Tag: Various & Sundry

Various & Sundry 2011 #6

Doing Good
Modern Relief Japan has their first few auction quilts up. Check them out, buy and donate.

Remember Christchurch had an earthquake as well. Have you made and sent your Hearts for Christchurch?

Other Artists & Fun Crafts

I recently kept Twitter open for a few hours and was actually enable to enjoy the conversation. In the course of popping back and forth between other stuff and Twitter, Little Bluebell pointed me to Carina’s Craftblog. I popped in and saw this GREAT cake post. You know I am a sucker for felt food and this piece of cake is just wonderful. I want one. Will you make it for me? 😉

As an aside, Carina has some lovely embroidery patterns – cheerful colors and designs I would want to have in my house. She makes me think about picking up my embroidery floss again.

You all know that I am making lots of Jane Market totes these days. The bottoms are really on my mind. Without some kind of stiffener the fabric bottoms hang down in a kind of sad floop. I have a lot of options: cardboard as Alicia, the designer suggests; plastic canvas with mailing tape wrapped edges; Timtex (or equivalanet) inserted in the bottom before handsewing the turning seam, interfacing. I haven’t tried all of these solutions yet, so I don’t really have an opinion on which I like better. At work the other day, I was look at the website of a new client . One of their offerings was replacement bag bottoms! WOW! They don’t have great colors, but if the bag bottoms are the right size, I might be able to overlook the color. The description is: “Size:12” x 8” to fit inside the standard reusable shopping bags.” Stay tuned!

Spring Cleaning Continued

I worked a little more after work on Monday and also after work and a meeting on Tuesday. My workroom doesn’t look fabulous, but it feels much better. It feels like I have space to move around and work. I need to take Kathy’s Order Week over at Bliss Habits to heart and clear out some of the unused stuff so I can get to the stuff I want to use.

I have been talking on and off about finishing small projects, which I realized was a kind of spring cleaning as well. Perhaps I was gearing up for Sunday’s ‘big’ spring clean? I don’t think I will ever be a one project at a time kind of girl, but clearing the decks of having too many projects feels good as well.

After all my talk about spring cleaning, I was excited and saddened to see Anna Maria Horner’s new space. Excited, because it is gorgeous and looks amazingly useful. Saddened because it doesn’t belong to me. I now have a goal to work towards. First step: move out the junk!

Julie put up a video of her year long project making a small quilt every week. Great work. Check it out.

Quiltmaking Discussion

I am really bad about keeping up with blogs. I haven’t found a great reader that fits my workflow, or quilt-flow, as the case may be. Google Reader, and other readers, are fine and I have several set up, but I just don’t go to them enough to really keep up. As a result, I nearly missed the Piecemeal Quilts discussion. Pam, the Head Rhombus from Hip to Be a Square Podcast, pointed me to this blog post the other day and the post made me think. (I seem to be doing a lot of thinking about quiltmaking right now! Not sure what that is about, but I digress. ) The writer, Sandi, of Piecemeal Quilt blog, was responding to a  post on another blog that suggested that half square triangles were an intermediate to advanced technique. The Piecemeal Quilt blog writer’s contention was that half and quarter square triangles are not an intermediate to advanced technique. I like the spirit Sandi displays in this post. I liked the fact that she was willing to put herself out there and write this series of essays. I have felt for a long time that the magazines are not providing skill building techniques and are actually making projects so easy that they don’t challenge people at all. Not everyone wants to be challenged and that is fine. I don’t always want to be challenged and sometimes my quiltmaking challenges don’t have to do with piecing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a beginner or just wanting an easy project. I, certainly, have done my share of rote sewing in the not too distant past and appreciate the meditative qualities of not having to focus too much on complicated piecing. A friend makes quilts using squares and does really amazing colorwork. Her challenge is the colorwork. A challenge it something different for everyone.

I find that even just reading about magnificently advanced quilts can stretch my mind. Perhaps Sandi was imagining that there are standards for quiltmaking – defined skills on a list somewhere that make a quiltmaker intermediate or advanced once mastered? I think, in the past, many beginning classes were Sampler classes that enabled beginners to learn a variety of different techniques. I think learning using sampler blocks is still a good idea, but sampler classes take a lot of time, people are busy and most people want to learn quickly.

I did take a look at the Single Girl quilt-a-long Photostream on Flickr. These quilts are not easy nor have the makers used all white backgrounds. I saw one with a chocolate brown background that looked very rich. I think there are more complicated pieces out there and people are stretching in their own ways. Still, I applaud Sandi for putting herself out there and responding with the Skill builder series.

Pretty Package
Pretty Package

I received the fabric from Julie of the Intrepid Thread. Isn’t this a pretty package? The bow (real French ribbon!) will end up as the tie for a gift bag. The service was fast and who doesn’t like getting packages in the mail?

I also received my rulers from Soft Expressions. I was disappointed to find that the 60 degree Creative Grids triangle I ordered has the tip cut off. Normally that is a good thing, but it doesn’t work for the hexagon project (from an early BAMQG meeting) on which I am working. Oh well!

Various & Sundry 2011 #5

Doodle
Doodle

Media
I listened to an episode of Pat Sloan’s Creative Talk Radio with Amanda Herring of the Quilted Fish. She described her new fabric line from Riley Blake. It is called Sugar & Spice. THEN the Fabricworm sent out a teaser a week or so ago and I can’t get the fabric in the teaser out of my head. ERGH!!! Those fabrics would go perfectly with my red & aqua quilt even though I am not buying them.

I heard about Matt and Shari on Mark Lipinski’s Creative Mojo and was so impressed with all the information on their website. They have all sorts of different projects, info about color, lighting, etc. They have a section on framing a quilt block, which includes the book I learned to quilt with, Diana Leone’s The Sampler Quilt. I have the original edition, which I still use for the binding lesson and the newer edition, which has great blocks.

Creative Mojo is growing on me. Mark is interviewing a lot of interesting people and telling me about a lot of interesting books. I hope I can meet him someday and have some of his fortune rub off. 😉

I was looking at my Google Reader for once since it was pouring rain and I didn’t want to go out for my usual lunch time walk. I saw a post from Fresh Lemons showing the Sugar Pop line of fabric. It looks so much better in her photo than it does in my workroom and I am starting to think that if this rain lasts much longer, I am going to have to breakdown and paint over the life sucking beige that still exists in my space.

Bari J, who is getting lots of press right now for her relatively new book, was the guest hostess on Wednesday Night Live with Lisa Fulmer of C&T publishing. She was demonstrating embroidery stitches and tools. There is more information on Creating the Hive.

On My Mind-Revisted
A few weeks ago I made a list of projects. I did that because those projects were cluttering up my mind. They are, with their status:

  • Sugar Pop Chubby Charmer – squares sewn; need to make straps, lining and line with batting
  • 2 Martha Negley totes – already cut out; ready to sew
  • Grand Revival Flea Market bag in light violet with green dots – need to pick and cut out lining
  • Grab Bag- push out corners, press and top stitch
  • Finish testing hexagons
  • Corner Store – thinking about making the blocks 4″ instead of 5″, which means unsewing a lot of blocks, trimming and resewing.
  • Grand Revival Flea Market bag in violet Innocent Crush – unsew, fix straps and resew
  • Back for FOTY 2010
  • Bubble pillowcase
  • Zig Zaggy back – make it a bit longer
  • Stars for San Bruno – still need blocks, will put together starting in April
  • Block for Modern Quilt Guild

Other things I finished recently:

  • binding for FOTY 2010
  • binding for Frosted Stars
  • binding for Frosted Stars leftovers
  • Grab Bag for Grama – finished, mailed and sent

I am not bragging, really. I seem to need to feel like I am accomplishing something!

Shows
I am so sad that I am not rich enough to run off to NYC for the weekend, because I will be missing the Red & White quilt show at the Armory. The Lizzie B Girls have a great post with lots of fab photos on their blog about it. If you go, tell me how you like it.

Doing Good
Last call for Stars for San Bruno! I know the Sendai and Christchurch earthquakes have overshadowed the fire in San Bruno, but any contributions you make will be greatly welcome. See more information on my 3/24 post.

You can also help the modern quilt community with relief for Japan. Check their new site. Tamiko is also doing her part. You only have until the end of the week, so click this link now!

Making
Here is a tutorial for making wonky cross blocks. You never know when you might want to make wonky cross blocks!

Need some kimono?

Project Selvedge
I saw an ad for a Michael Miller contest for fabric design. I have the perfect design, but I uploaded it too late. The directions said it could be done through 3/24, but on the West Coast, we often get shortchanged on the timezones. Oh well. Perhaps next time. I did put it up on Spoonflower, but can’t sell it, because I haven’t ordered a swatch.

