danny has been drawing for a long time and you can get there, too, if you put in the time to practice (like, say, responding to the Creative Prompt every week!).

Quilting (in the sense of stitching layers)
I got some bad news this week. My quilter has a pretty major family emergency and won’t be returning for the foreseeable future. She lives part time near me and part time in Alaska. She had planned to quilt Stars for San Bruno #2 and Pavers when she returned from this quick trip. She sent me and email and apologized and I feel so terrible for her. The new grandson is great and she is great. Other things, which are not mine to disclose. For the moment, I am leaving the quilts at her shop until I decide what to do. What that means for me is that I have to find someone who can quilt Pavers and the SfSB quilts. I am pretty particular about who quilts my quilts and what they quilt on it. My quilter doesn’t charge extra for ‘custom’ quilting. That is what she does, so I think I am a bit spoiled. I don’t want Pantographs and I want someone with experience who can work with me to complete my vision. It is possible that I will go back and longarm the SfSB quilt myself, though not ideal. What a mess. She makes my quilt life so easy and now it is so much harder. Sigh.

Other Artists
Lil Sissy has a lot of new work up on her site, A Paper Addict. Most of it is not paper, but she is doing some nice work. She has a variety up there.

Pretty By Hand has a gorgeous messenger bag posted on her blog. It looks very similar to Candy Glendenning’s messenger bag pattern, but I don’t think Pretty By Hand used Candy’s pattern. The zipper looks particularly good.

Speaking of Candy’s messenger bag pattern, I have been working on reading through the directions and it is really a great pattern. I love the way she has outlined the cutting and distinguished the pieces. Why am I not sewing this pattern? It calls for home dec fabric. I have to see what I have in the closet and then decide whether I am going to buy more or make another trip to FabMo.

Fabric
I loving the Pure Elements solids by Pat Bravo! As mentioned, I am using them for the A-B-C Challenge with BAMQG. I cut up the Cozumel colorway and it goes sooooo well with the Festival Fuschia colorway (I think; it is hard to tell with solids). You can take a look at the colorways on Pat’s site.

I just finished The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking by Jane Brocket (look for a review soon). I was already in love with Philip Jacobs work, but now I am in a Philip Jacobs frenzy. I have been looking at all of his designs and fabrics. I’d like to go to his house in Dorset and meet him, see his fabric barn and get to know him. He would probably call the police, but fantasies are free and not scary. I especially like the Delphiniums, which QuiltHome.com has in 3 colorways.

I am trying hard not to buy more fabric. I don’t want to say I am on a fabric diet, because that will send me on a binge, but I want to sew through some fabric before replacing it (cut and sewed a half yard yesterday, which is a good thing). I think this weekend will be the weekend I finally make the sewing machine cover and I just may use some Philip Jacobs fabric! Still, I love those Delphiniums and wish I had a large space where I could hang lengths of them. Perhaps I could Modge Podge lengths of fabric to one of my walls? My workroom needs a serious makeover and this idea might kill two birds with one stone.

SeamedUp Logo
SeamedUp Logo

Media
Are you on SeamedUp? SeamedUp is a site that allows you to track your fabric, patterns, and books. Once you have your sewing room populated, you can share your works in progress, UFOs and finished projects with other members. The site is very much in beta, but Allison and Brye are working all the time on improving it. One of the things I like is that they are working with the quilt industry companies to get fabrics, books, patterns, etc into their database. Sanctioned information – not right-click-and-save-image-as information. They are constantly recruiting for volunteers to help populate the fabric database. Currently, they would like people to add information about patterns (not a scan of the pattern!) from current magazines to their pattern database. That is a great idea! How many times have you thought to yourself: “now where did I see that pattern recently” as the current stack of magazines next to your bed falls over? I received a notice that they had just added books to their offerings. The other thing I like is that they respond to member suggestions. There is a companion podcast (available for subscription on iTunes) where they interview a member and talk about tech updates, their own projects, member projects etc. It is a nice addition to the whole SeamedUp world.

I have added many of my projects, though not all. I started adding them randomly and now have to be careful not to add something twice! DUH! I should have been more organized, but I wasn’t. It is fun to get a wider audience to my projects and I add links to my blog in order to drive traffic here. Not sure if it works, but one can hope. I have to figure out how to add fabrics to an existing project. That is confounding me at the moment. The SeamedUp girls have a fundraising campaign going on right now at IndieGoGo. This is an opportunity for you to be a venture capitalist. Forget the guys in suits in Silicon Valley; you, in your sewing room in your pajamas, can be a venture capitalist. They have prizes, too. If everyone of the over 2K members gave $5, the system would be faster, SeamedUp would have much, much more money than they need right now to upgrade the servers and the free site for quiltmakers would get a huge shot in the arm. Go over and give your $5.

Where SeamedUp is one of the good guys (girls!), I was disappointed to see the evil side of the Internet come out last week on a review of the FabricWorm/Birch Fabrics (Go to maps.google.com and search for Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles). Last year I visited Birch TWICE on my way to and from Long Beach and they couldn’t have been nicer to TFQ and me. I wrote a glowing review, because I really thought they did a great job even when we showed up in the middle of their work day and they were cutting like madwomen. I am not going to rehash my review here, but you can go and read it. Someone, whose web name is Sunnydays, wrote a decidedly un-sunny review of FabricWorm/Birch fabrics. I have never had a problem with Birch, but I am there are customer service glitches occasionally. I am also sure that Cynthia will rectify anything that is a problem. The review as vile and I suspect someone jealous of Cynthia’s success wrote it. If you have good customer service experience with FabricWorm/Birch fabrics, do go and write a review (Go to maps.google.com and search for Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles) telling people about it. If you have had a bad experience, please call Cynthia and give her a chance to rectify before you trash her woman-owned, small business.

I saw a notice posted on Big tent that Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner podcast had made a video of her sewing room. I am always interested in where other people sew, so I took a look. It is a long video (12+ min), but I still thought it was interesting to see her set up.

Take a look at the Hasty Quilter. Very nice photography and great description of her projects.

