Quilting Mod

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Mid Year Review

It's time to check in on the goals I made back in December. Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl certainly has a knack for keeping me organized and focused.

My Quilty Aspirations for 2016:

1. Decrease my UFOs.

My success on this one depends on how you look at it. I'm pretty sure I've started more things than I've finished the last six months, but I did finish some things I had already started. I'm going to be generous and count this one as accomplished. After all, I did make lots of pretty things. So what if only two of them came out of the UFO pile?2. Prepare a course offering.

I did follow through on this aspiration, with several classes on the calendar. I now aim to increase enrollment.

3. Give back.

I am excited about some opportunities I have found to accomplish this aim including the creation of a fundraising sew-lebrity album quilt, and meeting with a group of ladies to create quilts for the Albuquerque Homeless Student Project.

4. Enjoy the inspiration.

I can confidently mark this one as completed, thanks to the Thimbleweeds Quilt Show and Quilt Market.
Here are my Quilt Market posts, in case you missed them:
Moda
Cotton+Steel

5. Keep an appropriate perspective.

Mission accomplished in this area too. However, I can hardly take credit for this one. My bunch of "time-wasters", as my dad affectionately calls them given their adeptness at preventing the accomplishment of any work in their presence, make sure of their predominance with endless noise, mess, and hilarity. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Photo by Jessica Inman

6. Critically analyze my participation.

While I tend to suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), I have made a conscientious effort to evaluate if I'm on the fast track to over-commitment before I arrive too late to take the train back home.

7. Host a linky party.

I did host the Lessons Learned Linky for the past six months, but I am discontinuing it due to in-excessive participation. I enjoyed the linked posts, but I think the popularity of my linky wavered given the abundance of linky parties and its more narrow parameters. Thank you to everyone who joined along, and please check out my Linky Party Listing for other opportunities.

8. Track and share my progress.

I could still use some work in this regard, as I'm flighty about pictures prior to completion. Instagram has been helpful, as it doesn't take my time away from my "in the zone" quilting frenzy.

9. Design a Quilt Along.

This one has been postponed, but not forever...

10. Make a masterpiece.

This isn't going to happen right now, and that's okay.

How about my Not-a-Goal List?

1. Start a long-arm business.

In the clear here.

2. Sell quilts at a loss.

I'm doing good here to, amidst the frequent inquiry, "What do you do with all your quilts?" My plan is to donate some of the discount, mass-produced artwork I have had hanging in my house for over a decade because I am not in love with it. It is simply covering the holes I made guessing the location of the wall studs. Then, I'm hang quilts over the wall gouges. I suppose I could plaster and repaint, but I'm scared of the patching stuff since I read the small print warnings as a pregnant lady. Yep, it's carcinogenic.

3. Work for free.

This one is the sticky wicket. While it seems very straight-forward and easily-preventable, I've come this close to doing exactly what I swore not to. I hadn't accounted for what lonely territory it is on the island of Are You Kidding Me? when the populace is occupying the overcrowded mainland, Labor of Love. Sweet little quilting ladies don't even consider asking audacious things such as, "Will I be compensated in a currency accepting by my banking institution?"

How are you doing on your goals?

Monday, July 18, 2016

Quilt Market Trends

You've been seeing my posts from Quilt Market. Or if you're a recent arrival, you are welcome to catch up on my Quilt Market posts:

So, what's the overall picture? What new or enduring themes did I see? Here's my totally subjective analysis.
Southwestern and Native American motifs are still going strong. I'm talking about tepees, arrows, and the like.

My Tribe Quilt from Amy Friend's Intentional Piecing

They're even cropping up alongside pandas, of all the expected things!

Pandalicious by Katarina Rochelle

Bunnies prints are breeding like, well rabbits. Examples include Wonderland Two by Melissa Mortenson for Riley Blake, Hello, My Deer by Camelot Fabrics, Violet Craft's House of Hoppington for Michael Miller, Tula Pink's Slow & Steady for Free Spirit, and Felice Regina's Luna Sol for Windham.

Wonderland 2 by Melissa Mortenson for Riley Blake

Hello, My Deer by Camelot Fabrics

House of Hoppington by Violet Craft for Michael Miller

Slow & Steady by Tula Pink for Free Spirit

Luna Sol by Felice Regina for Windham

A hand-printed look is also a feature of many upcoming fabric lines. This can be seen in Carloyn Freidlander's overprinted Essex line called Euclid, the hand-carved block print collection titled Marks by Valorie Wells for Robert Kaufman, Color Dash by Heather Jones for Robert Kaufman, and Cotton + Steel's Print Shop collection, Handcrafted Patchwork by Alison Glass for Andover, and, rumor-has-it, Lizzy House (You heard it here first, folks!)