Various & Sundry 2011 #4

As you have probably noticed, this hasn’t been a good week for posting. I have a couple of posts in the works, but they aren’t finished. Life is a little crazy and I just haven’t had a chance. I hope you enjoy this post!

Other Artists
In case you didn’t hear, Jean Ray Laury died on March 2, 2011. What a huge loss for the quilt community! There are obituaries all over the web, including on the C&T blog and in the Fresno Bee. I took a class from her via EBHQ and it was the first time I was happy with surface design results. It may have been the only time. I don’t remember when that was. I think it was before I started this blog. She had a Thermofax machine and showed us how to print designs on to fabric. I really wanted to get a Thermofax machine at that time and think that if the class had been over the course of several weeks or had been an ongoing class, I may have taken up more surface design. She made it fun and seem doable.

She also had some cool, if a little scary looking, fish fabric that she had just designed. I bought some and I still have a little piece. One of the fish made it into the Eye Spy quilt. I’ll never forget the teeth on those fish. Her website is still up, if slightly out of date. Take a look at it before it is taken down.

I took a class from Libby Lehman sometime ago and it was one of the best classes I ever took. I learned a lot. Libby was not a prima donna. She knew lots about other machines besides her own brand. It was a great class. Recently, I watched a TQS episode where Alex and Ricky interviewed Libby, showed her house, one of her techniques and her workroom. It was a great episode.

I also watched an episode with Verna Mosquera. She has a soft vintage look that I really admire, but don’t have the wherewithall to pull off in my own life. Her company, The Vintage Spool, sells patterns. Verna is also a fabric designer, but I don’t remember seeing any of her fabric. I enjoyed the interview, partly because it was so complete. I like hearing about the quiltmaker’s background and her inspiration, both of which were covered in the interview.

They have really good guests on TQS. I also like the tutorials they give. Alex showed, in another episode, how to draft a feathered wreath quilting pattern and she made it seem like anyone could do it. She also taught viewers how to piece a split LeMoyne, which she made very accessible as well. I have a few issues with the show. The pricing model and what is available to me is hard to understand from looking at their site. The site is really busy, too. I seem to lose connection to their server in the middle of episodes. Also, the images can be pixellated. I think it is sometimes my own connection, but also partly their problem. They don’t have a very good way of marking your place in the show and coming back later, though I think many online shows suffer from that problem. It may be that the technology isn’t as well developed as it will be in the future.

Primal Green, the art quilt exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library, has some information on the Green Stacks portion of the SFPL website. Hope you can see the show.

Websites and Blogs
Have you tried My Sewing Circle? Anyone can join. It is place to connect with other fabric makers, catalog your projects, patterns, fabrics and notions. I wanted to compare it to SeamedUp since I am site tester over there. Jewel, the My Sewing Circle site mom, is very fast at adding patterns and steering members in the right direction.

I will be speaking at the Primal Green panel and have been thinking about what drives me. One of the aspects of design that drives me is repetition. You can see it in FOTY 2008 with all of those rectangles. You can see it in FOTY 2010 with all of those diamonds. My friend, Kathy, pointed me to a quilt blog call Elisa in Real Life. She has a post showing some gorgeous photos of a quilt show with awesome quilts. You can see the repetition employed by some of the artists front and center when you look at the 3/15/2011 post.  More inspiration!

Mom is doing a mini color tutorial on her blog using the Munsell color system. go read the second of the series here.

Blocks and Patterns
I always wondered how the wonky pinwheel block was made and recently Marcus Brothers posted some visuals on how to do it. They have a little ruler you can use to keep all angles the same. I might make my own or see about using one of the lines on a ruler I already have. I have a plaid quilt in mind, though brighter and cheerier than the one pictured, and this might be the perfect pattern for it. Mom did a blog post about her adventures with this block and it was very interesting to see what would work and what wouldn’t.

Other
Check out the Fabric Worm blog post about their giveaway.

Various and Sundry 2011 #3

Crafts
Since it is never too early to start making gift bags, especially since you can use them for birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Groundhog Day, etc. Here is a video gift bag tutorial for another way of making gift bags.

Time
TedTalks is back with a great audio essay on work life balance. That term “work-life balance” always makes me laugh. People take time for their lives in the midst of work here in the US. IMO, of course.

Media
I went to the C&T Publishing Digital Lounge, which is hosted by Lisa of LisaLizaLou, on a recent Wednesday. There were two video demos and a chat portion. Lisa did one demo of TAP and Liquitex products, while SuziBlu did a demo of working iwth the canvas book. She isn’t an artist with whom I was familiar, but it was interesting.  Links to the products used:

  • Transfer Artists Paper:  Lisa basically showed how to use this. I still don’t know, because the chat was so distracting, but it looks very cool and I know my sister would love it for her cardmaking and scrapbooking. I may have go back and watch the archive demo again.
  • Ready-to-Go!® Blank Canvas Book 8 1/2” x 11”:  SuziBlu, the featured artist, used this book to show fabric printing, fabric painting and various other techniques. I haven’t never heard of her, but the audience was very enthusiastic. Her faces looked similar to Kelly Rae Roberts and I wonder if they work together?
  • Silicone Release Paper:  – Lisa said that this does not get hot. The sheets are only 8/5×11″, but I think they would be useful. I’ll put a package on my list.
  • Liquitex paints (inks?) from C&T:  I have used something similar at A Work of Heart. Inks are wonderful.
  • Fabric Art Collage—40+ Mixed Media Techniques eBook by Rebekah Meier:

You can watched the archived replay as well. Lisa received an award at CHA and you can pretend you were there by watching the video.

I ran across Judy Nolan’s blog post on sewing notions. There were some listed that I thought would be very helpful to quiltmakers, including the Cotton Mills Treasure Markers. In the course of the post, she also gives a brief history of Nancy Zieman, of Nancy’s Notions fame, and her career.

Adrianne keeps pointing me (and her other blog fans) to the Fat Quarterly Magazine/Newsletter. I love the idea and think the articles and information would be right up my alley. I don’t love the online aspect and I can’t see myself printing 70+ pages on my little inkjet. I don’t enjoy reading in bed with my laptop. Perhaps with the iPad, but still, I really like the old print versions to read at night. Not sure what I will do, except not buy it at the moment. New business model: printing and binding online mags for people for a reasonable price on a subscription basis.

In some part of Fat Quarterly that I, as a non-subscriber, could access, I was introduced to Modern Day Quilts, a Tumblr blog that showcases one quilt a day. When I went to look I saw one that looked like the mosaic piecing from a recent issue of the AQS magazine and the art glass type quilts by Julie Hirota. It was made by the writer of PinkPlease! blog. Apparently, though, the artist is calling it a ticker tape quilt from a tutorial.

Be*mused has a set on Flickr of quilts from the Tokyo Quilt Festival this past January.

I haven’t always loved video, but I am liking it more. I didn’t used to watch much TV and the video was jerky and weird. Now, there are so many videos on subjects in which I am interested (such as quiltmaking! Embellishing! Piecing! etc) that it is great to watch little bits of videos and learn something. I just found that Laura Wasilowski has a video on making French knots. It is a little over a minute long and well done (except for the wooshing sound in the background). Viewers also get to see one of her fabulous whimsical pieces.

Shows
I’m part of Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Artists (CQFA) and we’ll be exhibiting “Primal Green: Environmental Art Quilts” @ the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library (5th fl) from March 1 – July 30. Artist reception will be held on April 17th @ 1pm. Hope some of you can come! Check out our link for more info: www.cqfa.org/shows.html

Projects
The Young Man keeps asking for his annual quilt. Huh? He recently told me he wants a food quilt. Mom has a lot of food fabric that I bought for her. Robin, at the recent retreat, was making a disappearing 9 patch, which is stuck in my head. I was thinking of working on one of those using food fabric for him. Recently, I talked to my mom and she said that she was thinking about making a disappearing 4patch. I looked up the directions to which she pointed me and it looks interesting, too.

Machinery
I know BryeLynn of Sew*Stitch*Create has had a lot of problems with her Janome 11K, but I would still like to upgrade to one. It isn’t going to happen until we get the Young Man off to college, but that doesn’t mean I am not tempted by ads that Janome currently has running.

Various and Sundry 2011 #2

Media
I received a 6 month The Quilt Show subscription. I have watched 2 episodes and I enjoyed both. I am enjoying watching, but mostly listening to, these online quilt shows. One thing I like about the Quilting Show is that Alex Anderson shows a traditional technique. In one episode she shows how to draw a feathered wreath quilting design. In another episode, she talks about making a LeMoyne and Split Lemoyne block. The episode with Philippa Naylor seems to be available for everyone. One thing Ms. Naylor said is that she considers herself to be a contemporary quiltmaker rather than an art quiltmaker, because her work is grounded in classic quilts. That was a sentence I thought about for awhile. I really like most quilts and have found it hard to categorize myself. I don’t think I need to categorize myself, but like the idea of being a contemporary quiltmaker. Do I need to change the name of my blog?