Someone sent me an article from the Alameda Patch about a woman who sold her fabric stash recently to raise $10,000 for the Alameda Food Bank. I am pretty sure I recognize her name from EBHQ. I just found out that one of my relatives can only afford one meal a day on her income (she just gets Social Security) and I know that she hasn’t always made the best decisions (who does?), but she doesn’t deserve to not have food. I am going to send her a care package. The article made me think of all the people who will be “fed from fabric!”

I have been thinking of asking other publishers to put me on their review list. I was talking to a person who works at one such company and she said that they send out the ebook version to reviewers. I am not sure I want to sit at my computer and read a book. I do a lot of reading online for work and really cherish the time I get to lay on the couch and read a real book. I suppose I could read such a book on one of my mobile devices, but it doesn’t seem as appealing. I am going back to the drawing board and thinking before I send out any letters.

You can get a nice view of some of the artwork in Masters Art Quilts v.2 over on the Lark Crafts site. I really enjoy working with Amanda on the reviews and giveaways. She is really nice and makes me wish there was such an organization in San Francisco that would hire me to work for them. A girl can dream.

Various & Sundry 2011 #15

I do like these various and sundry posts. I feel a sense of freedom when I write them. I don’t have be terribly organized, magnificently coherent or make all the words relate to each other. I can’t point you in various directions and send you off on journeys, hoping you will return and tell me what you think.

The weekend of the 6th saw a huge event in NYC to support the Alliance for American Quilts. they are having an event called Quilters Take Manhattan. I think all of the unexpected hoopla surrounding Infinite Variety gave new life to quilts as art. All of the quilting glitterati were there and I followed the action as best I could from 3k miles away. Some blog posts I saw about this were:

In the course of following the events, I was pointed to Marianne Fons blog. I like her writing style and hearing about her family. She is a sensitive writer who records her observations in a delightful way. In a way, she reminds me of Rosamunde Pilcher, my personal gold standard for descriptive writing. She writes about her personal life and family, but doesn’t give too much away, but she does write about her daughter, Mary’s, illness a bit, which I had only heard about in passing. I was curious, of course, but such a thing is none of my business, so I wouldn’t ask, even if I had someone to ask.

Marianne, in turn, pointed me to Mary Fons blog, which I will look at and, perhaps, add to my blog reader.

Media
I saw that a show called Why Quilts Matter will be coming to PBS in the Fall. I am looking forward to watching it. The website has a video trailer. It is 9 part documentary in which Shelly Zegart is heavily involved. A lot of the people in the trailer are from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I wonder if Frances will be able to take advantage of any lectures or anything? 😉 There are a lot of other contributors as well. I checked my Tivo and the show isn’t yet listed, but I have a ‘quilts’ keyword search, so, hopefully, it will come up in that search.

Stitched, the movie, came out a few months ago and I still haven’t seen that. My libraries don’t have it yet and I am not a Netflix member.

I think there is something to be said for quilt companies to be small businesses, well any companies really. I am not enamored with large companies right at the moment. Small businesses seem to care more about their customers, though that is a generalization and a stereotype and I know it is not always true. The ones that have been taken over by larger companies, such as Fons & Porter, have become impersonal and don’t really seem to care about their customers. Fons & Porter is now owned by New Track Media LLC, which is further owned by a person and a private equity firm. They also own Quilter’s Club of America, Keepsake Quilting, QNM and others. What is their interest in quiltmaking? Money, I am guessing.

I watched one of the Fons & Porter episodes #1201 on the Spin Wheel quilt project (definitely a repeat), which said that the updated directions for using the hexagon ruler and their pyramid ruler to make the Spin Wheel with these tools would be available on their website. I bought the DVD with the pattern from the magazines, both rulers and went looking for the adjunct instructions. They weren’t on the website. I searched over and over to no avail, so I contacted customer service. The customer service people (called Answer54) were diligent, but supremely unhelpful. They had canned responses and I became more frustrated as it became clear that my question did not fit into their list of responses. Somehow I was transferred to Keepsake Quilting and the person contacted me and responded to me several times, but ultimately didn’t have the instructions. I also posted on their FB fan page. No response. I can make the block without that adjunct sheet of instructions, but it just seems so lame of them not to be able to find a sheet of instructions. I guess New Track thinks of their quilting properties as cash cows. This seemed like a simple request: M&L said the adjunct instructions were on the website, they are not on the website, please send them to me. I guess New Track Media thinks their brands are so awesome that they don’t have to provide customer service. Customer Service is everything, New Track. Get with the program.

SeamedUp is having a fundraiser (you, too, can be a venture capitalist!) to get more server space and a bunch of other stuff. They are a small, women owned company. Only one person has contributed, as of this writing, which is kind of sad. If all of the almost 2000 people who are members contributed $5 that would be $10,000, which is much more than their goal. Go for it and if you are not a member, join up! You can read more about their plans, the campaign and everything SeamedUp on their blog

Tools, Books  and Supplies
I bought a new iron when I was out shopping for the Young Man’s school uniform parts. It is the most expensive iron I have ever bought – $29.99. I figured I should splurge since I have two in the closet downstairs that were cheap and, clearly, not up to my pressing needs once I got them out of the box and heated up.  It is really nice to have steam again. I also like this iron, because it doesn’t beep at me all the time. I need many fewer irritating beeps in my life.

Did you enter the book giveaway I announced earlier this week? Check it out!

Are you interested in how thread is made? Coats & Clark made a video which I saw on AllPeopleQuilt.com.

BryeLynn of SeamedUp and Sew~Stitch~Create did a review of the Frixion pen. It is really nice when someone else does the heavy lifting for you!

Learning
As I have mentioned a few times, I have helped to organize a class at Always Quilting on August 27, 2011, 10-4. It will be taught by Lynn Koolish of C&T fame. It is open to everyone though the BAMQG and CQFA folks have had a headstart on sign ups. The class is now on the shop’s website. You can register via the website or by calling their shop at (650) 458-8580. Hope to see you there!

