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Last year was The Year of Writing. Like any huge undertaking it had its trade-offs. It was all consuming, the equivalent of making several successful competition level quilts in one year as far as I could tell. It filled my brain and my days. It was isolating. It will be all worth it and I’m really happy I did it. But lots of things went fallow during that time, part of that whole trade-off thing. So once I turned the corner at the beginning of this year and normal life returned, I realized there had been a long dry spell…
This is the final post for this year’s show, the Large Quilt Room. You will see a lot of variety and genres here: We do pack in the crowds! This is not even near the height of traffic. Our show goes 3 full days, each with a Fashion Show. It’s the first show of the year for most of us. An art quilt won Best of Show! This magnificent quilt, 24 Floors by Cindy Gangler, was based on Cindy’s trip to the Houston Quilt Festival. She took a photo from the 24th floor of the Hyatt as her inspiration. “I…
This is my local guild’s show, the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild-I LOVE show! We are rich with talent in every genre of quilting. I spent only one day at show this year and I was so thrilled with the variety and quality. I love my guild! This is a long and photo heavy post: Paper Pineapple, Shireen Hatten. This is a mini with “teeny tiny pieces”, part of a guild challenge. Such perfect teeeeeeny points! Faulty Reasoning/Green Fusion, Lynn Daly. Beautiful quilting, color and composition. Poly Fusion, Nancy Holinkski. Stellar quilting for such a tiny quilt and I especially…
I’ll be in Long Beach this week so this will be a shorter post. I want to share my fix for rounded corners when free motion quilting. Here’s what I mean: It’s common to get these kinds of rounded corners or angles. Even though you absolutely stitched that corner, your machine rounds that corner off. What happens is that that one single stitch was not strong enough to lock that sharp corner or curve in place. There’s a simple solution: stitch two or three stitches in that corner before moving on. That will secure the direction change and will not…
What a week! The printer died, the new one wouldn’t load and my email went down…right before I left to teach a workshop for The Pointless Sisters. As a teacher, I have to be highly organized. I don’t procrastinate. I create lists, summaries and reminders for each gig and I print them out shortly before I leave. I wait to do that because things are constantly in flux. So wouldn’t you know, the printer died without warning right before I printed it all up. Keep reading, there are more photos below… There is an even greater amount of prep when…
I am having so much fun working on my black whole cloth quilt top. It has become a lot more involved than I thought it would be which seems to be par for the course. I do. not. know. how to keep it simple! Right now I’m auditioning background fills. I’ve mocked up a few pieces and I’m stitching using the same threads, fabric and batting as I propose for my quilt. I love that fill on the left as it creates a visual nap which looks different as you move around the quilt. But it competes too much so…
How do I describe Craft Napa? It’s fun, exhiliarating, encouraging, inspiring and maybe a wee bit fattening! You meet new friends, see friends from previous years, enjoy spontaneous lunches with people you didn’t know before, peek into other classrooms and immerse yourself in creativity. I was struck by the vibe I got from walking around Craft Napa, there is this sense that everyone is very happily working hard. Pokey Bolton, creator of Craft Napa, has created a fabulous new way to jump start your creative New Year. Everyone was generous, from Pokey to fellow students to the instructors. I hope…
Well this is it-I’m on my way to Craft Napa and I can’t wait! I’ll post about my experience next week. Onward!
This is somewhat of a soliloquy in response to the beginning of a new year. I know many artists make resolutions, set goals or choose a word to guide them in the coming year. I do none of those things. I’m not opposed to them, I have just not found them useful to me. This is not meant to be prescriptive for others, but merely my description of my life’s journey. Let’s go back a bit. I graduated high school and attended college for 3 semesters before I ran out of money (my college years were self-funded). In a move…
I’ve had a quiet, low-key and positively lovely Christmas! Youngest son is here for a nice visit and we went to Christmas Eve services together, then grabbed Hubby and drove around looking at lights. Our usual Christmas Eve dinner has been “Chicken Dot Soup” (their childhood name for chicken soup with Acini Di Pepe pasta–like little dots). We avoided dinner altogether as we headed over to an Open House and grazed our way through dinner. We don’t make a huge deal of gifts so Christmas Day we opened presents for 5 minutes, saw Darkest Hour and enjoyed pizza-on-the-grill as our Christmas…