Creating

Spring Quilt

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

So I was just minding my business when my car turned into the local quilt shop’s parking lot on the way home from school (Calico Horse, in Redlands, California).  It had been a bad day, and all I needed was a small fat quarter.  However, this fabric group, right by the door (of course) seemed so fresh, so lovely, and their quilt sample–a cute modern pattern with lots of light colors–seemed so spring, that the next thing I knew I had hauled all the bolts in this line to the cutting table.

They are all from Sunkissed by Sweetwater for Moda.  It’s less pink that this shows–more of beiges, soft mossy green and a toned pink.  I was also drawn to it because of all the text.  I’m a sucker for text on textiles.  Plus–isn’t that name a reference to a famous citrus distributor?  How nice that I was buying citrus-referenced quilt fabric in the heart of Redlands, California–where they’ve grown citrus from their earliest history.

Twice a year our church hosts a General Conference, which is available via the internet.  I like to keep my hands busy while I listen to the talks, and I usually put together a quilt top while I listen.  Spring Conference=Spring Quilt.

But the first thing I like to do is pull from the stash–adding and augmenting the line.  If you’re like me, you can’t do enough of this.  (We all know that stashes multiply in wild, secret quilting bees while we are sleeping or surfing the internet.)  Besides that, if your stash is like mine, it adds a vintage touch as I still have scraps from my first quilt made some years ago.

My stash scraps are on top and on the right side; the Sunkissed line is on the lower row.  This quilt has another purpose.  We have a thin matelisse coverlet on our bed, and since I get colder in the night than does my husband, I lay a smaller quilt on my side of the bed. In spring and fall, I throw on a regular cotton quilt, which always fall off during the night.  But during the winter I have a cozy double-flannel quilt, which never falls off.  The flannel “sticks” to the coverlet.

This past week I took Leisa to Michael Levine’s fabric shop in Los Angeles (we were celebrating her birthday).  Levine’s has a huge quilt section, and I picked up some lovely green and white flannel for the back of this quilt, so it won’t fall off in the night.

More on the design in the next post.  And an observation or two about design.

Quilt Shows

American Folk Art: Red & White Quilts

Elizabeth E.2 Comments

Apparently there is an incredible exhibit of red and white quilts.  Judging from this photo it might give the viewer a sense of having tumbled down the rabbit hole and is now gazing upon a whole pack of playing cards, all arranged into circular forms.  From the website:

The American Folk Art Museum has dramatically transformed the Park Avenue Armory’s historic 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall with the installation of 650 red and white American quilts, all of which are on loan from the collection of Joanna S. Rose.

While I couldn’t embed the videos I saw on their Flickr site, here’s the link to a short clip from someone who visited there.  Can I just say I’m insanely jealous?  What a sight it must be to have all those quilts flying high up in the air above you–and all red and white?  The Museum’s Flickr group–with their 355 photos at this posting–gives us viewers out here in the hinterlands, a glimpse of what it must be like.  Amazing.

This one is reminiscent of what was hanging in my hallway over Valentines’ Day.

How did I find out about this?  I read Carrie Nielson’s blog (she of Schnibble fame) and found this there.  She’s going.  I’m completely and utterly jealous.  Head over to LaVie En Rosie (the title of her blog) to read more.  She has links to slideshows, the museum, an article in the New York Times–yep, she has it all.  I’m now going to buy the magnets and download the free iPhone app.  I may also download the iPad app, just in case I’ll need it for the future.

Textiles & Fabric

Recent Acquisitions to the Elizabeth Stash

Elizabeth E.1 Comment

I’ve made some recent acquisitions from Fabricworm.

This caught my eye, and I bought it not really understanding that it was printed on a heavier cotton–almost a twill.  But I think the theme of the fabric and the weight will lend itself to some grocery bags to keep in the car.  Now if I will only remember to carry them into the store. . .

I’m a sucker for text in textiles.  “Sweet Fruit” is why this jumped into my shopping cart.

This photo cracked me up because even the camera can’t tell where to focus.  But I include it because it shows the full array of dottiness.  You think I’d be over this type of print by now.

Here’s a close-up of the blues.  No clue where this fabric will land, but it’s inventive and interesting.