ArtQuilt Tahoe is coming around again. There are still some great teachers available. If you are able to attend and haven’t taken a class from Libby Lehman, sign up immediately. She is a wonderful teacher – giving, not stuck up, a great presenter, personable. I’d like to go sometime, but this isn’t the year. I’d love to hear about it, if you attend.

Projects
Hooded towels are very popular in our house. The Young Man thinks about things in the show and likes to tell me about them when he emerges from bathing. They are great to wrap up in on cold bath/shower nights when bathrobes are too fussy. The hooded towels have the added bonus of drying the hair with very little effort. They are harder to find as children get taller. I saw a tutorial for a hooded towel. For larger children, I would use two towels. Use a very sharp needle when sewing the two towels together, so you don’t break a needled or jam up your machine. Since you may be having the same issue, I thought I would share.

Yesterday, I posted about the gift I made for Grama. I took it to show a friend visiting from New Zealand and realized I hadn’t done the topstitching from the top hem to the bottom corners. DUH!. It would really help if I read the directions once in a while!

Last week (?) I posted the finished Kona Challenge quilt. Yesterday I saw a blog post about the responses to the challenge from the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild. Some of them remind me of Angela’s Kona Challenge quilt (which she was binding at the last meeting!!!)

Chair Pillowcase
Chair Pillowcase

Due to my ongoing machine issues, I am working on easy projects, or projects that don’t require complicated piecing. The Jem just can’t handle it. I bought some more of the Tufted Tweets chair fabric when I went to New Pieces the other week and cut out a pillowcase to go with the purple quilt. I sewed the whopping 3 seams it took to put the thing together and will send it off this week, hopefully.

Other Artists
I had heard about Claudia’s blog, Machen und Tun from Frances, but had never gone to look at it until I saw one of her quilts in the Quilting….for the Rest of us Flickr group. She is a working on the Attack of the Hexies project and is doing a wonderful red and white color scheme. Why didn’t I think of that? I went to her most recent post (8/4/2011) and was thrilled to see a, mostly, aqua and red sampler quilt. If you scroll down she shows some more blocks and the whole effect is quite wonderful. She talks about looking at the Fresh Lemons Summer Sampler Series blocks inspiring her, but also encouraging her to go off in her own direction. She might select different blocks that weren’t as difficult or required no paper piecing. She also talks about making the blocks a little differently to make them her own. What a great idea for inspiration! I noticed a circle tutorial, which looks very similar to the Dale Fleming method. The other thing about her blog is that she writes in English and German. This is great practice for me. Thanks, Claudia! Her blog is definitely worth looking at.

Angela has posted over 240 photos of quilts from the UK Festival of Quilts. She posted the photos in a Smilebox format on Creating the Hive, so you can scroll through them fairly easily.

Life

Really good reminder of how the inner ambivalence can affect outer life.
Amplify’d from stillmansays.com

Art therapy? How do you connect your anti-passions to your passions? And when you are talking about passion you must talk about Jesus at some point anyway. Look, Jesus didn’t know what magazines were so lets cut him some slack here. Lots of people’s coffee tables are cluttered, so maybe that was a lucky guess. But her violent reaction to it mirrored her real frustration with her job situation. Her inner and outer, as far as she understood them were the same – even though it was hidden to her. What I offered her gave her a chance to actually take the advice from Jesus above and expand her vision of herself and experience entry into a new kingdom.

Read more at stillmansays.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1b5k7

 

Various & Sundry 2011 #14

Save 20% this week from Cafe Press using the code TA0802. You can buy from any shop, but especially the Artquiltmaker Store. 😉

Learning
Everyone on the web seems to be way better at Photoshop Elements than I am. My friend, La, tries to give me little tips, but I forget by the time I get home. As result, I have helped to organize a class at Always Quilting on August 27, 2011, 10-4 and is taught by Lynn Koolish of C&T fame. It is open to everyone though the BAMQG and CQFA folks have had a two week headstart on sign ups. The class is now on the shop’s website. You can register via the website or by calling their shop at (650) 458-8580. Hope to see you there!

I was listening to an episode of Creative Mojo the other day (via podcast) and Mark was interviewing Patrick Doughty, an artist whose medium is sticks. I wasn’t terribly interested in the work, but find that I can always learn something. He said something really profound in response to a question about getting stuck. He said (paraphrasing) that it takes time to get into the groove of creating. He creates every day or only takes short breaks. this helps him not to have to get back into the groove, because he is already in the groove. This is a really important part of how I work. I think, write or read about quiltmaking every day I cannot be at the sewing machine. I cut, press, fold and organize fabric when I can’t sew (like last week when my machine was getting services). Every other time, I sew. I am always in the groove, because my work is in the forefront of my mind.  I do get stuck on projects, but then I move to another project or cut, press, fold and organize my fabric.

Quilt-a-Longs
I think I talked about the Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-Long. There are a lot of blog posts, discussions and projects blooming out of it. I saw on the ModaLissa site that the United Notions people are having a Hen Party (go read the post) that also has to do with FWQAL. Perhaps I do need to jump in…meaning ‘need’ in the broadest and most non-committal sense of the word.

Camille Roskelley of the gorgeous red dotted chair blog, ok the Simplify blog, has posted another group of her Farmer’s Wife blocks. I love them! Perhaps I do like grey after all. I think I have get out my Ultimate 3-in-1 color tool and see what I can learn from her color scheme.

How about my Block-a-Long? Have you made any blocks? Let’s see them? Are they boring?

Color
I am reading a book (review soon-ish) and I realized the author was not doing complicated piecing, but was creating complex color stories to tell in the form of a quilt. I am intrigued by this concept, especially after working on FOTY 2011. I ran across the Michael Miller site, which is doing color stories every week also. During the week of July 20 they had an aqua and red color way, which you know I love.

Media
I am feeling like Miss (Ms?) Popularity lately. I never was one of the cool kids at school so I am not quite sure how to handle it. I was recently interviewed on episode 2 of the SeamedUp podcast. It was fun to talk to the SeamedUp ‘girls’ and get to talk about design a little bit, my blog and life a little bit. They produce their podcast in a very professional way, I think, but laugh a lot along the way.