I also, as I have mentioned, have a subscription to Quilt Out Loud, which I enjoy. It is entertaining, though Mark is a little over the top sometimes!

There is a great post up on another blog, which I won’t name, but will give you a link. Check out the post! I had a hand in the fodder for the post, so perhaps I am not being humble by sending you over there, but I just love the way the writer wrote about the subject matter and I can’t help myself!

Remember the 1000 Journals Project? I wrote about it several times in various posts and Julie and I went to the exhibit at SFMOMA to write in journals ourselves. An artist in NYC has a new project called Eternally Yours. I saw it on Melanie Testa’s blog. She found one of the letters. The artist has written letters and distributed them all over NYC. The include half finished art and the recipient’s ‘job’ is to finish the art and send it back. There is a video to watch as well. I love the thought of receiving and writing letters. TFQ and I do it, but I don’t get many other letters. Very sad. I could get my own letter from the artist…. I hope some of my NYC readers will participate in this project.

Money
I was asked by an organization to allow them to add advertising to my blog. I thought about it. They were paying ok money for the kind of ad they wanted me to host. I decided against it. I could use the money to pay for some Artquiltmaker related fees, but I didn’t like the sound of them. Hope you all appreciate my restraint! 😉

Fabric
It is always, despite my efforts, about the fabric. I want to try to curb my fabric buying this year and clear out the fabric closet a little bit and use all the fabulous fabric I have. I am resolved to do it and then I see Me and My Sister Designs who come out with some fabulous turquoises. And then, they have to go and show them on their blog. I mean, really. The nerve. Sigh.

Fabricworm has posted a tutorial for a quilt they are calling the Five Points Quilt. It is shown on their blog. Birch Fabrics/Fabricworm is a fabric selling enterprise, so they are, of course trying to sell their fabric, but this is a really nice and modern design. I think it is suitable for all sorts of different kinds of fabric.

Inner Critic
I recently read a blog post on the inner critic written by Violette. I love her book, Journal Bliss, so I check in on her blog periodically and looking at her drawings always makes me smile. I have been meaning to pull out her book and look at her directions for faces. All of my CPP responses with people in them have beautiful views of gorgeous hair and no faces. Anyway, her blog post made me think about my inner critic. After some analysis, I am happy to say that I don’t have an inner critic that calls me an idiot or tells me I can’t do something. My inner critic is all about time (and mess, too, but that is also related to time). I often hear the monkey voices in my head saying “you don’t have time for that” or “that will take too long” or “just do that [non-quilt/creativity related] task before you sew” or “that will take too long.” Reading her blog post started to develop an image of my inner critic gremlin. Diana Trout, the writer of Journal Spilling, also talks about creating an image of the inner critic. I think both writers are suggesting that creating an image of your gremlin is the first step in learning to ignore him/her.

Design/Vision
I am reading a book, which I received for my birthday called Quilts Made Modern by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle. It is, basically, a pattern book, but they have good things to say about design, color, etc. One of their ideas, which I may have spoken about before is the “Big Idea.” Their Big Idea is a way of thinking beyond the focus fabric. The quilt designer gets an idea and tries to convey that idea in the making of a quilt. The Big Idea could be a feeling or an experience or something like that. I thought of this book when I read this post. I completely agree with the writer. I do agree that perfection is not something to strive for and that design/vision is much more important. I also think that good technique is important. By good technique, I don’t mean perfection. I mean technique that doesn’t distract from the design or vision. I sincerely dislike quiltmakers who claim to be making art quilts, because they don’t know how to bury and tie off their quilting threads.

Out and About
Everyone in NYC and the area should check this out: Classes at the Folk Art Museum. If I lived in the area, I would be taking all of these classes, damn the cost! 😉 The next one is on Feb. 26 with Paula Nadelstern. What a great opportunity. I really hope this whole event will spur other museums to do the same sort of thing. I would love it if the DeYoung would fill their entire space with quilts. I am happy to give them some of my quilts to show. 😉

Confidential to Reva
I was looking on Amazon and a new book, The Big Book of Patchwork, by Judy Hopkins has a quilt that you might want to look at with regard to your Drunkard’s Path Project. It is the 7th photo if you look inside.

Various and Sundry 2011 #1

Creative Prompt Project

Some of us are having issues getting our prompt responses out. SherriD is not one of them. Check out her recent responses. She is doing a number of responses in FABRIC on one piece and it is wonderful.

How will you respond?

Did you join the Flickr group?

Quilt Repair

…and some thoughts on donation quilts are posted at Mary’s Art Musings. Mary makes some really good observations about the repair of a quilt and has some great tips on making donation quilts. We will definitely be taking these into consideration as we make the Stars for San Bruno quilts.

Links

I saw something on my blog dashboard that I had never seen before: a way to see who was linking to my blog. Here are some of the latest:

Quilt Rat celebrated my 100th prompt. She also posted her response.

Kathy from Finishing Lines talks about getting her quick sketch prompts from AQ.

Sweet Leaf suggests you find creative prompt inspiration here!

Vicki’s Field Tripping the Web celebrated the finishing of the Cheerful Baskets, , the finishing of the Chocolate Box, and the finishing of the Fabric of the Year 2009 quilt.

Vicki also posted about my Zig Zaggy tutorial, which I greatly appreciate.

Thanks for the links, all!

Scraps

Purple Mosaic Sewing
Purple Mosaic Sewing

I started another piece of scrap fabric in anticipation of making another journal like the Red Journal. It will take while to make a big enough piece from scraps, but a person has to start somewhere.

New Year’s Cornucopia

Reviews

I love my Tivo. It is a relatively cheap date in terms of entertainment and after YEARS of never being able to watch a show all the way through, I finally can. The problem turned out to be, over the holidays, that we watched all of our shows.  We were home a lot, and working on Christmas projects in front of the TV. Many of the shows we like were pre-empted by holiday specials. I was able to watch a lot of Fons & Porter and partially clear out that playlist.

Still I was looking for something else. I am not much for watching YouTube and other videos on the web, but I saw that Laura and Linda Kemshall now have Design Matters TV. I watched one of their free shows where Laura shows how to use photocopies in your sketchbook. I really liked the episode which was called “Those Shoes.”

First, Laura is a very calm presenter.

Second, she talks through the whole process, including tips and tricks about the paint and the process. I am not a confident art journaler and watching this video made me think that I could do what she is doing. I really think that using photocopies is a great idea.

Third, Laura is confident in a way that makes me feel confident that I could do the same thing.

Finally, the show is well produced. I don’t mean shiny and fake, but edited appropriately, no wobbly camera and good information.

There was a project in one of their Thr3fold Journal issues using a photocopied hand on a bag, the Hands on Bag project, and seeing the project with the shoes makes me want to use the shoes on a bag as well. There is a list of shows on their site. I haven’t decided whether to subscribe (cost is about $35 for 3 months). I have renewed my Quilt Out Loud subscription and was given a The Quilt Show subscription. I haven’t watched either. I wish I could watch them on my TV and that they provided a list of shows I could tick off so I didn’t have to start them and stop them when I found I had already watched one.

I also adjusted the Tivo search I have set up for quilts and am now recording Eleanor Burns’ Quilt in a Day program. It doesn’t come on as often as Love of Quilting, so I don’t have as many. The first one I saw was about 2 star blocks from her Victory Quilts book. The stars were Army Star and Hope of Hartford. Army Star has a Sawtooth Star in the center and she showed her quick way of making Flying Geese. I liked her show, which I don’t remember seeing before, because she gives the dimensions, so I can go up to my workroom and make the blocks. I tried the Sawtooth Star bit of the Army Star and found that I couldn’t finish the last bit because I don’t have the specialty Flying Geese ruler Burns uses. I also think the measurements she gave or the Flying Geese must be finished sizes, because they seem too small for a cut piece.

Creativity

Stress has been a constant, and not so welcome, companion for the past few months. I have been seeking ways to reduce my stress and this article on the effects of stress on creativity make me all the more determined to accomplish that goal. I certainly don’t want my creativity affected by work!

Lisa F from C&T publishing has a new blog called “My Blissful Lack of Focus.”  I really like the layout. She talks about her creative adventures for 2011. I wish the CPP were included, but, as yet, I haven’t been able to persuade her to take part. Will YOU take part in the Creative Prompt Project this year?

