Happy 2015!

Happy New Year!  Well better late, than never, right?  Hope you all are recovered from the holiday season and getting back into your normal routines.  I know I am, finally, and happy to be at the sewing machine once again.  



I recently started on an Ocean Waves quilt for our bed.  It is a bit slow-going and has a lot of triangles (always a favorite of mine!).  But it will be worth the amount of time involved once it is completed.  This is going to be a large quilt, finishing out at a king size, but will have borders on four sides, so hopefully, that will reduce a bit of the time involved.

Since I am only using two fabrics in this quilt, I am piecing the half-square triangles using the Triangulations software by Bear Paw Productions, printing out the pages of the exact size triangles I need on my printer, and sewing them together.  This is my favorite and fastest method for sewing half-square triangles.  I absolutely love this method and highly recommend it if you have never tried it.

So have you made (and kept or broken?) your New Year's resolutions?  I won't get into my long list of them except for one that I've had for over two years now and have finally decided to tackle----to learn how to use my fancy, pancy digital camera that comes with all the bells and whistles and to learn to take better pictures!  My husband bought me this wonderful camera as a birthday gift a few years ago and other than using it for shooting pictures on the automatic setting, I am ashamed to admit that I have hardly used it!  I guess I have to be in the right state of mind to learn some of this techy stuff, but the time has finally arrived.

So with the help of some great camera books as well as reading lots of info on websites, I am determined to learn how to take better pictures, learn about lighting and hopefully post better quality photos.  It is the one thing that I greatly admire about  so many of the popular blogs, their photography is just incredible! 

Queen of the May quilt block

Besides learning how to use the camera, there is a whole other learning curve involved and that is learning how to use the photo editing software!  So I am determined to make an effort at this, even if it's just baby steps and it takes me months to grasp, I have wanted to understand photography for a long time but have never taken the time to learn it.  Here are a few beginning shots, all with NO flash!  Using a flash is apparently the first big no-no!  Who knew??  Good photography starts with natural lighting.

Don't you just love these old feedsack fabrics?  They remind me of candy!  I never get tired of looking at vintage fabrics.

I thought it might be fun to let you take a peek into my world!  Here are a few shots of our family room and looking beyond into the kitchen nook. . . 

The quilt on the wall is the quilt that I reproduced from an antique quilt I blogged about a year ago.  I made the slipcovers and pillows on the sofas almost 13 years ago.  The slipcovers are on their last days, sadly.  I'm afraid if I wash them one more time, they will begin to come apart.  I've been debating if I want to buy entirely new sofas with white slipcovers OR make new slipcovers for these sofas, which are close to 25 years old.  I'm just so uncertain about all white, if it will be too plain for my taste, whether they will hold up to pets and a husband (!), and whether I will be washing them every week!  If anyone has input, I would welcome your opinions and experience!

The ceiling in this room is over 22 feet high, it's actually a little much!  I don't think I would do such high ceilings if we were building a house again.  We do get a lot of sun in this room from the windows that are up high as well as from two sets of French doors, which is great for bright natural light but terrible when it comes to fading fabrics.  Currently I have the upper shades down so the room is not as bright as it normally is!

This pic is looking into the foyer with the dining room beyond.

And I couldn't resist a picture of Molly.  I thought this photo turned out pretty good for a beginner!

Until next time, Happy Quilting!

A Touch of Fall Inspiration

Just a quick update to show you my fall inspired quilt top I just finished.  I'm calling this one October Romance since I really had fun pulling lots of floral fabrics I haven't used in quite a long time.  There are 210 different fabrics in this quilt.  

This quilt probably doesn't read FALL to most of you in the traditional sense.  I find that it's really difficult for me to use the color orange!  And yellow!  But that being said, I tried to make it look less Easter-like than most of my quilts. 

Remember my "inspiration" fabrics that I showed you?  I tried to stay within these color ranges when I pulled fabrics for this quilt, although I will admit, I pulled in more blue than what you see in the fabrics above.  Blue is a main color in my home, so I always try to incorporate blue in most of my quilts so they will look like they blend in with the rooms where they are displayed.

And just an update on my quilt, Color My World. . .it came home with it's second ribbon last week.  I was delighted to find out that it won Best Interpretation of Theme at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California.  The theme for this year's show was The Whole Nine Yards, although I didn't know that at the time I made this quilt.  I think it just turned out to be a happy coincidence!

Hope you are enjoying your fall, wherever you are!  Happy Quilting!

Blog Hop Reminder

Hello and Happy Monday everyone!  This is just a quick reminder to all of you to please support the bloggers on the Around the World Blog Hop.  Today Greg from Grey Dogwood Studio has written a fabulous post on his creative process and has included many bright and colorful photos of what he is working on as well as pictures of fabrics to drool over.  He is such an inspiration!  His way of working on multiple projects at a time is something I am envious of!  I love his taste in fabrics and color and his style is just exuberant and happy.  Greg bubbles over with enthusiasm for his passion and his quilts are so cheerful, I love seeing his work.  Please read his post and get inspired! 