I was listening to a recent Annie Smith episode and heard about Cori Blunt. I took a look at her website and blog. Her drawings are really sweet, I especially like her bike pillow. Of course, I probably wouldn’t do any of those quilts, but I can admire them. I do like the way she did the sashing around the star blocks in the Cherry Tweets quilt. Very clever.

In conjunction with her episode #166, Amy of Creative Mom Podcast post GORGEOUS pictures of stairs with mosaics on the risers. Even if you don’t listen to her podcast (which you should!), go take a look at these photos. They are wonderful and make me want to do some mosaic work on my stairs.

I think I heard about GenerationQ magazine from Adrianne at some point in the not so distant past. I was reintroduced to it last week via an article they did on smartphone quilting apps. There are two that are interesting to me. One is block pattern app similar in concept to Around the Block, one of the most useful books in my library. The other, which constantly made me think of TFQ is the Fabric Stash by Blueshift Software app. She needs this app. This one does not get high marks, but the writers say that the portion where you can document your fabric stash works really well. It seems easy to photograph your fabric and keep it handy on your phone when I go shopping, especially for projects like the Food Quilt where I am trying to get one piece of many different fabrics. it is on the pricey side for apps, but it may be worth trying out. Now to get Blueshift together with SeamedUp so I can zap my fabric from my phone straight into SeamedUp. That would be awesome (at least in my head).

Other Artists

Lil Sissy passed on a  good blog post from Kelly Rae Roberts. I think it worth reading and keeping in mind. Short version: there is a time to dream and a time to savor.

Vicki posted an Art Saves story on Crescendoh. I didn’t know about those stories until I saw a link on Vicki’s site and happened to click on it. Very interesting. I like the stories.

Fabric

Last week, Julie of The Intrepid Thread post some photos of new fabrics in her shop. She posted:

  • Sweet Treats http://fb.me/16eeAMWIt
  • Licorice Cloud http://fb.me/SdMcvn79
  • Cotton Candy http://fb.me/wwGp0deq
  • Sapphire http://fb.me/Ez55AJPA
  • Ruby http://fb.me/TwMwQ24o
  • Citrine http://fb.me/160LGuNQ8

They were some fabrics I saw when I was on my quilt journey a few weeks ago. When I saw them at New Pieces I thought that I couldn’t possibly use such fabrics, but when I saw the pictures Julie posted, I thought they might be fine if I cut them up. Is there a meeting point between fussy cutting and strip piecing that would allow the beauty of some of the larger motifs to come through? What do you think?

Various & Sundry 2011 #13

Quilt World News
Ardis James died on July 7, 2011. She was a pioneer in the quilt collecting realm, at least in my opinion. She, and her husband, Robert, were pioneers in antique and contemporary quilt preservation as well as quiltmaking traditions. Ardis and her husband helped establish the International Quilt Study Center in Nebraska. Thank you, Ardis, for your generosity. Rest in Peace.

Quilter’s Home will also die. It is being killed, actually. I am a subscriber and received an email on Friday saying subscriptions will be replaced with Quilters’ Newsletter. Sigh. I wonder if the change from Mark was just too much for people?

Out and About
A librarian friend sent me a link to an online lace museum called the Virtual Museum of Textile Arts. I am not that interested in lace, but I am interested in the history of the work of women’s hands. This is an Italian museum or related to an Italian entity, so there are some unique spellings on the site. There are multiple ways to search – by date, period, technique. I found some records and each of the records seems to have a photograph associated with it. There are videos and tutorials, which I didn’t look at.

Projects
I have a lot of projects going on, but I also have ideas swirling around in my head and supplies that suggest projects. I bought a couple of fun and cheerful charm packs recently and am mulling over making another 1-2 Chubby Charmers. My hesitation has a couple of stems:

  • how many Chubby Charmers does one person need?
  • are there quilts or other projects that would interest me enough to use for the charm packs? If so, what are they?

I posted FOTY 2010 to the “Linda M. Poole I made a quilt for me page on FB” and got a lot of nice comments about it, including one from Michele Foster of Quilt Gallery fame. She pointed me to a page on her site showing the designs for the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia that look similar to my just finished FOTY. Trendsetting, again?

C&T Publishing had an interesting bag project posted on their site (I actually saw it on Creating the Hive). I like the shape of the bag.

I have started to listen to Katie’s Quilting Corner Podcast. I like her confidence and it is fun to hear what other people are doing. Katie has a good way of organizing her show notes with her podcasts. This comment could be down int he Media section, but one project that I really liked was Katie’s Mondo Bag. It is a postage stamp sort of design and I really liked the shape.

Fresh Lemons Summer Sampler Series
Fresh Lemons Summer Sampler Series

And, if the Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt-a-Long and the various other quilt-a-longs going on in the summer weren’t enough, Fresh lemons and two friends are doing a Summer Sampler Series.

Media
Frances has been suggesting the Crafty Garden Mom podcast for months and I have been resisting. Before I left, I thought I would need some extra listening so I downloaded an episode and listened to it. As I said in a previous post: Love it! I just listened to a few more episodes and they are equally as good. Tanesha is a good storyteller.

Did you sign up for the Giveaway from Lark Crafts? It is still going on, but you do have to follow the rules.

I was desperate for some podcasts, so I downloaded a few from the Pioneer Quilter. One was an interview with Leah Day. I really learned a nice amount about her work and her site as well as the products she offers. I was interested to hear about how she works. There was a lot of background noise and a pretty big disparity in the loudness of Kelley’s voice and Leah’s voice, which meant I had to have the sound very loud to hear Leah and then I would get my ears blasted when Kelley asked a question. There was also some repetitive thumping int he background and occasionally some jangling that distracted me. I know next to nothing about podcasting. I greatly admire podcasters who take time away from their quilting to podcast. I love hearing about people’s projects. I do find that the sound is important, though and hope that Kelley will go back and see if she can edit this podcast a bit. I the information is excellent and the sound problems distract from that.

