Block Busting

As I attempt to both blog and sew with more regularity, I'm finding that blocks can get in my way.

Not quilt blocks ... creativity blocks.  Negative thinking and being that disturbs my ability to get posts written; get quilts finished without a deadline.  How do I learn to keep the promises I make to myself?

I've begun working through "The Artists Way."  It promises to help me work through the blocks and bust them up.

I've begun hanging around at SparkPeople (www.sparkpeople.com) and they emphasize the importance of small goals that are easily achieved.  Getting those little things done gives one energy for approaching larger goals.  It builds enthusiasm for goals that can only be achieved through persistence and perseverance.  So.

I've been setting small goals; quilt 4 blocks here.  Cut out 6 blocks there.  Piece them.  Find a new block construction technique and see how it changes your perspective.  Be kind and gracious to myself when it takes more than one day to get things done.  I'm still a mom and a homeschooler with many plates in the air.

Slowly but surely I've been picking away at the blocks in my way.  Achieving small goals and getting things done.  Like this quilt which has languished in my UFO pile for years now.

Catching Up and Digging In

Today I bring you photographic evidence of the list I wrote in the post below. Herewith I present my quilts ...

Kittens & Posies - the orange inner border is a bright orange silk velvet and the spokes (leaves) are made from silk chiffon backed with fusible interfacing for stability.

Artful Rag Quilt - Black Flannel with b&w prints and a variety of colors. Lots of fun and learning.

Ticker Tape Doll quilt for a niece. These are so easy, bright and fun to make.



Quilt I made and designed to celebrate my parents 50th anniversary. I sent out squares of hand-dyed fabric with gel pens for important people to trace their hands and write a special message for my parents inside. I cut out the hand "prints" and appliqued them to the quilt top.


Here is a detail of the hands ...

The back of a rag quilt I made for my niece when she graduated from high school.  I never did get a photo of the front.  She immediately named this quilt, "The Babymaker" so it shall be called :) 

 Another niece who graduated from high school and her quilt.  It was a busy year :)  This quilt is called Lady of Lake Champlain because this niece spends quite a bit of time on Lake Champlain.  The quilt design is Marcia Hohn's Lady of the Lake 2 from her Quilter's Cache.

It's Been A Really, Really Long Time

Judging from the content here on my blog, I've been dormant. Nothing could be further from the truth! I've been really busy ... quilting. Teaching. Friending (is that a word?). Parenting. Etc.

I've finished and distributed several of the quilts listed on that list in my previous post. I've started (and finished!) some additional quilts. I created a studio. I've learned a lot.

Here's a brief list of the quilts I've finished in the last year and a half ...

Kaffe Snowballs
Amber's Graduation Memories
Tristan's Rags
Kittens & Posies
A Scrap quilt for Miriam
Lady of Lake Champlain (Leah)
The Baby Maker (Aleana)
Orient Express (Lauren)

I think there were more ... but that's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Projects I'm Working On

UPDATED - October 25, 2011
Here's a list of all the projects I have going ... far too many, but I hope to reduce this number by quite a bit this year.

WHIMMs
Ocean Waves
Blue Hydrangeas
Aunt Grace kit
Stained Glass Phoenix
Alphabet Kit

Callahan Baby Quilt

Sonja’s T-shirts

WIPs
Pete & Jackie’s applique wedding quilt
Venice Rose
Lillie’s butterflies
Judy Niedermyer Double Wedding Ring

UFOs (ready to be quilted)

Posies & Kittens (Ana Lucia) - finished

Multi-Ethnic Baby Quilt

Amber’s Album Quilt - finished

Irish Chain
Lillie’s Butterflies

Kaffe Snowballs - finished

UFOs (some blocks done)
1930’s Pinwheels & Snowballs
Delectable Mountains
Ohio Stars (HBS-exchange)
Anvils (set with borders)

Orient Express - finished

Album Blocks
Dear Jane
President’s Blocks
Ross’ T-shirts
Tapestry Garden

UFOs (vintage rescues)
Vintage double wedding ring (add border & handquilt)
Vintage Lone Star
Molas from Panama

GARMENTS
Prom dress for Taylor Andersen
Grecian dress for Lillie
Sashiko jacket
Burda top & skirt
slip dress & jacket

UFO = UnFinished Object
WHIMM = Work Hidden In My Mind
WIP - Work In Progress (one that takes a while)

I've joined a yahoo group called StashBusters to help with this and for now, here are a couple baby quilts that are going to be the first to get finished. And the Snowballs? They have a date with the quilter at the end of April so that I can have them all finished by my birthday!

Desdemona's Top Is Finished

At long last ... it is finished!!

Photos later

Ugly Challenge

So the Prez issued a challenge. She got tired of hearing us all piss and moan about fabrics we "hate."

Oh I can't use "that," we all say ... it's too yucky. So she told us all to get a fat quarter of something we hate and bring it in to our meeting on Monday. Tell everyone what's so horrible about it ... then do something with it to make it un-horrible. More palatable, I think was what she said.

Here are the fabrics Jennifer and I chose:

Jenn's is from Robyn Pandolph's Empress Woo's line (which we normally love):


Ross says it looks like faded wallpaper in the diningroom of an old house from the 1920's ... I say it looks like an old hobo stumbled into that dininroom and took a pee on the wall. Jenn says we're both right. UGH!

No one had anything to even say about this ... it just made us all shudder:




Really! Who makes confectionary cupcakes into fabric. I think I might puke. But that might improve it. Double UGH!