Have a wonderful week and Happy Quilting!

Around the World Blog Tour

Welcome!  If this is your first time visiting my blog, thank you for taking the time to stop by.  Last week I was contacted by Jill at Happy2Sew blog and asked if I would like to be tagged in the Around the World Blog Tour.  I happily accepted.  Jill was kind enough to write about a few things I've posted.  Please check out her blog, she does it all, sews, quilts, makes purses, knits, and she is in the process of making an adorable Halloween costume for a lucky little girl!

Ok, pull up a chair, this is a long post!  Let's move on to my answers to the four blog tour questions:

What am I currently working on?

I am actually in limbo between major quilts.  I just bought a new Bernina 710 a few weeks ago and am in the process of getting acquainted with it.  I made this vintage style apron recently so I could try out my new machine.

 

And this week I've been playing around making quilt blocks.  I realized I have hardly any quilts that coordinate with fall décor, so I got inspired to pull lots of soft fall colors in a variety of florals from my stash.

These large florals (above) were my fall "inspiration" but I won't be using them in a quilt.  They are for color reference and help guide me to establish a "feel" for what I am trying to achieve in the overall look.

My hands are rarely idle in front of the television in the evenings.  Right now I am embroidering vintage Halloween postcard images that will eventually wind up in a quilt.  There will be 16 embroidered blocks when I am finished.  These images are from two different patterns, Sandi Bard Designs and Yesterday's Charm, and I am combining the ones I like the best.



Earlier this summer I also started cross-stitching again.  This is A Love Song sampler by FourOaks Designs.  I used to be an avid cross-stitcher years ago but had grown tired of it, plus framing is so expensive and I only have so much wall space!  But seeing some of the beautiful samplers on Pinterest inspired me to pick it up again, so I started working on this sampler over the summer.  That being said, I haven't stitched on it in a few months. 

 

How does my work differ from others?

Color My World

I use a lot of different fabrics in a quilt, anywhere from 100 to several hundred.  I love scrap quilts and lots of piecing, usually the more pieces, the better.  I am constantly inspired by antique scrap quilts as well as fabric. 

Last Summer's Leftovers

The last several years I've been infatuated with candy colored pastels, vintage-inspired prints and quilts from the 1930s.  Most of my quilts are scrappy, but they are very controlled and deliberate.  I'm always coordinating color and value placement, visual texture (the type of fabric print), color intensity, etc.  Very little of my quilt making is random or accidental. 

Summer at the Lake

I like to be challenged, whether it's the type of piecing, how a quilt is constructed, or with use of color and/or the number of fabrics.  I get bored very easily so I need things that will hold my attention for a longer period of time if I want to finish them.  I love busyness, lots of prints, movement, and visual interest.  The busier, the better!  I am definitely a "more is more" person.

Why do I create?

I create because I have to, it is as vital to me as breathing, eating, or sleeping.  Creating is part of who I am.  Some of my earliest memories are of drawing and making things.  I don't think I have ever NOT created.  If I go more than a few days without doing something creative, whether it's quilting, needlework, creating art, or making something, I become irritable and depressed, I am no fun to be around!  Creating is something I absolutely have to do.  I wish I could spend every waking minute creating.  It seems like there is never enough time to create as much as I'd like.  Setting priorities and being disciplined are things I've learned to work very hard at in order to make time to do what I love.

I have a degree in art and my background is in illustrating designs for screenprinting on t-shirts.  We've owned a screen printing and embroidery business for over 30 years.  However, when creating artwork made the transition from being done by hand to being done on the computer, I lost interest in designing for screen printing.  Call me old-fashioned, but I need to have a pencil, rapidiograph or paintbrush in my hand to illustrate.

I'm not sure why I started making quilts but I think it's because I am obsessed with fabric!  I've been hoarding collecting fabric since the 70s when I was in high school and sewed clothes.  I love fabric and I LOVE floral fabrics.  I have enough fabric to last 20 lifetimes.  I was never exposed to quilts in my family, no one I knew made quilts. 

But right after high school I worked at Joann Fabrics and stumbled on a McCall's Quilting booklet and became intrigued with these colorful pieced bed coverings.  For the next several years I read up on quilts and began buying antique ones, but it wasn't until 1984 when I finally got the courage to try making a quilt on my own. 

How do I work?

I probably spend 25 or so hours a week in my studio.  I wish it was much, much more than that!  But owning our own business creates many demands on my time.  I  also struggled with an inner battle for a very long time about when I was quilting, I felt I should be making art and if I was making art, I wanted to be quilting.  I have only come to terms with this struggle recently and am happy creating quilts in my spare time for now.  But I do hope to get back to my art one of these days!