Fabric

Intrepid Thread fabric
Intrepid Thread fabric

I didn’t realize (well, I probably did, somewhere in the back of my mind, know it was a possibility and just didn’t think about it) that I could get myself into trouble with fabric just by attending a BAMQG meeting. Well, now I know. 😉 Angela bought a healthy stack of fabrics from the Intrepid Thread. Since Julie attends the meetings, she brought the stack to the meeting. You know how I am attracted to bright colors and shiny objects (magpie principle), so I had to take a look. I really prefer to see the fabrics than to buy them sight unseen online. Above are the fabrics that I bought. The conversationals were little treats that Julie included with my package. Have you seen how Julie wraps up her sales? It is like receiving a gift. I don’t need to receive my fabric that way, but it does make me feel special. 😉

Intrepid Thread Packaging
Intrepid Thread Packaging

Business
I really did update my Cafe’ Press store. I enlarged the selection of products and changed the image on the Jacket, cards, and tote bags to the FOTY 2010 image. Yes, a jacket! Don’t you want to wear a quilt around? I think I am going to buy one to see how it fits. If you missed the Seeing Red products, sorry, but I did warn you. I need to pay for high school so I hope you will take a look at what I have to offer. Thanks!

When I received a Kindle as a gift, I bought a cover from Elizabeth David Designs and really like it. She recently sent out a free shipping notification, so you might want to check out her Etsy Shop. She is using some lovely fabrics for her covers.

Hexagons
And for your hexagon inspiration: This little mini quilt is from Malka Dubrowsky.

Now go forth and be inspired to do great work!

Various & Sundry 2011 #12

Hexagons
I saw a hexagon cushion pattern by Lori Holt after listening to one of Annie Smith’s podcasts. The fabric choices are appealing – lots of dots – but I also like the red plaid (gingham?). I am not sure about pompoms, though.

I also saw a lot of great hexagon quilts and tile designs on Flickr. BariJ is making one from the Lecien group I am using for my hexagon.

Be*mused has a lovely hexagon with a striking black path between the Grandmother’s Flower Garden arrangement of hexagons.

Making Blocks
There has been a lot of talk in my quilt circles recently about making blocks – challenge via BAMQG, Farmer’s Wife Sampler, Lovey blocks, etc. Last month at BAMQG we talked about our obsessions and I mentioned that blocks are my obsession. Frankly, I couldn’t think of what quilt obsession I had and that seemed to be a good one. That resulted in a number of people asking me about block dictionaries and other books about blocks. I am really surprised that more people don’t know about books like Around the Block or have EQ software. I guess I shouldn’t be, but Around the Block is my go to block book when I need to make some quilt blocks. It has a number of blocks and tells me, in clear instructions how to make each block in a number of different sizes. The publisher has compiled this book and its two sequels into one large book called 501 Rotary Cut Quilt Blocks. I would highly recommend this book (or the three that preceded it) for those of you who make blocks frequently.

Alternatively the Electric Quilt software is great. Yes, you will have to shell out some dollars, but the capabilities for this consumer software are great. You can take any of the included blocks, modify them and print out rotary or template directions. The capabilities are so vast. Plus, the technical support is really great. They are nice and friendly and will sometimes even draw blocks for you. 😉

I talked about the Farmer’s Wife Sampler that some at the BAMQG are doing. Pam, from Hip to Be a Square podcast, turned me on to the Farmer’s Wife Sampler Yahoogroup. I was giving her a bit of a hard time about paper piecing all those blocks and she said she couldn’t do it without that group. I am not a member of that group, but perhaps it is a group that will help you with your questions about the Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-Long.

And just so you are reminded that I am obsessed with blocks and Camille Roskelly’s life in my imagination, I have to say that I love LOVE love her color choices for the Farmer’s Wife Quilt-a-long.

In addition to Jinny Beyer’s new-ish book, The Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns, Piecemeal Quilts has a new post in their Skillbuilder series on block grids and drafting. they also include some info on copyright. I am suspicious of anyone posting copyright information who is not a lawyer, but I will reserve judgement as the explanation seems fairly basic and practical. Consult a lawyer (e.g. Lawyers for the Arts) if you get into trouble or have questions. Seriously. You can find the whole list of posts in the Skillbuilder Series on a separate tab. There are many ways to talk about learning quiltmaking and these women have a done a good job in explaining different skills.

PM/GC Quilts Skill Builder SeriesThe Skillbuilder ladies also have a button you can put in your sidebar. I thought I would spice things up on this text heavy post for you!

More on Market
Apparently Riley Blake designers did a paper doll quilt that was available for people visiting Market to win. There is a blog with block patterns at All Dolled Up. I have always loved paper dolls. I had a friend in grammar school who drew manga-like dolls before manga was even a word, which we made into paper dolls. I love the designs these designers have provided, but it is probably too much applique for me.

Doing Good
I guess I don’t get around the quilt world as much as I thought, because I didn’t see anything about this project over at Moda, Just One Star. They have just posted some process photos about receiving quilt blocks, squaring them up and sending the blocks back out to be made into quilts. The project is related to Quilts of Valor. They made their goal of 100 quilts in 100 days.

Fabric and Supplies
I saw this ‘color story‘ on a blog yesterday and thought I would share it. What do you think influences people’s color choices?

I was looking for the Fons & Porter Quilt Shop in Winterset, Iowa and found this cool quilt shop graphic of quilt shops in Iowa.

Lecien has an update to its Flower Sugar group, which I saw on the Hawthorne Threads site. I am not as fond of the colors as I was of the first group. They got rid of the bright blue I really liked.

I am really disappointed in the hardware available to use in making bags. Hardware on bags available to purchase is much nicer. I am particularly enamored of the hardware Sherpani uses. It is gorgeous. I want to be able to buy lovely hardware for my bags. Do you have a source?

Business
I have made a half-hearted attempt to make some money off of quiltmaking without selling my quilts or quitting my day job. Part of that was linking Amazon books and such that I liked. As you may have noticed, I removed that widget, because Amazon has kicked all Californians out of their Amazon Associates program. It has to do with collecting sales tax and reporting it to the state. You can read about it in the LA Times. I just don’t want to give them space on my blog, if they aren’t going to pay me for referrals. I may make a list of books I really like, but you can also click on the Book Reviews tag in the idea cloud and read all about exactly what I think of books I read.