Pathways of Peace - the final version

I never posted the end photo of what my challenge quilt looks like. Here it is for all posterity:

Baby Quilts ... gotta love 'em

Ohhh ... there's not much I love more than planning a new baby quilt. Truly ... they just jazz me.

So I've got a new one in the works ... it's based on this:




I'll be using fabrics primarily from Native Arts by Robert Kaufmann ... because they just feel like the right mix for this particular baby, the culture s/he'll be coming from and growing into.

Ready to Quilt

I'm watching the SuperBowl and sandwiching this puppy. I had Ross photograph it. Obviously there have been some design changes. But the basics have remained the same. The title is Paths of Peace.



Here's the preliminary description that I'm using:

This quilt is an interpretation of the Golden Mean. The background is done in browns, greens and blues to represent earth, air, water and plants. The pathway to the center of God's eye is done in hand prints to indicate both travel and working together. The cross is in purple. For me the pathways to happiness lie in some form or other in the journey towards God. I find peace in working with others finding glimpses of His Kingdom. The hands are all different colors to signify racial, sexual, theological and other reconciliation ... the pathways to peace, the journey to God.

Moving On Now

Okay ... now for design number 2. The first was too cluttered. So I took out all the tree bits and put in a sapling. I'm still not entirely happy. But I'm going to start cutting fabric strips today for the background which will be like this this background.

Designing Woman

I've been designing and thinking about my "fortune cookie quilt" that will be entered into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.

Here's my preliminary design ... I'm taking the large version of this to Kinko's to print later this afternoon.

Fabric Diet

I supposed to be on a fabric diet. I have so much fabric it's leaking out my ears. Some women buy shoes. Others buy clothes. Others buy jewelry. Someday I will have Ross take photos of my fabric closet and the unseemly amount of fabric I have. I could feed a small Third World nation on my fabric budget alone. And simply using the word budget sounds as though I plan. The very thought is ludicrous. I don't plan, I spend on a whim. Because luscious fabrics like this one come along and speak my name ...



... and then what am I supposed to do?

I can turn down chocolate. I can turn down pie. Even cake. But that? I cannot turn that down. It's simply too tempting ...

We Declared A New Holiday

Today Jenn and I declared a new holiday.

Today is "Wrinkly Ass Fabric Day." In honor of all the stupid wrinkly ass fabric we ironed and do iron and will iron as we make quilts. But in particular ... in honor of all the wrinkly ass fabric Jenn ironed today.

We're designing and prepping our guild's raffle quilt for next year. It's gotten quite complicated. But we're taking it in baby steps. We've had our eye on a big chunk of fabric that's been in the community service stash for a couple of years. It's really beautiful. It's from a line of fabric called Marrakesh Bazaar.

Here's a poor representation of the quilt we're working with. Well, the representation is poor because I lifted it from somewhere I ought not to have. I own the book it's in ... The Creative Pattern Book: Complete Patterns, Intriguing Ideas & Musings on the Creative Process (Paperback) by Judy Martin

And Jenn and I have permission to recreate the quilt for the purposes of the raffle from the author (Judy Martin). So I used this poor quality picture for two reasons. One, I'm lazy and didn't feel like scanning a better quality one from my book. But the second one is if I put a good quality one in, someone might be tempted to copy Ms. Martin's work without buying her book. Now they can find this picture on Amazon, which is where I found it. But knowing what I know about the construction of this puppy ... yeah ... good luck with that.

Anyway ... we're using our beautiful teal Marrakesh Bazaar fabric in the dark swirls and in the light swirls we're moving from pale yellow to dark red in the same swirling motion so that the center of the quilt will be in oranges. Yep, it's complicated. And we're nuts. But this is fun.

Or so we keep telling ourselves.

Back To the Drawing Board

Okay ... we went back to the drawing board, as it were. Really, we re-visited the class list for the Quilt Festival and found a new class to take. I like the title for this ... Crooked Log Cabin Block for the Precision Impaired ... hahahaha ... that's me entirely. Precision-Impaired. Here's a picture of the blocks we'll make:



I love these ... all cattywompus.

That's on Thursday ... on Saturday, we're going to take class on hand quilting. I've never taken a class for that before. I know I do it all wrong. Okay ... it's not "wrong" for me ... but what I mean is that it takes me for-freakin'-ever and my stitches are HUGE and it makes my hand hurt. Do you hear just a hint of frustration there? So here's the class description:

The act of hand quilting should be fairly rapid, completely painless and very rewarding. If it is not all three of these for you, That Perfect Stitch can help!

In between these we'll enjoy the show ... I still have to get my quilt made. It's going to be a small art quilt ... 18" x 24". The theme of these quilts was concocted via fortune cookies. We drew fabric fortune cookies. My fortune is: "May you travel paths to happiness. "

Hmmm ... I have a lot of ideas about that, but nothing solid yet. I also have a box full of fabric ... enough fabric to make about 17 quilts that size. Two containers of beads. A folder on my desktop full of random pictures. Three books full of tabs that have competing ideas. Yeah ... my cup runneth over. Time to get to work.

Sewing ... and not enough of it

I need a place to journal my creative process. I haven't been sewing enough and I figured that out today. Yikes ...

Liza Prior Lucy will be at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival ... I am hereby pledging to have my snowball top done in time to take it and show it to her. I will. I will. I will. I promise myself that.

Jenn and I are going ... we're also going to take classes. Plus, we're going to have quilts on display there. If I can get off my butt to make mine. Okay ... after the Thanksgiving crisis. That's next on my plate.

UPDATE ... the one class we really want to take is CLOSED! How can that be? We've only had the schedule for one week. This is impossible!!