Color

The Pantone color of the year is Honeysuckle. It just looks like a warm pink to me. You can download palettes for the Adobe Creative Suite application, FB ‘like’ it, tweet it, etc from the above referenced site.

Doing Good

We are making 3 quilts for victims of the San Bruno Pipeline explosion. I have been trying out different quick methods of making Flying Geese with minimal success (see above re: Eleanor Burns).

Eleanor Burns Method
Eleanor Burns Method

I was trying to avoid the bias and get really nice crisp stars, but as you can see, I am a bit stymied in the process due to not having the correct specialty ruler. I have to decide whether to buy that ruler or just try to cut them and see what happens.

Jo Morton Method pt.2
Jo Morton Method pt.2

I saw Jo Morton on Fons & Porter one day and thought I would try her method of making Sawtooth Stars. Of course, Fons & Porter does not include measurements in their show or on their site (mostly), so I went searching for a pattern/directions for the Flying Geese method, which eventually renders a star. I found one called Jamestown that had her method explained. I know that she wants to sell her books, but this was a hard method to find.

The directions were part of a pattern for the whole quilt, so my star didn’t come out the way I needed it to for the San Bruno Stars quilts.

San Bruno Star Wrong
San Bruno Star Wrong

I’ll use it on the back.

Finally yesterday, I dug out my copy of Around the Block and made them the old fashioned way.

Around the Block method
Around the Block method

These look pretty good. I plan to make more and perhaps put them down one side of the quilt. I like them in the on point orientation.

On point orientation
On point orientation

I have to kind of see what other blocks I receive before I can decide how to use them. I also have to make more than 2.  These are 6″ blocks.

I need a lot more blocks, so if you would like to contribute one, three or ten 😉 the parameters are:

Block background: dark blue
Block design: Yellow star (any pattern)
block size: 8? or less (we will work with any size)
Remember to sign your block!

Deadline: TBA

Contact us through our blogs for mailing instructions. Thanks so much for your generosity!

Thursday Misc.

Gifts and Wrapping Department
How many gift bags have you made? I saw a great video on making gift bags. Longtime readers know that I love fabric gift bags because:

  1. they use great fabric
  2. I am terrible wrapper
  3. can be reused
  4. little to no garbage/recycling on the holiday, birthday or anniversary

Deirdre has been sending me Colouricious videos and the most recent one is all about making making a gift bag. This is a really lovely pleated gift bag. You won’t be able to make a bunch of them before Christmas 2010, but this is a heads up for 2011. I think these bags would actually make nicer birthday or Mother’s Day bags. Please show me what you make!

I have had a whopping 4 sales in my Cafe Press shop. I am excited that people I don’t even know like my stuff enough to buy it. Look in the New Year for your thank you note cards!

Fabric

Westminster MN43 Plum
Westminster MN43 Plum

I think I said recently that I was going to try to keep my fabric purchases to a minimum through the end of the year so I could finish cutting all the diamonds for the FOTY 2010. I wanted to show someone some Martha Negley fabric I bought a few weeks ago, so I searched Google and found MY image there (I am ranking in Google. Cool, huh?). In the process, I saw other Martha Negley fabrics. I really like her designs, especially the one above. Perhaps I will just admire it.

I want to make a Quillow and need some nice fleece. The stuff at some local chains is just too pilly (is that a word?). I once bought a whole bunch of fleece for a bathrobe making jag from a place in Massachusetts that had the most wonderful feel. They had a fire and there was a big deal about how they kept paying their workers. I can’t remember the name of the place or if it is still in business. Where do you buy your fleece? Do you have a brand that doesn’t pill too much?

Replay Department

I know that I wrote about this tip before, but I really think it is a good tip. Also, questions about it have come up. I thought I would do a replay, not to bore you, but to encourage you to bite the bullet and set up a feed. ResearchBuzz is an electronic newsletter I read for work. One day, I was pleased to find an article that would allow me to keep a steady stream of quilts coming to my blog reader.

Here is a sample of a quilt search:

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=quilt,modern

After creating the link above (by changing the tags-everything after the = sign with terms separated by commas- at the end to suit your needs), paste this URL into your Bloglines or Newsgator or Google or whatever reader. The feed will send you back search results showing the gorgeous quilts that have been added to Flickr. I put the above search into my Google Reader and was immediately provided with several fresh looking quilts for my viewing pleasure.

I also wanted to see what was new and exciting in the basket quilt arena so I changed up the URL above to:

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=quilt,basket

I retrieved a number of basket quilts, but also some mishits. They were pretty mishits, so I didn’t mind much. You can also cut and paste the feeds I have created above into your reader.

Find more info at ResearchBuzz.

Workroom/Studio

This TedTalk is about offices, but I am curious to know how it applies to your quilt work? Jason Fried, the speaker, talks, at one point, about creativity and creative people.

Rice Freeman-Zachery is doing a workshop sort of thing in 2011 using her book Creative Time & Space. Take a look at the blog post on Goodreads. She has a worksheet you can download. You may have to sign up for Goodreads to read the post.

Chronicle Books

We didn’t win the big list of books I made. I did get some new visitors and I hope they come back. I never win the blog giveaways. I did win a book once from Quiltin’ Jenny and that was fun. Perhaps I got a taste of that joy and just want more. I have plenty and will be happy with what I have. -)

Various & Sundry Wednesday

As I mentioned, I opened a Cafe Press store around Thanksgiving (http://www.cafepress.com/Artquiltmaker). I was thrilled to check on the sales and had two sales after only two days. AWESOME! if you are reading this and you bought something, thanks! I know it doesn’t sound like a lot to you big time retail executives, but I am excited. Don’t worry! I am not going to harangue you with sales pitches all the time, but won’t you go take a look and buy?

American Patchwork & Quilting Winter 2010
American Patchwork & Quilting Winter 2010

The Henry Glass Designer Holiday showcase of Project Goodness (or whatever it is called) just ended or is about to end. Linda Lum DeBono (Mark Lipinski’s friend) started out the first day with her blog post. She showed the picture above and I thought it was very like It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap, but much cuter. Is there another Christmas quilt in my future? I don’t know. I’ll buy the magazine, though. In general I found this blog hop confusing and gave up after a day or two. I did enjoy seeing the artists’ work.

Heather Muldur Peterson is also on the Project Hit Parade (or whatever it is called) and she has a great project in her blog post using her new fabric line called Artful Home. I like the way the stripes work in the piece. The colors are very vivid. She must have great light (or a special secret) for photographing. Her project is a dish passer, which I needed the other night. Perhaps I will make one. I assume I will have to make one for each of my baking dishes, so perhaps not.

I joined Creating the Hive when Lisa F of C&T Publishing invited me. I don’t do much there except repost my blog post and respond to comments. I was thrilled when my Red Journal post was featured last week! It makes me feel like all this writing is valuable! If you want an invitation, leave a comment and I will invite you. I think you can join without an invitation as well.

Last week I talked about the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild meeting I attended. At that meeting, Adrianne brought a bag she had made. I really liked the bag and was thinking that I should buy the pattern. I thought I might have bought it already as the Grand Revival name rang a bell. I did a search in my blog to see if I had bought it and found that I had THOUGHT about buying that exact same bag pattern, but apparently didn’t. I wrote a blog post about it back in September. Perhaps that is a sign that I should actually buy the pattern, which I didn’t. Yes, I am still lamenting hte fact that I have so many bag patterns and haven’t made many fo them.

I did see a free bag pattern from Rebeka Lambert of Artsy Craft Babe, which might satisfy my urge for a new bag pattern. I really want to make some gifts for the holidays, but time is slipping and I am only wishing. We’ll see. Not having to wait for a pattern to arrive buys me time.

Somehow, in clicking around, I ended up at Kathy Loomis’ blog. She didn’t have a lot of pictures and sometimes I am too pressed for time to read a lot of words (I should remember that when I am going on and on, right?), but her post about taking a leap in art quilt imagery was interesting. I don’t know if I agree with her completely, but it was interesting to read some writing about going beyond the “bad, citing “clunky, obvious images” and “sappy, crappy ugly quilts or embroideries or puff-painted sweatshirts.” I think I got a glimpse of reaching beyond during the fabric exercise at the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild meeting. I have been struggling with putting fabrics together and that exercise (which I am more and more in awe of as time goes by) really helped me. I don’t want to make representational quilts or quilts about AIDS or depression or the impending train wreck that is environmental disaster. I do want to reach beyond what I am doing now. I am not sure what that means quite yet, but since this quilt adventure is a process for me, I am sure I will reach and find it.