 

Nota bene: I know I added a lot of links. Hope you have time to take a look. JL

Various & Sundry 2011 #11

Inspiration
A friends shared the link to this hotel with their wonderful inspirational rooms. If you want to be in a fairy tale, check out these photos.

Pattern Drafting
As you may remember, I really struggled with trying to figure out how to layout the FOTY 2010 diamond quilt. Unlike rectangular shapes, the diamonds weren’t quite as straightforward. DH helped me figure it out, so it all worked out in the end.

This topic came up again when I was back East with my SIL who now has an Accuquilt Go Baby. We were looking at the book that came with the device and the quilts were not inspiring. She wanted a chart or list of blocks she could make with each of the templates. I was thinking that this would work for those of us who cut our scraps into regular squares or triangles to have them ready for ….. something. For example, she and I (from our different points of view) would like to be able to say “I have triangles that make 2″ finished half square triangles, what can I make?” What blocks? What overall design, if applicable? What are my choice for the parts I have?”

This is related to the FOTY problem, to which I linked above, because in that case, I wanted to say “I have 340 diamonds, how big can I make a rectangular quilt?”

I searched for a chart or a list specifically related to the Accuquilt device, but couldn’t find anybody thinking that way. When I step back, I think that nobody else must think this way. Does everyone say I want to make an Ohio Star or a Lone Star or a hexagon quilt and then go from there? It seems to me that this would make scrap quiltmakers happy.

Do you know of such a chart? Have you started one?

Media
SIL bought the Jinny Beyer Perfect Piecer that I discussed a couple of weeks ago, because she is going to start on her Eye Spy quilt. It didn’t come with very comprehensive directions about the possibilities for what we could do with it. Granted, the ruler is pretty self explanatory, but we wanted to know more (do you sense a theme here? She and I feed off of each other in terms of quilt information). We went on to YouTube and saw an interesting video from Wish Upon a Quilt (bought some stuff from them recently and found their customer service to be excellent). The video was not specifically about how to use the Perfect Piecer, though the presenter did go into it a little, but we found that what information she gave was helpful in terms of looking at the Perfect Piecer. I wasn’t able to find any other videos, more comprehensive or not on using this tool, but hope that someone will make one. I have Jinny Beyer’s Handpiecing book, Quiltmaking by Hand and will look in there to see if she goes into it at all. It may also be in her puzzle balls book, Patchwork Puzzle Balls. I don’t think this ruler will help me with the Flowering Snowball, but one can dream.

My computer is declining to recognize any device plugged into a USB port. What a pain on a lot of levels, let me tell you. As a result, I wasn’t able to update my iPod before my workout on Wednesday. That meant no Sandy, Pam or Frances to whom I could listen. Fortunately, I had downloaded an episode of Crafty Garden Mom. I was reluctant to start listening even though everyone was saying what a great podcast it was as I was just reluctant to add another addiction to the list, but I was short of podcasts.  Boy, am I glad I did. I love Tanesha’s voice and content!

Other Artists
Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts had a blog post up recently about Sit Upons. Sit Upons are a Girl Scout staple project, but they are great for other uses as well. I wasn’t even thinking about these types of projects, but I am thinking about decorating. I saw these and was so taken with how professional they look, how taut they are and how nice the buttons look. I love the colors, but have to be careful, because I get them home and find that I have nothing to go with them.

Blocks and Piecing
Adrianne and other in the BAMQG are participating in the Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt-a-Long. These quilt-a-longs are so interesting to me. Back in the first days of general access to the Internet, we did swaps. I keep trying to compare that to this new phenomenon. Anyway, I was reading the blog post on this QAL written by one of the organizers. She mentioned holding her templates in place with glue stick while rotary cutting around them! I would have never thought of that. I think of drawing around templates with a pencil, Sewline or SCUF, but not actually rotary cutting around them. Very interesting.

The BAMQG is also doing a block-a-long or quilt-a-long. I am not sure which. People are making blocks that start with a letter of the alphabet-going in order- and then they will make a sampler. Some are using the Farmer’s Wife book and other are just using block books and Quilter’s Cache. Camille Roskelly is doing the Farmer’s Wife QAL and I love her blocks. I wish they were mine. I haven’t decided if I am going to make the blocks, but if I do they will be in the same colors as CR’s.

Various & Sundry 2011 #10

Mentions and Accolades

My post about the Maker Faire was a featured post on Creating the Hive. It is easy to deal with, because the posts I write here are automatically shared there. Yes, people may see some duplication, but I get a whole different audience there. Are you a member of Creating the Hive? I’ll send you an invite if you want one.

My Sketchbook from the Sketchbook Project has been digitized. You can see it at: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/637. I was able to page through it, but let me know if you are able to do so. Regular readers will recognize the drawings. 😉

Sandy wrote a great review of the Quilter’s Academy v.1 book that I reviewed some weeks ago. She, kindly, built on the review I wrote, which I really appreciate.

Fabric Requirements?

I saw this tool for calculating fabric requirements. I have no idea if it works even though I tried it for hexagons. I just have no frame of reference for using the tool. What do you think?

Robert Kaufman also has a fabric calculator for the Android Market. I don’t have an Android, so I haven’t tried it. Perhaps Sandy will do a review?

Other Artists

Danny Gregory is a writer and journal artist. He did some podcast with artists who were featured in one of his books. I really liked those podcasts, because they talked about creative process, tools and journals. He put a recent blog post that really spoke to me. In it he says “We don’t just want a pat on the head; we want connection, reaction, insight, something that makes us see what we made in a newer light or on a deeper plain.” I try not to want this, but I have to admit that even if I don’t want approval, I do want that connection and a conversation to start. He also says “The true value of acknowledgment isn’t registered in the ego; it’s the opposite, a breaking down of the barriers between creator and audience so that we can unite in a shared appreciation of something that lends beauty and meaning to the grinding metronome of the day. We see a glimpse of the heavens together, a view that appeared to one of us first but is now a canopy over us all.
It’s even true of a joke, a shared laugh, the quick bark of recognition that our minds thought alike, we saw the other’s insight….” It seems to be all about connection.

