Starry Compass Rose

May 26, 2016May 25, 2016 Elizabeth E.29 Comments

Starry Compass Rose
Quilt # 156

I’d like to tell you the background about how I went to Quilt Market. I was contacted by Paintbrush Studios in November of 2015 to see if I would design and make a quilt for them using their Painter’s Palette line of solids. At first I was like, who is this? but soon got to corresponding with Anne, a delightful woman with a great sense of humor. She turned me over to Deena in the design department, and I sent over a rough sketch. Then another. We soon had several renditions flying back and forth over email, which meant not only did I have to design a quilt for them, and sew it, but I also had to learn how to express myself in EQ7 (cue: grimace). I learned it “enough” and produced the sketch you see above.

Of course, all this is stuff I couldn’t mention on the blog, but I worked on this steadily from late November until mid-February when I sent off to them a quilt top, binding, backing and a label. Someone else would quilt it.

As a thank-you for this experience, I made them Focus, a small quilt to hang in their booth at QuiltCon. While at QuiltCon, I screwed up my nerve to ask Sue and Deena if I could get a pass to see the quilt at market, and they arranged it.

But I was most interested in seeing my quilt, all quilted up by Denise Marieno, at Quilt Market. I was sad to see it go in February, but ecstatic to see it now, hanging in the Painter’s Palette booth. I checked on the progress several times on Thursday as they set up their booth, watching as they moved it from an inner spot, to an outer spot. They were very happy with the result, as was I. Denise did a terrific job of quilting it.

So now it’s gone, and who knows when I’ll see it again, but oh, what a high! to see it at market. I hope I can work with them again sometime, as I thoroughly enjoyed the process and the people at this company.

I’ve spent my life in unheralded endeavors: a young bride having babies, a mother at home, a student, an adjunct professor, but no one praises your skill at loading a dishwasher, managing a complicated carpool schedule, or compliments you on the nice comments you leave on student papers. So to come into Quilt Market and to see my quilt hanging there as a professional quilt designer was an experience I won’t soon forget. It was like someone patted me on the head and said “You did great,” that my skills were recognized, instead of just giving service or being a cog in what passes for Higher Ed these days. I certainly don’t regret being a mother-at-home, nor of my years of teaching. I don’t regret being an older student, trying to fit in with the 20-somethings who were writing edgy short stories that included drugs and sex, while all I could come up with is little stories of mothers and fathers and families that somehow always included a quilt somewhere.

But to round that corner that first morning and see this quilt?
Oh, so satisfying.

Next post: Day One of Market, going to Schoolhouse, a Tumble, and a Giveaway

200 Quilts

Beauty All Around

May 25, 2016May 26, 2016 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

Beauty All Around
Quilt # 162

Before I start on my market wrap-up posts (although Sherri of A Quilting Life has a nice array of photos of her Moda contemporaries), I wanted to show you some of the market sewing I did for Sherri. She sent me some fabrics, I sent her an email with a design, then I got to work creating this little mini for her Moda booth. She has the words “There is Beauty All Around” on the selvage of her one of her fabric lines, so I grabbed a bit of that for a title. I got it wrong initially, thinking it belonged to this line, Desert Bloom, but it belonged to the previous collection.

She writes: “I love the name you gave your quilt, too; however, the selvage quote “There is beauty all around” comes from Valley…the selvage quote for Desert Bloom is “Nature’s beauty brings joy to the soul.”

Now you know them both!

It’s pattern #23 in my Craftsy Shop, and in my PayHip Shop (for EU readers). It’s a fun little mini that makes up quickly. Because it is a new little pattern and a wee little star at Quilt Market, it has a lower price for the first month, then I’ll put it back up to the regular price in my shops.

But that’s not all. I also made Sherri a clutch out of her fabric, featuring a pinwheel to match the quilt. I used Diane Stanley’s clutch pattern (she’s also known on IG as ylmommyx4), and it went together really quickly.

Next up: my Starry Compass Rose at Market, plus a giveaway!

200 Quilts · Mini-quilt · Quilt Patterns

Summer 2016 Goals

May 20, 2016May 17, 2016 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

To introduce my newest goal, I need to talk about my new pattern covers. I made them in a new software I’m trying to learn, Affinity Photo, fearful that any day my upgrades on my Mac will render my old copy of Photoshop more obsolete than it already is. And no, I don’t want to pay a monthly fee to use their software (are you listening, Adobe?) I just heard that Affinity Photo is launching a beta version for PC users, too, although it was developed as a Mac software. So this is the first of my summer goals.

They also have Affinity Designer, which I’m also trying to learn, but since I don’t know Adobe’s Illustrator very well, it’s like banging my head against a wall. When my friend recovers from getting her daughter married off, I’m going to ~~bug~~ ask her to teach me a few things.

To keep reading is another summer goal, and this was the latest book I finished, while quilting up a few things for my Riverside Sawtooth post. It set me down so carefully in time and place. No, it’s not a grip-you-by-the-throat novel, but a quiet one, filled with well-drawn characters from a time in our past. I listened to it on Audible, which I would recommend, as the narrator really gets the sound of the voices and it adds another dimension to the story, I think.