REACH BEYOND

I saw a feature story on the web about a grave in Massachusetts on Andi Stern’s blog with a really interesting carving of a cephalopod on it. Cthulhu was in the title of the story and I didn’t know what what it meant so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found some clarification on some other aspects of the story. Regardless, the image looks like a cheerful beast and I thought some child might like it on a quilt some day, so I saved the photo to my inspiration file.

Finally, support some artists at USA Projects. See information about the project in the Next Web Social Media blog post.

Odds and Ends Wednesday

What are you doing? Reading your blogs, of course! I, on the hand, and slaving away cooking for the, approximately, 30 people who will show up and demand food tomorrow. My mom is helping. Mostly we are making pies, which will be done soon, if all goes well. If you want my attention, you have to wait. 😉

It is getting to be the time of the year where I need to hound you about making gift bags out of fabric rather than buying gift wrap. I should have hounded you two months ago when you weren’t panicking about how fast the holidays were approaching. I do dislike being a nag, though. Lynn left a comment last week, so I went to peruse her blog and came across a tutorial for gift bags. She makes a casing and uses a clever method for not threading the ribbon through later. I’ll have to try out her tutorial. I’ll let you know if I can do it!

Look for a couple of upcoming giveaways. You know substantive comments and creative prompt responses are my thing so start preparing! One giveaway will be a bunch of selvedge edges. I have been saving them and thought that might be a nice little treat for one of you. Another will be a book. I just have to write the review. Stay tuned on that front and don’t say I never gave you anything!

I am fortunate to have 2 dads. One of them is VERY handy. He used to have a handyman business and can really fix anything. He fixed my old iron! the cord was severed and he soldered it together and I have been using it again. YAY!

I followed a link from one of the Quilt Market blogs and found the Sew Serendipity book on clothing sewing patterns. The clothes look interesting and wearable. Am I going to start sewing clothes? I don’t know.

I ran across a new way to look at fabric over at Glorious Color. The method they are showing is not about the pattern, but about the color. If you need a certain color, click on that color and the site shows you the fabric that is similar to that color. I think it is a great way to fill in holes in a quilt project.

A Work of Heart has a video up on their blog that shows the Spontaneous Scrap journal (remember mine?). It is a quick and fun video. Once you look at that video you can link out to YouTube and see the other videos by the artist, Mary Ann Moss. She shows a variety of journals from other people. I enjoyed the video and journal about Carol’s Istanbul journal.

I know you are thinking about pie and have completely forgotten about the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Did you see the winners? I can never enter. I love the quilts I make, but these are so totally out of my league. How about a category just for me? 😉

12 Days of Christmas Selvedge
12 Days of Christmas Selvedge

Isn’t this a weird selvedge? There are 12 little bubbles, but most of them are white. I thought it was strange to have that many different colors of white (not that white is a color, of course).

I am always looking for inspiration. You have been the beneficiary of some of my musings in the form of photos I take as I travel through my life. Recently I saw a blog post interview with Kate Spain, where she talks about her inspiration and how it leads to designs. I thought the interview was lengthy enough to get some meat out of it and interesting enough to keep me reading.

Not that I need anymore projects, but I went trolling through Judy Martin’s site and saw her Blustery Day pattern again. Love it! She periodically puts up free quilt and block patterns. Nice!

WTTW out of Chicago has a video about the blankie collaboration that FunQuilts works on with developmentally disabled adults. If the link doesn’t take you immediately to the video, check the scroll bar for the correct video. The navigation from the link was a little funky.

Finally, Again, Odds and Ends

Doing Good

I have gone on and on about the Rainbow Around the Block project. It is so easy to make blocks. They are like candy. I can’t just make one. Etsy featured the project on their blog a few weeks ago.

If you want to get together with people to make pillowcases, check the AllPeopleQuilt site for info on sewing with Etsy and ancillary meetups around the country. TFQ went home from our trip after hearing me go on and on about pillowcases, to find that she could easily make a few dozen from fabric on hand. Not sure how many she has in the pipeline, but I am looking forward to seeing her finished products. The Child and I are slowly plowing through his pillowcase. It is painful, but he is doing it. Go make some pillowcases!

I hope you know that there are plenty of other opportunities to do good with fabric!

Office Supplies

I am a pen junkie (are there any positive words for junkie/whore when referring to legal things like pens?). My current love is the Pilot G2. Recently, on the Cool Tools Blog, I saw a post about Jet Pens. They also sell journals, notebooks and scrapbooking supplies. Do not blame me if you spent your retirement money on pens and Japanese office supplies.

Sewing

Also on the Cool Tools Blog, I saw a post about a spiral eye needle. Apparently, you can thread this blindfolded! I need this needle. Sadly, they are not sold in regular stores and are expensive, so no losing them.  Order from the Spiral Eye Website.

Linda M. Poole, who used to respond to the creative prompt, but got a fabric design contract and has too many things on her plate now is having a contest with said fabric designs! The designs are now fabric and a new line just came out. The deadline is October 4 and all the details are on a recent blog post. Go check out what she is offering as prizes. Did I mention they are FABULOUS prizes? [SherriD: I am looking at YOU!]

Someone pointed out another type of design wall on the Big Tent Quiltcast Supergroup. It is called the Vanishing Design Wall and it looks like it has potential.

Need some quilt-spiration? Bradie Sparrow is doing a summer quilt-a-long. They are on Week 5, but it is easy to find the blocks from the previous weeks. Friend Julie is making the blocks. and has been posting them. I thought about joining in, but really have enough projects going!

Blogging/Social Media

When I used Blogger, I was able to post via email. It was convenient when I went on vacation or saw something inspirational. WordPress has that feature, but I have never been able to get it to work. Amplify, related to Clipmarks, has a way of posting to blogs, Twitter, FB, etc via email. I haven’t tried it yet, but have set it up. We’ll see!

Are you on Goodreads and FB? If so, you can connect them so that the books you read post to your FB wall. I enjoy seeing what quilt books my friends are reading. I also enjoy seeing the fiction and reading reviews friends have written. I kept track of the books I read last year and was amazed to see how many I had read. This year I am a little scared of how many books I am, ostensibly, reading at once. Try it out!

Other

If your child stays at the local library after school, then you might wnat to get him/her one of the seat savers shown in Library God Stephen Abram’s blog. While you are at it, give them a donation. After all, you are saving on childcare, libraries offer a great service and are really hurting right now. Alternatively, perhaps you need one of these for your quilt guild meeting to keep the Quiltzillas away from your preferred chair?

Julie wrote very well about The Sketchbook Project. I have to admit that I got one, too. Since she wrote about it and, basically, wrote everything I was going to say, go look at what she wrote. My theme is In Flight. I haven’t started.

I saw a slide show of a sketchbook by Victor A. Lundy on the Library of Congress site. It reminded me that practice makes perfect and that sketchbooks can be small. The drawings are much better than I can do right now and capture some great images. I studied the people in the drawings especially.

Odds and Ends Thursday

Tips and Tricks

One of the email newsletters I read for my job is called ResearchBuzz. I know I have mentioned this site before. One day, I was pleased to find an article that would allow me to keep a steady stream of quilts coming to my blog reader.

Here is a sample of a quilt search:

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=quilt,modern

After creating the link above (by changing the tags at the end to suit your needs), paste this URL into your Bloglines or Newsgator or Google or whatever reader and it will send you back search results. I put the above search into my (newly refurbished) Google Reader and was immediately provided with several fresh looking quilts for my viewing pleasure.

I also wanted to see what was new and exciting in the basket quilt arena so I changed up the URL above to:

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=quilt,basket

I retrieved a number of basket quilts, but also some mishits. They were pretty mishits, so I didn’t mind much.

Find more info at ResearchBuzz.

Before he went off on his new adventures, Mark Lipinski showed the Half Square Triangle ruler from Creative Grids. I have been interested in it, but not enough to buy it before I could try it. Inspired by TFQ’s good example, I finally started to read blogs in a blog reader. This helped me to see a post on the Exuberant Color blog about using this ruler. There is also a video posted. This is a wacky looking ruler, but Wanda’s photos make it look really useful. It looks like it cuts off the bunny ears as well. My only concern is often I would use 2.5 HSTs?

Need to know the basics of fusing from the Expert? Did to refresh your skills or check the whys of what you have been doing? Melody Johnson posted a step by step guide recently. She includes a lot of details along with photos.

Writing

The Professional Quilter blog had a post about Print on Demand. The article starts out with the line “Many quilters have a book in them and don’t know where to start”. Isn’t that a great and positive way to start an article? It certainly caught my attention! Morna has links to several of the popular print on demand companies as well as links to more information. This is a brief overview type article, but it was a good reminder with resources for further exploration.