I took a look at Leah Day site again when mom and I were talking about free motion quilting. She just bought a Flynn Frame so I showed her the site. What I didn’t realize is that Leah has great videos on her site. They are professional, but not slick. They come across as a friend genuinely wanting to share information with another friend. I was inspired.

Nina Johansson is a Swedish artist who does really great drawings. See. Be. Draw had an interview with her recently. Nina is the artist whose coffee cup drawing I adore.

Dan Rouse is a quiltmaker whose blog I found through the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild. He has a great post on pieced circles (just say yes!) on his WIP Wednesday post.

Exhibits and Such

Lisa Call has put up a Squidoo site about Quilt National 2011, which opened last week at the Dairy Barn.

The ‘and such’ part is SeamedUp. Quiltin’ Jenny posted a great interview with the Queen of Everything, Allison Rosen. Quiltin’ Jenny had a great series of posts earlier this year/ late last year (??) about cleaning out various rooms of her house. It was very inspiring and made it seem doable.

Here is a gallery of quilts from Quilts Inc. Who will Pinterest them?

Oops

I have been looking at spelling lately, especially the apostrophe problem, and shaking my head. I found a doosie in a Quilt Market Report today. Not just in the text, but as part of printed signage. I see this as a sign that the apostrophe will be gone before 10 years are over. Sigh.

I am not immune. A kind reader pointed out a date error on one of my recent posts. Thank you! Please feel free to kindly point out spelling errors and such. I want my blog to be the best it can be and am only human.

Various & Sundry 2011 #9

Cafe Press Store

I am getting ready to change out all of the designs on the items in the store. If you want any of the Seeing Red items, now is the time to get them. You know you need that iPad cover. 😉

Supplies & Patterns

I never think to look at Nancy’s Notions for quilting supplies. Not sure why. I saw an update from her on FB and checked a new product she rolled out at Quilt Market. I also looked around at her rulers and such. She has a nice selection of what looks like innovative tools and rulers.

I am sort of interested in needle felting – not actually doing it, but knowing about it and seeing other people do it. I thought this project for a felted iPad cover was a good idea. Useful as well appropriate pattern for the materials.

Fabric

Michael Miller has posted all of their new lines of fabric. They also have an Aqua Red line that includes the Little Plain Jane flower print that I am using on my latest sampler.  I may also buy more of the aqua with the red dots. I love the cheerfulness of that fabric design.

Rouge et Noir looks like it also has some nice prints. I see some of them becoming bags.

Aqua Queen Street
Aqua Queen Street

In both of the lines I have mentioned, I see Michael Miller reusing designs, which I think it is a good idea. I still would like Windham to reissue Botanical Pop in the turquoise colorway. They might have missed their chance, because I am really liking the aqua/turquoise with white dot print in the Queen Street line (above or bottom row, 3rd from left in this photo). I also like the red, which is from the Moda Bliss line.

Michael Miller has spread dots all over their new lines. They have included some of the ‘dumb dots’ (dumb name, IMO) and the Ta Dots in their various new lines. I consider those dots to be staples and am glad to see them reappearing. I will have to search hard in the new lines to ‘replenish’ my supply. 😉

I keep hearing that grey is in for the new season of fabric. I don’t think I am buying into it. I live in the fog. Weeks can go by when I don’t see the sun and the last thing I need is more fog in my workroom.

Did anyone see anything new from Martha Negley at Quilt Market?

Quilt World News

Quilt Market has come and gone. Again I did not attend. I followed along via Twitter, which was ok. The Fat Quarter Shop posted tons of candid shots and that was fun. Stop Staring and Start Sewing has a great blog post recap about it-one of the best I have seen. Camille Roskelly also posted a nutshell recap. There is a great picture of her booth and I just love the colors. I can’t get enough of them. Front and center is a tray of Ruby charm packs. I think I have to get one. Lots of fabulous aqua and red photos in Camille’s post. Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio has a wonderful recap. She posts pictures, but also talks about the trends. Her post feeds my intellectual curiosity about the quilt industry.

C&T publishing, and their Stash imprint, was featured in an article about their phenomenal growth in a difficult industry. YAY C&T/Stash!

I have to admit that I was disappointed in the recent blog list in Quilter’s Home magazine. I like the idea of the 50 best blogs or whatever, but was disappointed (a) because mine wasn’t in there and (b) because most of the blogs were the same old, same old. I have to be honest. I work hard on my blog and it would be nice to see it show up in one of these lists sometime. Still, that isn’t the reason I write this blog, so fine, I am moving on. The other thing, though, is that the blogs they featured are great blogs: good info, gorgeous photos. There isn’t anything wrong with the blogs, but they are the popular blogs. The writers/editors didn’t have to work to make a new and innovative list.

Getting the Word Out

I am excited that another one of my posts, Hooked on Hexagons, was featured on Creating the Hive. This is my fourth post to be featured on Creating the Hive. Creating the Hive is another space for people to talk about their art. Lisa of LisaLizaLou invited me to join. If you want an invitation, let me know.

The other great news is that FOTY 2010 will be hung at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. How did I do it? I just sent in a picture for one of their shows. I am pretty excited. I finished putting the binding on, but have to get the sleeve on that baby and then I can consider it done and will show it here.

Various & Sundry 2011 #8

Patterns and Projects

Julie, over at the Intrepid Thread, has created a tutorial for an iPad bag in conjunction with Cutting Corners. Aside from the bag being cheerful, I like the directions. There are a ton of photos and the words are pretty clear. This is a long tutorial, so put a new ink cartridge in if you plan on printing it.

I bought a gift of fabric from Julie and she was kind enough to offer to include a card. She sent the fabric out in a timely manner as well. Great service.

Quilts & Shows

The 2011 AQS Show winners are posted.

I love this quilt. It was part of the Red and White show in NYC. Don’t you love the different borders? I might make one.