Here’s the fabric with my grading pens on top, so you can see the scale.  This is a light-weight cotton, really lovely and smooth and interestingly enough–no selvage printing.

This is why the shopping bug bit: grading papers.
Here’s a fine paper, heavily plagiarized.
Is it any wonder why I need a little fabric now and again?

Something to Think About

Quilting World Shake-Up

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Okay, so I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a while, minding my own business, just stitching along doing my applique for this crazy project I got myself into.  And it’s going along very well, thank you.  I’m getting a lot of Doc Martin (BBC-TV) episodes streamed down on Netflix while I stitch.

But while I’ve been gone, there’s been a seismic shift in the quilting world.  I caught whiff of it this morning on LaVie En Rosie’s blog, then followed it over to Sandi of Piecemeal Quilts where she wrote a post about the Dumbing Down of Quilting. It must have set off quite a firestorm about quilting in-breeding, same-ness, blah-ness, stupid-ness, whatever-ness, judging from what I read in the comments and in other blogs.  What she decided to do was to post a survey about quilting, to sort of “take the temperature” of her reading public.  So, head over there and take the survey if you like.  I’ve posted it below, along with my comments.  You can see, it’s quick and easy–add your .02!

All of the comments I left in her Other box are italicized in this post.

Other than Stack & Whack (which I hate), I pretty much have tried everything in my 37 years of quilting.  I didn’t check boxes where I’ve tried it once and thought–not doing that again.  I’ve only checked boxes that I have done multiple times.

I could have checked her first box, but she had the word “only” in there.  I don’t quilt with square or rectangles ONLY.  See my Christmas Star quilt for reference.  And for your information, I have done everything on her list with the exception of pre-cut shapes and Stack N Whack.  I started to make one of those stack n whack quilts, but lost my nerve when I was layering up about 7 yards of fabric only to mutilate it, sight-unseen, by cutting a wedge out of it.  That’s why I have two lovely flowering tablecloths made out of intended-to-be-stacknwhack-quilt fabrics.

(Did one King-sized quilt.  Never again.)

Don’t see the point in mug rugs.  That’s what coasters are for, although I do have a very cool fabric coaster made for me by someone I traded gave a lot of fabric to in a quilt class once. (Note to self: post about that.)

I use Quilt-Pro 5 as my design software.  While I can draw any template any size, I love this program!

My stash includes everything.  Good to have a variety to choose from.  I even have some fabrics from Ghana (woven pattern in cloth, overprinted with design), Japanese fabrics, French fabrics, even fabrics from Zimbabwe.  Have to admit I’m not a fan of those lines (such as Fig Tree) where everything seems to be the same colorway and print design.

My favorite cut is 1/3 yard.  That’s why I like Sew Mama Sew’s shop, as they’ll cut what I want.  (Confession: I don’t often read their blog.)

I guess Sandi’s fuse blew when she read a line in Sew Mama Sew’s blog where they talked about a kaleidoscope block being an intermediate block.  You can go over to Sandi’s blog and watch it happen.

I don’t want a long-or-short arm quilting machine.  I did the math.  And do I really want to have to do one more thing?  However, I reserve the right to change my mind about this. . . or anything on this survey at any time.

LOL at your “getting sidetracked by the computer” line.  Perfect.  I get WAY more done when I get off the computer.

I can also get sidetracked by eating chocolate, talking to my husband.  I am forced to get sidetracked when I have to do lesson prep or grade papers (like I should be doing now, instead of writing this post).  I can also  get sidetracked from grading by doing quilting. It’s a vicious cycle.

I take a digital snapshot of items on the web and store them in a folder on the computer.  I’ve stopped buying a lot of print magazines because I can make most everything they show and a lot of it is re-run stuff, although I do glance at them in the grocery store or when I’m at Jo-Ann’s.  I do buy books (between 5 and 8 a year) as I like to see a quilter’s progression/ideas in aggregate, and they are good references.

Of course, one of the best inspirations is the internet, which is why we all spend so much time here.  I also like going to quilt shows to get inspired, as well as a quick (or long) trip to my local fabric store, where just seeing the fabrics can trigger a design idea.

Hope you can take time to do the survey.