Journals and diaries are part of daily life for many girls and women. I have kept a journal for years and write faithfully nearly every day. These pages are, mostly, for my eyes only. Occasionally, I share drawings I have done, such as the drawing for the Original Bullseye border and the notes I took on the Cartier exhibit. NPR is working on a story called “The Hidden World of Girls“. they are asking for uploads of journal pages to their Flickr pool. These aren’t all the art journals we are used to seeing these days. These are the words depicting the angst of growing up and learning to deal with life. I am glad NPR is taking a look at this subject. What do you have to share?

Making

Journal covers have been on mind lately. I think I will make a new one for myself and I have a desire to make a couple as gifts. While this topic was rattling around in the back of my brain, I saw a blog post on Kindle covers made with selvedges. I have always been intrigued with items made from selvedges. It really takes some commitment to use selvedges, because you have to save them! I also cut off a selvedge the other day and thought I should save it and send it or give it to someone working on such a project. I don’t know anyone and I don’t think I want to start such a project, so into the garbage it went. Finally, I relate journal covers with things like Kindle/Nook/iPad etc covers in my mind. I guess since they are all designed for added protection it makes sense. One of the nice things about the Kindle cover pictured is that it has a flap to close it. I will think about adding something like that to a future journal cover.

By the way, the Selvage Blog has a lot of interesting projects made out of selvedges including a great quilt, called the Blue Zinger by Jen Duncan, using a pattern I tried to make once. I’ll have to look up the name. This is a great blog in that there is a lot of interesting information and a variety of different projects. Even our own Quilt Rat showed up with a selvedge house!

Again with the blog reader, I saw Corky’s post on her class with Karen Eckmeier. I love the village projects she and her friends worked on. They remind me of those French and Italian villages clinging to the sides of cliffs.

Inspiration

Need some additional inspiration? The Harry Ransom Center has made a database of medieval and early modern manuscripts available on the web. These types of manuscripts were elaborately decorated and make for wonderful inspiration for borders and quilting designs. Not all of the pages have those elaborate illustrations. Some are just regular parchment like pages with script writing. You can see a slideshow of various pages on the first page. There is also a way to search. There are lots of scrolls, flowers and religious iconography.

Have you done your Rainbow Around the Block block for Anna Maria Horner’s project? In case you haven’t heard, she is collecting blocks to make quilts for people in Tennesse who were affected by recent flooding. A number of people have already contributed and AMH has a Flickr Gallery for your viewing pleasure. Check the link for directions and information.

I get depressed and want to completely quit making quilts whenever I see Red Pepper’s quilts. That [wo]man (??) makes quilts like I make toast. She is prolific and per pieces are gorgeous. A recent post shows a fantastic, absolutely, positively wonderfully GORGEOUS red and white quilt. No amount of new fabric is going to allow me to make that quilt. How does she do it?

Deirdre has created a gallery of quilts at the recent Northern Star Quilt Show in Connecticut. Take a look and let her know what you think! Nice job!

Deirdre, being the awesome ‘Net surfer that she is sent a site called Pattern in Islamic Art. The images are WONDERFUL. If you aren’t inspired, I am not sure anything will inspire you! There are great ideas for quilts, quilting motifs and Creative Prompt Responses!

Suzanne Cabrera is a sketch artist whose blog I read intermittently. I have posted links to some of her drawings here before. Posts popped up in my blog reader today or over the weekend so  I went to take a look and found the most wonderful series of posts about her 30th birthday and the wishes for love and hope she sent out to the world. Take a look at the idea, photos of the event and responses. We couldn’t do this here, because we are too close to the ocean and we don’t want the sea life to choke on balloon parts, which makes me even more happy to see Suzanne’s celebration.

And if all of the above isn’t enough Vicki Welsh has recently posted her latest edition of Field Trips in Fiber. I love to make her list and am, alas, once again not on it. She surveys various blogs and puts up links to finished projects. I started to put links to each piece I liked, but I liked all of them so decided to give Vicki a shout out for her hard work on this list. Go and take a look at the beautiful pieces.

Reading

Remember when I mentioned that Art Quilting Studio had a new editor and I speculated on what happened to Jenny Doh? Well, she is now associated with CrescendOH.com. She writes about the launch party and about the vision of CrescendOH. I love it when people jump from their safe life and take a risk. I wish Jenny the best!

Handmade Beginnings by AMH
Handmade Beginnings by AMH

We went on a family outing to Border’s the other day. I know how exciting that sounds! I had a gift card to use as well as a 33% off coupon. The child wanted to get the latest Artemis Fowl book, so it seemed like a good way to spend an hour together. I went to the craft section and looked at all the quilt books they had available. I saw the new Anna Maria Horner book there, Handmade Beginnings, so I took a look.

I have no babies in my life at the moment, and, thus, have no plans to buy this book, but, of course, I found two projects in it that I loved! One is a tote bag, which is large and has some dividers in it. It is called the Here We Go bag. The other project is a decorating project called Writing on the Walls. You pick a word and then through various means create the letters, attach them to stretched canvas and you have a wall decoration. This might work for the C*R*E*A*T*E project I have in mind. The AMH project is another way I could make that project work.

I took some time with the V&A exhibit ancillary materials. The blog is a marketing piece, but it is so well written and entertaining that it made me want to jump on a plane and go to the exhibit and damn the consequences. Lynn Prtichard gives lists of upcoming quilt events in the UK. I could be entertained with quilts for the whole summer if I were a lady of leisure. I am hoping that my quilt friend, LoveAnna, is getting to some of these exhibits. I watched the Caren Garfen video again and really enjoyed it. The website is really a treasure trove of information and photos. It is really the epitome of a web as I clicked here and there and really got lost in a world of quilts.

A survey of how much quiltmakers are spending was recently released. Terri (of quilt book mystery fame) pointed me to an article about the survey. Interesting that we are still spending. I am doing my part, for sure. 😉

Visiting

Remember I visited the Decorator Showcase house? Lil Sissy pointed me to an article on the house that might give you a better idea of what it looked like and was about. The photos in the article also give you a lot more of an idea of what we saw. They do show off the rooms to their best advantage. The before and after photos are great, too. The other great thing about this article is that the reader really gets to see a lot of what we saw, sans the shoving of people out of the way!

Admin

Spam is becoming a huge problem on Artquiltmaker Blog. Does this mean I am popular? I never was in high school. Bleah on spam.  Generally, I, at least, glance through the posts to see if anyone inadvertently wrote something that my spam filter didn’t like. Lately, I have been getting 20, 30, 40 spams a day and have just been marking them all and deleting. Some tips:

  • one word replies get sent to the spam filter
  • embedded links get sent to the spam filter
  • nonsense series of letters and numbers get sent to the spam filter

If your message gets sent to the spam filter, because you are being cute or funny, future posts will need me to approve them and I may miss them in my wholesale deleting of spam. See here for more info.

Various and Sundry Wednesday

Ready for another ride that weaves in and out of the Internet and my mind?

Books, etc

I ran across the notice for Jane Brocket’s quilt book. I stopped reading her blog awhile ago, but was pointed to a link about ribbon, which I have on the mind lately.

A quote from the book via Amazon.co.uk:

“One of the great pleasures of doing anything repetitive by hand, whether it’s knitting, making bread, chopping onions or sowing seeds, is that the rhythm of the action allows your mind to wander.”

I bought this book. The US edition has come out, but I decided to buy the UK edition. I don’t mind  those extra ‘u’ added her and there. There is nothing wrong with the US edition. I was pleased to see that the US edition came out relatively quickly after the UK edition debuted.

I bought the UK edition of the Gentle Art of Domesticity and was pleased with the service I received from the Book Depository, so I made my purchase from them again. The cover of the UK edition looks so much better. One fascinating thing about the Book Depository (which LoveAnna turned me on to) is that they have something like a live webcam where you see what books people are buying and where those buyers are from. It is mesmerizing to see people ordering so many books so quickly. I actually saw someone’s purchase of Cello: Grades 1-3 from China!

Embellishments

Anyway, back to ribbon. Somewhere I saw a link to ribbon. I looked at it, which led me to Jane Brocket’s blog, the new book – see above. The ribbon, though was gorgeous. So wonderful for embellishing bags and making markers for journals. LFN Textiles is the purveyor and the website has gorgeous photos. And they have dotted ribbons. What’s not to like?

Pam Rubert of PamDora blog fame recently tweeted a link to Sharon B’s Dictionary of Stitches for Hand Embroidery and Needlework. She has an index on the first page. If you click on one of the links, you see a picture of the finished stitch and where this stitch can be found. She shows step outs of the stitch and gives the reader tips and tricks. If you are browsing, there is a previous/next link at the top of the stitch screen, so that you can just click to another stitch without returning to the index. There are lots of great features of this site and it is great inspiration if you are using handstitching to embellish a quilt.