Can I mention Summer Events? Here’s about the only political statement I’ll make on this blog: we recently (and sadly) lost our ability to have a primary election here in California. We’d all been so excited, actually asking everyone “who are you going to vote for?” and really getting interested in politics in general. We are one of the final primaries on the Presidential Election Schedule, and for once, we were going to Have a Say! Except now we aren’t, because of the recent events (which has made great theater, I have to say). So, hope everyone else in the United States had a great time voting–as usual, our votes won’t count. H o w e v e r. . . I will be watching the conventions. After teaching Critical Thinking a few years, and having my students watch the conventions and have them analyze the speeches, the rhetoric, looking for the logical fallacies and spotting all the weakness in candidates’ arguments, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s going to be a long, hot summer out here, and hey! we need something to compensate us for not getting a Primary Election.

And it that’s not enough excitement (!), we can always watch the Brazil Summer Olympics, although with all the talk lately, it may end up being like our primary. Click on the link at the end of the post to see this colorful Olympics design in action.

In other news, my garden is growing well, I’ve got a few more projects in the pipeline, but my main quilty goals this summer are as follows:

1. Finish My Small World.

2. Quilt Shine: The Circles Quilt

3. Quilt Riverside Sawtooth

4. Keep working on this quilt. Remember this? It was one of the units in the New Hexagon Millifiore Quilt. I’m halfway through, and my friend Laurel is all done with hers. And her quilt is gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, so I need to perserve and Be A Finisher. (However, notice I didn’t say “finish this quilt,” but instead wrote “keep working on this quilt.” I am reasonable.)

5. Finish this quilt top, and if possible get it quilted, too.

6. And… this one, too.
I am all done with the hand-stitching. Now just to figure out the borders, and get it quilted.
Easy, peasy. We are coming right along in our Quilt-a-Long, with Step 5 coming up on June 2nd.

Other summer goals:

7. Be a good citizen and follow the national political process. Every other week ought to be about right.
8. Visit my kids and their kids. And my parents. And my husband’s family. That’s about eight car trips right there. I’d better work on #4–if only to have some hand sewing for car travel.
9. Celebrate my one-year anniversary of recovering from my surgery. I think a night in front of the TV would be appropriate, in my nightgown with hand-sewing on my lap, to memorialize where I was last year at that time.

10. And oh, yeah. Vote in California’s Primary. I’m so excited, yes yes yes.

Quilts

Not $ewing in Geneva

May 16, 2016May 17, 2016 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

I know what you are thinking: what? more traveling? Well, my husband Dave is a scientist who studies genetic toxicology and was asked by the World Health Organization to come and work on a committee to discuss some chemicals and they would pay his way. And I could go and stay for free, and fly using frequent flier miles, so why not? I thought it would be like Lisbon, where I’d find cute shops selling fun sewing stuff, and when we walked by Mercerie Catherine B (above) on Saturday afternoon, I could hardly wait to go back and explore.

First, we had Mother’s Day and when we went to church, they handed out roses and pieces of chocolate to all the Moms. Score! That was sweet, even if everything they said was in French.

And we had to go and see one of the two tourist attractions in Geneva. Which I did. . . multiple times.

I did scout out a few textile shops. This one was right across from the Manor department store, but because Geneva is a waaaaay pricey city, I chose not to drop my Swiss francs in that shop.

Instead, I thought this a better investment, until I could back to Catherine’s, which was closed until Tuesday (4-day weekend).I went out to this place, which was a long tram ride out of the center.

Yes, that is five bucks for a fat-meter of outdated material. The Liberty cottons were 35 bucks a meter.

And regular quilting cottons were around 20 dollars a meter (the franc is nearly equivalent to a dollar this year).

The Manor Dept. Store (my home away from home, because I ate there a lot–picking up sandwiches and meals in their food hall. . . and why doesn’t America have food halls?) had this array of fat meters. I didn’t check the prices on them.

While standing admiring this display of bias tape and ribbons — wound neatly onto cards and not tucked behind cellophane wrappers — I met Roxanne, another quilter, and we had a great discussion. Quilters, the world over, speak the same language. She said most of the quilters she knew in Switzerland ordered their fabrics online.

I did have fun noticing the European-style fashions in the windows. I think style this would make a great dress for summer.

Check out the knees of this pair of jeans–little kitty faces!

So back to my story. When Catherine’s opened up, I went up there, expecting to buy something, but everything was incredibly expensive.

I did find this small needle minder that I loved, but they were out of the matryoshka kit. Good thing, because the house kit was 65 dollars for a square of linen, a pattern and the threads. Yes. SIXTY-FIVE.

I took a photo of the pattern company who designed that matryoshka kit: Un Chat dans l’aiguille and had fun looking around their website, following some links, which led to more links, and which led me to discover that I’d been doing some of my tried-and-true stitches incorrectly, proving there is always more to learn, at any age. Here’s a link to some of my favorite series of videos in French, and even though it’s not a language I speak, the videos say it all. And some great English videos by Mary Corbet are here. So I left that day empty-handed, but full of admiration for the traditional embroideries found in Europe.

I even went back another day, when I bought half-meters of three different Christmasy looking braids, which I’ll put on the back with my label of the Oh Christmas Quilt (more motivation to finish it!). I still couldn’t bring myself to buy much more than that. And I just looked and admired and loved everything I saw.

I peeked in on the class they were holding, and every woman in there had a portable light, a stand with a hoop for her embroidery and an attached magnifying glass for working those teeny counted cross stitches over fine linen. It really was quite inspiring, and made me think of ways to incorporate more hand stitching into quilting designs. I have a few ideas and will let them percolate, as is my usual after taking in the sights and colors of different places.

But check out what I saw at the flea market on Saturday, the last day before we came home: a Bernina sewing machine. It ran, of course, on 220 voltage and besides that my luggage was already full, but wouldn’t that have been a great souvenir!