Creative Get Togethers

I am lucky to belong to three sewing groups. One of them gets together every other week, one every month and the other probably six or seven times a year.

Last night was a meeting of the one we call our UFO Club. You can see us all here. That is me on the left, then we have Lauren, Joan, Jill, Lori and Carol. We meet once a month at Joan's house. She has the most wonderful studio space over her garage. There is plenty of room for all our projects.

We aren't all quilters, but many of us are. Group members also do various knitting, embroidery, felting and other kinds of creative projects. In addition to our latest creative pursuit, we also share stories about our children, families and work, some great food and a bottle or two of wine.

Thanks, ladies, for being such a great group to hang around with! See you in November!

Missing Halloween costumes?

A brief detour from quilts:

For many years, I have made my girls' Halloween costumes and had a great time doing it. We had a ritual. Every year, in early September I would start asking them what they wanted to be. They would always go through lots of ideas.

As the first of October approached, we would go to the fabric store and pick out patterns and fabric. It was always an interesting negotiation between what they wanted and what I thought I could manage given time and financial constraints. One year my older daughter wanted a long cape as part of her costume. The first fabric she saw that she loved was $18/yard and we needed at least 3 yards! Luckily, we found some she liked just as well for $3/yard.

I have made many princess outfits, several wizard/mage variations, witches, Felicity from American Girl and a full fledged bride (among others)!

My girls are older now and I don't really have time to make these elaborate costumes, but I do miss it. I wish I had some photos of the costumes to show you, but they were all well before I had a digital camera.

These shots of my girls were taken in Dec 08 (my older daughter doesn't like having her picture taken and tends to make silly faces any time I try) and Oct 09 (younger daughter on her fourteenth birthday).

Spring to Fall

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I love to see the same design in different colors. I first designed and made this quilt pattern in Spring 2008. I hand appliqued and hand quilted it. I love the serene, soft spring day feeling it gives me. I called this version Raindrops.

Earlier this fall, I decided to try the same pattern in fall colors. This time, I machine appliqued and machine quilted it. This one is called RainFall and the colors are just right for this time of year. I love seeing it on my wall.

The pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop.

Early Inspirations

I had probably been quilting about three years when I stumbled across The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Fun Quilts. I was in the process of trying to figure out what kinds of quilts I wanted to make. I had seen many, many quilts that I thought were beautiful, but many of them clearly weren't me. But what was me?


At the time, it seemed to me like the quilt world was divided between traditional quilts and art quilts. I enjoyed the materials used in the traditional quilts - fabric, batting and thread. I also admired the breaking away from tradition of the art quilts, but had no interest in unusual fabrics or paint or beads or all the other embellishments that seemed (to me at the time) to be required for this style.


Enter The Modern Quilt Workshop. I can't tell you how excited I was when I first opened this book. I hadn't seen quilts like this before. Clearly modern and contemporary and made with traditional methods and materials. This was what I wanted to do!

The book was different from other quilt books I had seen too. In addition to the pattern for each quilt, Weeks and Bill also offered variations in color and layout. I loved seeing how a particular quilt looked in different color variations. As soon as I devoured The Modern Quilt Workshop, I ran right out and got Quiltmaker's Color Workshop, which has abundant information on color and value in quilts.

If you aren't familiar with Weeks and Bill, check out their website at www.funquilts.com and Weeks' blog at www.CraftNectar.com.

Design Wall

I am lucky that I have a room in my house dedicated to sewing. One of my favorite things in my sewing room is my design wall! I can't emphasize how much it helps me to be able to spread my quilts out and look at them.

There are lots of options out there for design walls, both ready made and DIY. Mine has to be one of the simplest. I bought some flannel backed vinyl tablecloth yardage at Joann and stapled it to the wall. That's it. It has served me well for at least six years. I think the fact that the flannel is backed with vinyl gives it a stability that plain flannel or batting would not have.

I certainly don't claim this as an original idea. I know many quilters who use smaller flannel backed vinyl tablecloths as portable design walls to take to classes. This also works for those without a dedicated sewing space.

Anyway, here is a picture of the wall - I had to put a little more of my WIP on the wall, otherwise it was just too white and boring!

Work in Progress

Just a quick shot of what I have been working on this weekend.

A friend GAVE me her EQ5 program earlier this year when she bought a Mac. She asked me to design some quilts for her church group to make as prayer quilts. It has taken me several months to set aside the time I needed to learn EQ5 and work out some designs for her. This WIP is my first effort. I can't wait until I get all the blocks finished to see how it looks! THANKS Jill!

Shipshewana

On Tuesday I went with a group of quilting friends to Shipshewana, IN. For those of you not from this area, Shipshewana is a small town in northern Indiana with a large Amish population. They have two OUTSTANDING places to buy fabric.

I use this phrase instead of quilt shop because Yoder's is a department store. They carry a wide variety of goods and have a fabulous selection of fabric. The most exciting part for me is that they carry a wide selection of solids. As far as I know, they are the only store anywhere near me that does. ("Anywhere near me" is a rather misleading phrase, since Shipshewana is about 2 1/2 hours from where I live).

The other place is a quilt shop called Lolly's. It is huge and has a wonderful selection of fabrics. They have everything from batiks to reproduction.

The fabrics in the picture were my purchases for the day. In the back are Kona cotton solids in charcoal, slate, medium grey and white. The amazing egg beater print is Metro Market by Monaluna for Robert Kaufman. This print has been out for a while, but this is the first time I saw any in person and I had to get some! These were all from Yoder's. The oranges from Lolly's are (top down): Karen Combs/Blank Quilting, Sandy Gervais/Moda Gobble Gobble, Sandy Gervais/Moda Sandy's Solids, LakeHouse fabrics Frosted Dots, and Michele Scott/Lynhurst Studio Nature's Palette.

Orange and grey is my current color combination obsession!

Welcome

There is so much exciting and interesting activity going on out there in blogland, I decided I had to give it a try! I am an obsessed quilter!! So this blog will be about quilts - mostly the quilts I make, but also about some quilts and quilters that inspire me.

I'm sure the rest of my life will end up making an appearance as well. I am married to a terrific man and have two amazing teenage daughters. I also have two very part time jobs.

This quilt is called Seaside and I made it last year after a workshop with Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Fun Quilts.




I hope you enjoyed stopping by.