Journals

If you remember my fit of excitement over the 1000 Journals Project, this information will come as no surprise to you. I found the Artbook Coop via Julie and they are doing a sketchbook project. You can order (and pay for) a sketchbook, which will then be housed in a museum. I am not sure I could finish something like this, but my mind is swirling around it.

Blocks

Brenda Papadakis of Dear Jane fame has a series of block of the month blocks posted on her website for free. It looks like there is an applique’/embroidery block and a pieced block every month.

Media

Last week I had a virus that hit me hard. One day while I was thinking about going back to bed, I stumbled on a blog called Waking Up in Bavaria. It has a really nice clean look and beautiful photography. One of her recent posts is a review of Kaffe Fassett’s Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts.  It is hard to read a blog from the beginning when you are years behind. Still I read a bit of her posts from last year and my mind spun into imagination land. I spent a formidable time in my life in that area of the world, though in Austria, not Bavaria, so the landscape is familiar. I also like the clean, spare look of her blog. My mind started to wander around the question of what if I woke up in Bavaria tomorrow?

If you need to organize your studio/workroom, the Quilted Cupcake has a podcast and a long blog post with a lot of resources and pictures of her space. QNN TV also has a segment on organization. The January episodes, segments 1&2, 3&4 take on the topic of organizing your studio from different angles. You have to be a member to watch the videos.

I signed up for QNN TV last year and hadn’t really watched the videos. Last week, while I was sick, I was clearing out my email. Some of the messages in there were notices about new QNN TV episodes being posted. Being fit only to lay in bed, I started watching them. I thought they were very entertaining. They have some cooking segments, which I skipped over, but I enjoyed the episode on specialty threads (January episode, Segments 5&6). They have two kinds of links to the shows. Each episode is broken into about 6 segments and two segments are posted each week. This means that you can watch the different segments or watch the whole episode. I have been watching them in segments.

The January episode takes place in Winterset, Iowa, partially at the Fons & Porter store. They also show the Bridges of Madison County, the county in which Winterset is located. I didn’t know that Fons & Porter had a store, so this was interesting to me. I wish they would have done a tour of the store, but they didn’t.

I really enjoyed the November episode. Jodie Davis hosts with Patrick Lose and they report from Houston Quilt Market. They talk about new products and interview people at the show. I was entertained. I think this was shot while Mark was working out the details of his contract with QNN TV. I thought it would be weird, but Jodie Davis handled his not being there with grace. She made it seem like he would be back soon.

I also enjoyed the February Door Knock episode where Mark interviews Liz Porter. It is great to see that she is real and has a real life. I went away from that interview with a lot more respect for her and what she has achieved.

I wasn’t planning to renew my membership, but I may do it. I will definitely watch the episodes as they come out rather than waiting until my inbox is too full before I get to them.

The Alliance for American Quilts had a contest recently called New From Old. They have posted a series of YouTube videos documenting the quilt entries as they arrive. I thought that was very clever! One of them was by Marie Johansen who sometimes reads this blog. I was pleased to see that Yvonne Porcella entered a quilt, which must mean that she is feeling better. There were a number of Dresden Plate entries and two that could be considered Baltimore Album style. Sunbonnet Sue, Grandmother’s Flower Garden and Grandmother’s Fan also made debuts. Some people put a lot of work into their entries and it occurred to me that throwing something together just to enter wouldn’t work for this contest. Then again, it doesn’t usually work for any contest.

If you ever feel like the quilts or ATCs or blocks or paintings you are making are not fit for the fireplace, take a look at the Bad Postcards site. Looking at the works on this site should a) give you a laugh; b) make you feel better about your own work; and c) make you wonder who ever thought it was a good idea to make matching apron, tablecloth and curtains (you’ll have to scroll down the site to get that one). As a bonus for you fabric lovers, there are some interesting fabrics shown in various postcards. It makes me wonder whether people will be laughing about the photos on this blog in 50 years?

Do artists go under Media or Out and About? I don’t know, so here is Michael Cutlip. Mostly I love his website and the way the gallery is laid out. He is the artist who did the picture in the Decor House, which I wrote about in a post a few weeks ago. The picture I took is crappy, but his work is not, so don’t judge him on my photo.

Out and About

You might have heard (or maybe read it here) that the V&A in London has a quilt exhibit up. They have also just announced the release of a second set of patterns, V&A Pattern Series II. “Like the first box set—which included four books arranged by theme and titled William Morris, Indian Florals, Digital Pioneers, and The Fifties—the second series features four books available individually or as a group: Owen Jones, Novelty Patterns, Kimonos, and Garden Florals. In addition to page after page of color images of the textile designs, each hardcover book includes a CD of hi-res images of the featured patterns.”

Being here in the US, it is hard to get to the exhibit, though I am hoping for some kind of miracle (you know free first class tickets, or something), but until then I have been looking at the videos. My favorite so far is the one with Caren Garfen, which I looked at with TFQ. Her quilt is given a bit of short shrift int he book, but this video makes up for it. I wish it were downloadable to iTunes, so I could look at it again without being tethered to my computer.

My sister gets various creative “notions” in her head and her latest is organza flowers. She saw some she loved at Nordstrom. She said that you sew strips of fabric in a circle to a base down the middle of the strip. Have you ever done this? I may try it.

Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy are having a blog tour. There are a lot of new and interesting blogs to look at.

My friend, Kathy, from Everyday Bliss, has a new blog called Everyday Mommy. It is new so I can’t tell you exactly how it turns out, but Kathy writes “Do you want to be a marvelous parent or just like watching others try? Join Everyday Mommy for a wacky and fun experiment! Each week we will delve into one of the parenting virtues, have some fun and hopefully become better parents in the process!” It is fun to watch my friend delve into cyberspace. I know that sounds strange since the web is not new. Before blogs I couldn’t tell how many emails people were sending or what websites they were going to. With all of the cross linking and comments, as well as FB, it is much easier.

Deirdre sent me a link to Woody Campbell’s Photo a Day blog. His photos are a bit large. Still, I like the photo of the refrigerator. I like the idea of documenting normal every day things. I don’t always do it, but I think about it. I read about a guy who took a photo of the same building across the street from his shop every day at the same time for something like 30 years. Do you ever do anything like that? I thought about it when I took a picture out the window of my workroom, but then I never followed up. I suppose it isn’t too late!

Various and Sundry Thursday

Around the Web

Have you seen Judy Martin’s newish Free Block (quilt?) of the Moment? It is a nice updated version of a rail fence. It would make a nice FOTY project.

Jinny Beyer also has a free block she calls Block-a-Week. Every Friday she posts a new block. I wrote about her block of the week before. Have you tried it? Come here and do the CPP, then hop over to Jinny Beyer’s site and get the block of the week. You’ll really get your creative juices going!

Block Party has a fun Friendship Star variation that reminds of the Corner Store quilt that I liked from Pretty Little Mini Quilts. It also reminds me of Gwen Marston’s Liberated Piecing techniques. I must really like this star, because I also talked about it on December 9, 2009! Did you try it out? Nothing has been going on this blog since February. There is a note that says she has a book coming out, so perhaps she is focusing on that project?

I am reading Jinny Beyer’s Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns (you can buy it via the AQ Bookstore) and so I must have blocks on my mind. That book is HUGE!! I need to get out of bed, heave it with two hands off the floor and be careful not injure myself or anyone else. This is not an 80 page paperback. You need this book.

I was listening to a Pat Sloan podcast (from 4/12/2010) with Linda Franz the other day. Linda Franz is the creator of InkLingo. InkLingo is a method of printing templates on to fabric using your ink jet printer. I don’t know if other printers work. They made it very clear that black ink does not work. At first, I thought the idea sounded like another step to add to the quilting process. As I listened, though, I thought it might be worth trying. She offers a free sheet of patterns and the thing that I thought was interesting was that she is creating pattern sheets for blocks that have become too complicated to piece in our quick piecing culture. I took a quick look at her site and will go back for more. I think it is worth a look.

Have you heard about Knitting Graffiti? Deputy Dog chronicles the different installations of knitting and crocheting graffiti. I have been thinking lately that the local train garage where I park in the morning is a hideously ugly concrete blackmark on a large corner lot of my town. I have been trying to think of ways to prettify it. Kaffe Fasset is always good inspiration, but perhaps this knitting graffiti would be quicker? It would, however, also be more ephemeral.

This site, Lives of the Artists, has some food for thought.

Have you seen this blog? Rachel Draws a Lot is just what the title says – a kid drawing and posting to a blog. I love the whimsical nature of the drawings. If you can do what she does, you can create a creative prompt response. Channel your inner 4YO!

