What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Do you have old pressed glass pieces hanging around your abode? I inherited plates, bowls, small pitchers, and cups done up in pressed glass that were meant to pass for crystal or cut glass. Because it was machine molded it … Continue reading →

I’ve been paper collaging like mad the past week or so to give my brain time to develop quilting plans for a few pieces. Ignoring something is often a surefire way to have solutions find me. And I wanted to … Continue reading →

“Less is more” and “More is more” are common design mantras. Each has its adherents. A recent design experience took me way beyond “more is more” to deep in the weeds. I’m writing about my recent failure as a lesson … Continue reading →

Since last week I’ve continued to work on my small (about 10 inch square) pieces for my From Sketchbook to Wall class, and have five done (mostly.) I’ve learned that it’s hard to hand sew through fabric covered with acrylic … Continue reading →

I’m in the middle of a two week online class on textile creation given by Tansy Hargan, a British landscape architect and textile artist. It’s called From Sketchbook to Wall, which is an accurate description. We began with en plein … Continue reading →

For many years I have planned to make a 3D quilted object. I have sketchbook drawings to back up that claim. My scheme was to create multiple small connected units with see through spaces between them. The piece could cast … Continue reading →

My January line a day challenge did go for all 31 days, though I stretched some work out over a few days. While the original intent was to keep the time spent on each response short, sometimes that didn’t happen. … Continue reading →

Challenges are always more fun with company, and my friend Penny joined me in playing with line. She has been working with collage and gel printing recently, and her responses to the prompts reflect that. I asked her to be … Continue reading →

This time I surprised even myself. After cutting 850″ of 2 1/4″ bias, I sewed it to twelve (what was I thinking???? clearly I was not thinking….) placemats and a 44 by 15″ table runner, ironed it, glued it to prep for machine sewing. Then, in about 65 minutes I got the second side of ALL the placemats AND the table runner SEWN! Check out the pictures and video!

What if I could have the fun of creating art with paper without the gluey mess? Last month I took David Owen Hastings‘ Stitched Paper Collage online class in the hope of finding an answer. As a result, I now … Continue reading →

I’ve always loved the idea of making quilted postcards to send to fellow quilters, but I always had excuses. It takes too long and I’m behind on my sample quilts…the post office will just tear it up…I already see these ladies regularly so why take the time to make a postcard. Then almost a year into the pandemic, I don’t see my quilting bee regularly because the facility we meet at is closed to strangers. Our guild is meeting via Zoom, the list goes on. I realized; it is the perfect time to send a ...

Temporal challenges to create art abound on social media: 100 days of postcards, 52 weeks of collages, a year of daily ambient temperatures, etc. I wanted to begin 2021 with some sort of daily art prompt, but I didn’t know … Continue reading →

My husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to self-isolate for much of 2020, so we’ve remained untouched by the Corona virus. Self-isolation gave me lots of time to devote to my art, and I think I made … Continue reading →

For months I’ve been wanting to mess around with some of the new patterns for masks in pursuit of something that is breathable, comfortable, doesn’t fog up my glasses, and lets me use fun fabric.

SO, I played around yesterday and DRUM ROLL PLEASE…. I think I’ve got it! up I merged the free PDF pattern for a ...

The curve-alicious month continues today! Last week, I shared some tips on how to accurately cut curves for quilting, so now it’s time to move onto how to sew curves, and my 3-pin method.

Yes, I sew most of my curves with just three pins. This method works for whatever type of curve you are sewing, whether it’s drunkards path like the Simple Curves chapter in Mini Masterpieces, or different types of curves like in the Complex Curves chapter. To demonstrate just how I do it, I have made a video tutorial to show you! Click on the ...

This month for the Mini Masterpieces QAL, we’re up to sewing the Complex Curves chapter, and I’m sharing some tips throughout this month to help booster your confidence in sewing curves. Fun fact – I was too nervous of sewing curves for a few years, until I finally saw a friend sewing them in person and I realised it wasn’t so scary. For me, I had to see it to understand how it worked. So if that’s you too, then stick around to check out a video tutorial next week! But today, it’s first things first ...

As my fellow classmates keep noting, my Jane Davies Mini Collage class is indeed fun and agony. The class’s purpose is to push us to explore, to notice, to consider relationships among shapes. As Jane put it, “…we are not … Continue reading →

This week my Jane Davies class didn’t involve paint or paste, just cropping our collages. My fingernails thank me. Here’s what I posted to my class. I’m showing only a few of the many cropping variations I tried. Some collages … Continue reading →

It’s been a while since I posted links to stories/videos/sites I found interesting. It’s so inspiring to hear artists talk about their work and how they’ve dealt with technical hurdles. Besides, I have more time for such listening and viewing … Continue reading →

In parallel with my fabric activities, I have been taking another Jane Davies online course called Mini Collage. Both activities call on color theory and experimentation with color adjacency, but with Jane’s class I get to mix all my own … Continue reading →