Media

I was listening to Creative Talk Radio with Pat Sloan recently. She had an interview with Joanna Figueroa, which was about a half an hour long. I really enjoyed hearing about her and about her new project with Quilts & More magazine. It starts with the April issue. I will have to seek out that magazine and see what it is about. Pat also had an interview with Eleanor Burns on that same episode as well as the news that she is moving her podcast to the AllPeopleQuilt.com website.

As a result of the podcast, I decided to try out the Fig Tree Quilts Fresh Vintage subscription for awhile. They called me to get some payment information and Joanna Figueroa picked up the phone. What a thrill! Who cares about Brangelina!

I have purchased this publication before. TFQ and I were together when I bought issue 10 that has the fabulous Tea Basket quilt in it. I haven’t made that quilt, but still admire it. I am looking for something a little different and hope that this magazine will provide it.

Sandy of Quilting for the Rest of Us podcast has started to write some book reviews. I flatter myself that I inspired her, but I know that she wrote book reviews on some other subjects for previous jobs. Go check out one of her first books reviews.

Penguin has come out with some new editions of classics such as Black Beauty, The Secret Garden and Emma. The creative part of this everyday publishing phenomenon is that they are being released under a new imprint called Penguin Threads and the covers are hand sewn. I saw a brief article in the Atlantic that featured wonderful pictures. In the images the stitching can be seen. The colors are cheerful without being glary. There is a lot the article doesn’t say, such as how many are being made? Are they all hand stitched or only the first one? Cool, in any case.

The Quilt Index had a great Double Wedding Ring quilt up last week. The background was Nile Green – kind of a combination aqua and green – which provided a real WOW factor to this quilt. The maker really had some guts.

Linda Kemshall has a new blog. She is a UK artist who works on DMTV and Thr3fold Journal. I wrote about her, and her daughter Laura, in a blog post some time ago.

Stars for San Bruno

As you know, I finished the first quilt top and am gearing up for the second. Someone offered me some fabric and replied to my query about her being sure she wouldn’t mind sending it along to be used with a very entertaining quip: “It’s been on my shelves for a couple of years now. I figure if I haven’t even pulled it off to audition it in that time it’s better off going to a home which will make it feel much more needed and useful. I’m all about helping my fabric self-actualize.”

Trying to Do Good

I like to do charity projects that fit with my life and my interests and help people locally. You have seen me make pillowcases. I have made about a dozen so far. I finally got my act together and called the hospital to arrange a time to donate them. I left a message. A few days later, a chipper, cheerful and young woman called me back and left a message telling me they have a ready supply of pillowcases and don’t need any. She told me to take them to a town about 20 miles away. She was very nice, but I am still annoyed. I guess some hospitals are getting too much of a good thing.

Fabric

Quilted Fish Fabrics
Quilted Fish Fabrics

I have to admit that I didn’t remember buying this fabric. Also, I didn’t have a receipt for it, except what came with the fabric when it was shipped. I don’t usually purchase fabric from Fabric.com, so I was really confused.

It is very strange and has really put me off buying fabric lately. If you bought this for me, will you, please, confess so I can write you a thank you note? I also want to get over this feeling of losing my mind. Thank you!

UPDATE: I have a secret fabric fairy. Thanks, Mrs. K.!

 

Various & Sundry 2011 #7

Inspiration

I saw this photo on Camille Roskelly’s blog and couldn’t get the sentiment out of my mind. I like her blog. I like the colors and the feel. I like the look of it and the hopeful tone of the way she writes. As an added bonus, Bonnie and Camille (of the Camille referenced above) are coming out with a new fabric line called Ruby. It looks very similar to Bliss in the coloration and in a few of the motifs. I can’t see the motifs very well, but what I can see I love. I want a full half yard set of all of the prints. I have to resist.

If you haven’t looked at Nina Johansson’s blog recently, it is worth a look. Her drawings are lovely, especially some food drawings she did in Barcelona.

Exhibits

From the American Museum of Folk Art newsletter: See http://www.folkartmuseum.org/infinitevariety for more information. Thanks to TFQ for passing this along.
More than 24,000 people came to see “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts,” presented by the museum at the Park Avenue Armory last month. It was the largest exhibition of quilts ever held in New York City. Visitors from around the world filled guest books with thank-you notes expressing their gratitude to Joanna S. Rose for sharing her singular collection, and many have posted images to the museum’s Flickr group. We will upload footage of lectures and interviews to our YouTube channel soon. 

This magical but ephemeral moment will ultimately be captured in the pages of a fully illustrated catalog copublished by the American Folk Art Museum and written by Elizabeth V. Warren, guest curator of this spectacular presentation. Stay tuned for information about the publication date.

A digital guide to the exhibition, including images of all 650 quilts that were on display, is available as a free app for your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Android smart phone. Go to the Apple iTunes App Store or Android Market for the free download.

I downloaded the iPad app and found it to be quite inspirational. It took awhile to download, but it is great to have a quilt exhibit at my fingertips.

Fabric

Do you need an explanation of what exactly those dessert bundles Moda is selling contain? As your info resource, I found one for you at the Moda Bakeshop. Take a look.

Other Artists

Freshly Pieced is having a SuperNova challenge/exchange. The blog author posted some examples of participants’ work. The post is a great example of how, using one block, everyone’s work will be different.

The Molly Flanders blog author has started a Flowering Snowball quilt. It is flattering to think that I started something, but I doubt it. Remember mine? I haven’t done anything lately on it and need to make the border.

Workspace

Ever since I did some spring cleaning last week, I have been thinking about upgrading my space: paint, shelves, clearing out more junk, eh-hem unneeded, perfectly good items. Of course, in my travels around the web and other media I keep seeing different workspaces. I saw this one and this one and this one (another view here here). How these artists work in their lovely chairs? Don’t get me wrong, they look gorgeous! I need an office chair with lumbar support and adjustable height otherwise my body hurts and I feel like an 85 year old. And all of those sensible shoes kind of chairs don’t fit with any decor. Yes, I drape fabric all over them, so what does it matter?