Have you listened to Sew ~ Stitch ~ Create yet? If not, go take a look at the blog and see Beach Town there!

I think a number of other blogs have talked about 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs. I finally went to look at it and was amazed and thrilled. First, it is a treasure trove of quilting designs. Second, there are videos so you can see how the creator makes the design. This site would be a great way to practice your free motion quilting skills. You could decide to do a certain number a week and then just follow along or pick the ones you like.

Nina Johansson has a new website. She is the artist who did the wonderful coffee sketch I found in February of last year. I really like the details in her work. She posts about “rolling the dice” to find a good color combination. This might be a great way of selecting colors for your next quilt. I suppose the die could be created using solid fabrics instead of painting as well.

I am a pretty big fan of most fiber arts. I like to see what my weaving, stitching, blackwork and crocheting colleagues are doing. I can often find some inspiration or ideas from other crafts. This story about a woven spider, yes spider, silk tapestry takes the cake. I cannot even imagine mining spiders for their silk. I can imagine undertaking a project so challenging there was a good chance the maker would fail. I think everyone should do that. Failure is the best lesson ever and success breeds success.

CraftSanity Apron Update

Remember that I made an apron to donate to the CraftSanity Apron Auction? Jennifer at CraftSanity posted a gushing thank you to the people who donated FIFTY, yes 50, aprons.

She wrote about the expected opening of the show plus the press, too and the photoshoot.

I wish I could be there to see the opening, but a visit to Grand Rapids is not in my future at this time. The video they posted is GREAT. My apron doesn’t have a starring role, but there is a glimpse of it on the video. My apron didn’t win any prizes. I have to admit I was disappointed, but the aprons that won had more meaning for the organization than mine did. I wanted to make something fun and cute. I think I succeeded, so I am satisfied. Also, I feel that by supporting this cause in a small way all women win.

Why did I do this? I once call a local domestic violence shelter for a friend whose husband was beating her. I had worked to collect gifts and canned food at Christmas time for that organization as part of my charity work with a local Alumnae Panhellenic. My heart still aches when I think of that whole experience and how wonderful the volunteer was who answered the phone. It is one small thing I was able to do.

Fabric

Anina over at Twiddletails got some fabric from Spoonflower, which she posted about in her blog. Sigh. I am so tempted. I have an idea for fabric that is my own design that I could make available to others. I just have to sit down and do the design.

Need some stripes? Check out the stripes the Quilting Loft has available. Oh! By the way, they also have an online store!

Walker Bags

I found a pattern that I liked at CareWear Volunteers.

I also found one at Laura’s Sewing Studio.

A friend also mentioned that a book came out with patterns for various walker caddies, wheelchair backpacks and the like. I am waiting to hear back from about any tips and tricks she has. I am also waiting for sizes from the physical therapist.

To Do List

I have some things I need and want to do:

  1. Make a bag for the Square ‘n Blocker. It is obvious that it will get really dirty really quickly if I just leave it laying around. I think I can make a bag, like the Eco Market Tote, that will also hold some other supplies like rulers and a cutting mat.
  2. I want to make more circles like I learned to do in the Dale Fleming class. Look for my discussion of that AWESOME class.
  3. I need to fix Lil Sissy’s bag.
  4. I want to make a couple of pencil rolls.
  5. I want to make a couple of journal covers.
  6. Need to catch up on my CPP responses.

I feel like I have so many quilt/creativity and sewing related things I want to get done that I am running around like a chicken getting nothing done. Sigh! I made a lot of progress over the weekend, but never as much as I would like.

Blocks on my Mind

Teacher Pillow time is coming, so I have blocks on my mind. During this project the book Around the Block is a dear friend. I also like the Dear Jane blocks. Recently I saw the progress Twiddletails was making on her DJ project and it made me think that the authors, Judy and Brenda, of the two books should get together and do the same concept with the DJ blocks. Yes, I know there is an EQ program for Dear Jane, but it is not the same as the Around the Block book. I am not sure if it is possible to rotary cut all of those DJ patterns.

Various & Sundry Wednesday

Janome

One of the great things about being a fan of Janome on FB is that they interact with their fans. I love that. I love it that they actually answer questions. Periodically I have a question about a foot or something. If I post it on their wall, they get back to me/the other fans quickly. So much better than email! It is wonderful.

I am preparing for a class this weekend with Dale Fleming. The supply list has some odd things on it and I have been working on collecting them. Good thing I started early. One of the things on the supply list is a zipper foot. I have a zipper foot for my Janome 9K. It is, however, a heavy machine to take to class and I was hoping to be able to take my Jem Gold to class instead. The Jem does not have as many capabilities, but it sews great and is much lighter. I didn’t think my question through very well, so they didn’t have enough information to answer my question exactly, but they did point me to a GREAT blog post about putting in a zipper. The Dale Fleming class isn’t about putting in zippers, but I can still use this information.

I tried the zipper foot on my Jem and it doesn’t work, so I will be hauling the big machine to the class.

Later, Janome posted a sewing machine cover project. They actually tell you how to make the cover fit your sewing machine rather than giving a pattern for one size. I have been using a plastic bag and I am definitely going to make one of these covers.  I know not all of you have a Janome, but you can certainly use the projects they post and the information they offer with your own tools and supplies.

Giveaway

Did you sign up for the giveaway? C’mon, you know you want that silk. You can do it. I don’t mind taking your one last braincell to sign up for the giveaway after the fight you broke up between the kids, the dog running away, dinner not ready when you got home, that lost thing at work you just had to stay behind and find. I really don’t mind. Check out that blog post, leave a comment here and JUST DO IT!

Podcasts

BryeLynn over at Sew~Stitch~Create found 3 new podcasts:

Around the Web

Sew Mama Sew posted an interview with Denyse Schmidt on her blog. They talk about her workshops and a new book coming out. There are really nice descriptions of her various workshops offerings and some nice photos to illustrate the various points in the interview.

An additional interview was posted with Nancy Crow on the Quilting Arts website. A lot of the answers really talk about the creative process, space and how it impacts production of quilts.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the Happy Zombie blog. I went back there yesterday looking for the post about the New Wave quilt to show my mom and stumbled on to her enthusiastic and excited post about her new fabric line from Lecien. One of the things she showed was a color card. I clicked on the link because there were LOTS of dots and I cannot resist dots. Lecien has a great selection of dots on their site.

I was pleased to see a link to my blog on the blog A Stitch in Time. One of the things that interested me were Carol’s digital photography lessons. In the post that I read, she talks about and shows a lot of examples of light. Remember when I went to the scrapbook day and talked about the video I saw on improving digital photography?

Mark Lipinski posted that he needs a kidney transplant on his blog earlier this week! It made me think about a lot of things. One of the thoughts was about how much we don’t know about people out in cyberland.

Rice Zachery-Freeman (Freeman-Zachery??) of Voodoo Lounge and Creative Time & Space (this book is in the AQ Bookstore, so if you want to buy it, it is just an easy click away!) fame and podcast had a really interesting post about an quilt project author who wrote a magazine article. In the article the author claimed that, according to Rice, the most interesting part of the article was a “trade secret.” Not only was the post interesting, but the comments brought all sorts of other issues surrounding writing. One issue was should craftpeople write for free? My favorite was is everyone who claims to be an artist an artist? Another issue was whether the editor should have worked more with the author on that “trade secret”.

I am not saying what is right or what is wrong, but I like it when people call writers and editors on things that the reader may not find right.  I am not advocating violence or antagonism, but a good, healthy, respectful debate.

As I said, I am not sure if I know the article in question, but what struck me was the sentence (FYI: third hand via Rice) “it is a trade secret.” While I am not a lawyer, I do work with a bunch of lawyers and I see what it takes to deal with the law. Time and money, first and foremost. I don’t like it when people throw around legal terms, which seems all to prevalent in the craft/quilt world these days. Everyone is entitled to their copyright. Still, there are rules about how people can write about your copyrighted materials. Everyone is entitled to trademark their logo or design. You have to do the work, though; you can’t just say that you have trademarked something. It takes a lot of research, effort and some cash (or credit, as the case may be). Trade secrets are whole different ball of wax. I don’t work with lawyers that ask me much about trade secrets, but I am pretty sure you can’t just say that some process you have thought up is a trade secret.

Anyway, check out Rice’s blog post about this issue. I am sure she would love to know what YOU think.

Life on the Edge

I am looking for a nice pattern for a walker bag. My granny, who we are now calling Super G, fell over the weekend and now has to walk with a walker. I think a walker bag would be handy and make it look pretty. I haven’t trolled the web, but will. If any of you have found a good pattern for a walker bag, please leave a comment and let me know.

Have a great day!