Daydream Believer

I am in such admiration of those of you who work on multiple quilts and projects at a time!  I am not able to do this.  I am very easily distracted by all the ideas churning in my head, so I try to stick with one quilt until the top is 100% complete.  Since a lot of my quilts are labor intensive, I may spend many weeks to a few months on it.  Once the top is completed, I am usually OVER it at this point and fold it up and put it away until I am inspired to quilt it.  Up to a year can pass until I am ready to get it back out for quilting.

Blooming in Chintz

I design most of my quilts in The Electric Quilt (EQ) software.  It is as vital a tool for making quilts as a sewing machine for me.  When I finally get a layout I think I like, I color it in grayscale values so I can see how the quilt "reads".  Then it's off to pull color inspiration, which might come from a large flowery decorator print or from one of my many pieces of vintage barkcloth.

I might have a general idea of a look or feel I am after.  I tend to switch between floral, chintzy looks and vintage 1930s styles.  Depending on the quilt design, I pull out lots of stacks of fabrics in my chosen palette from my closet and just start cutting strips in a given width or. . .

Right now I am working on blocks, so I am pulling four fabrics for each block and making a block at a time.  I rarely pre-cut a whole bunch of specific pieces for a quilt in advance.  I prefer to cut for a single block, then sew, then observe how a block looks alongside other blocks, see what the quilt is lacking, and work from there. 

Reducing Lens

I am constantly using a reducing lens to look through to see how my quilt reads from a distance.  I also frequently photograph it in black and white to see how my values are working together in the overall design. 

Looking through reducing lens

And whenever I can, I foundation-piece.  It is so addicting and it appeals to my perfectionist tendencies!  Some of you may think it is more time consuming, but for me it is quick and extremely accurate.

This is a current shot of my studio. . .

I like to have lots of choices close by and everything around me easily accessible.  My fabric stacks are organized by color and type of print--stripes, polka dots, tonal, small floral, large floral, etc.  I find it so much easier to work from stacks when they're out in the open on the countertop rather than in my closet.  I can coordinate colors and prints and mix combinations that I might not normally be inclined to put together had I pulled a specific "recipe" straight from my closet shelves.

Dresden Charm

And finally, part of the reason I enter my quilts into shows is so I will finish them.  It gives me a deadline with a goal and is also a way to share them with others.

So that is an overview of how I work and a peek into my creative process.  Hopefully, I may have inspired a couple of you.

Last but not least, I would like to introduce Greg from Grey Dogwood Studio and pass the Blog Tour baton on to him.  I have been following Greg on Instagram for quite some time and am a big fan of his work!  His quilts are fabulous, they just seem to shout "happy" to me.  I love his taste in colors and fabrics and he has a wonderful eye for vintage style.  Please be sure to check out his blog.  Greg will be posting for the Around the World Blog Tour next Monday, October 27th.  Stay tuned!

Thank you for visting!  Happy Quilting! 

Jacksonville Quilt Fest Part 2

Ok, so moving on to the rest of the Jacksonville Quilt Fest that was held a couple of weeks ago.  As I mentioned in my last post, the quilts I am showing are just some of what was of interest to me in one way or another, in no particular order.

Civil War Bride Quilt by Rose Luehrsen, The Villages, Florida; quilted by Linda Spence

Hourglass on Point by Carole Jackson, Jacksonville Beach, Florida; quilted by Cathy Peters (detail below)

Little Bowties by Linda Simons, Roswell, Georgia; quilted by Shawn Hooten (detail below)

Brilliant Beauties of Joyette by Elaine Stemetzki of St. John's Florida; pattern by Jacqueline De Jonge. (This is a miniature quilt, she had also made one in a larger size just like it).

Wanda's Garden by Wanda Hizer of Marietta, Georgia; quilted by Michelle Wyman; pattern by Lisa Debee Schiller (details below)

Sweet Georgia Brown by Wanda Hizer of Marietta, Georgia; pattern by Terry Clothier Thompson (details below)

Love Eternal by Jill Allen of McIntosh, Florida; design by her daughter, Rachel Kolar (details below)

Tied to the Past (made from neckties) by Linda Johnson of Orlando, Florida; quilted by Cathie Mozetta (detail below) 

And finally. . .

 Elisabeth's Garden:  A Tale of a Thousand Threads by Elisabeth Frolet of Dunwoody, Georgia.

 

I was really taken with this crazy quilt.  Her work was fabulous!  It was her original design and a tale of her favorite hobbies and activities.  Silhouettes in the border of her husband, children and herself have been painted with oil pastels.  This was one of those quilts you could just look at for hours.  It was absolutely beautiful!  I've included several close-ups, below.  Enjoy!

Hopefully some of the quilts from this show have inspired you.  I know there were several that inspired me.  Until next time. . . Happy Quilting!