Color Dash by Heather Jones for Robert Kaufman

Alexia Abegg's Print Shop for Cotton + Steel

Marks by Valori Wells for Robert Kaufman

Handcrafted Patchwork by Alison Glass for Andover

There's always been something about "shiny" that gets quilters going. I'm excited about Opalescence, Windham's pearlescent solids. Also, I'm delighted that my Michael Miller Fairy Frost stash has aged to the point of reintroduction. What's old is truly new again.

Speaking of reemergence, greatest hits collections are in full force. There's Tula Pink's Timeless collection, Elizabeth Hartman's Paintbox Basics pulled from her Pacific and Rhoda Ruth collections plus one print, Lizzy House's Hit Parade and color unsaturated Whisper Palette, and Sarah Jane's remix.

Paintbox Basics by Elizabeth Hartman

Market had some footstep-following fantastic-ness. Mother/daughter duos include Bonnie & Camille, Anna Maria & Juliana Horner, and Sherri and Chelsi of A Quilting Life.

Fast Friends by Juliana Horner for Free Spirit Fabrics

Desert Bloom by Sherri and Chelsi for Moda Fabrics

What trends do you see in quilting?

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Q3 Finish-A-Long

In an effort to reform my UFO spaziness, I'm compiling potential completions for the third quarter. There's no way everything is getting done, but here's a short list of more likely candidates.

I'm very excited about my epic album quilt. I've collected signatures from my favorite sew-lebrities like Tula Pink, Alison Glass, Elizabeth Hartman, and Amy Butler. The intention is to turn these into quilt blocks using fabric designed by those who have inscribed their names. These blocks will be combined into an breath-taking quilt that will be raffled to fight children's poverty here in New Mexico, where we are #1 for childhood hunger. What a wretched awful thing to top the charts with! That makes me cry because I was a teacher, and I have three children. I can't bear the thought of helpless little ones starving, day after day because nobody is adequately taking care of their most basic need to survive.

Then there's the long-awaited high school graduation quilt for my brother, who now has a Master's degree and a job lined up. I'm embarrassed to admit how long I spent waiting for my quilting skill to catch up with my vision for this quilt. Enough already, it is going to get done!

This one is another version of my Sparkler quilt, that is closer to my current fabric vibe.

This star pillow is going to serve as an excellent way to break in my Westalee ruler foot.

I love this top and my coordinating 12 wt Aurifil threads, so what's the hold up?

I've plotted out a design for my Egypt-inspired sampler, so it should be a fun one to bring to fruition.

It's possible that this Christmas Disappearing 9-Patch would be pieced already if I had spent the time sewing instead of interrogating young offspring about where they hid the pieces.

I have boat blocks and a Pinterest board, but I'm not entirely sure where this one is going.

Progress on this Native American-inspired design has been hampered by my tendency to continually pull solids from this project basket for other projects. I ought to wrap up the paper-piecing before I forget where I've taken the fabric.

Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts, who is a genius at animal quilt designs, is creating a Bear Paw pattern that is adorable. These fabrics aspire to turn into her fun new design.

I have a glimmer of an idea for these fabrics. I'd like to use the prints to create flower buds in a manner similar to Graceful Rhapsody by Louise Madore (picture below my fabric stack).

Many years ago, I participated in a Saturday Sampler program, and made most of the blocks. However, I never started the finishing kit which includes all the flowers shown in the bottom except the yellow lilies. At this point, my appliqué blocks are starting to fray because I used a cheaper fusible and a less dense stitch. Throughout the year-long program, I held the hope that my incohesive blocks would make sense together in the end. Unfortunately, this did not occur as many of the blocks do not have the light blue background. While I was going to make this quilt for my mother, I've always been disturbed by the unharmonious design. Not loving the final result dissuaded me from continuing to complete the large amount of appliqué remaining, fixing my fraying blocks, piecing the top together, and hiring someone to long arm the project.

Instead, I'm going to repair, sash, and assemble the blocks that have the same background into a smaller quilt that I can easily manage quilting on my home machine.

It's about time that I realize I am never going to be motivated to put this one together if I have to make it exactly as designed due to the effort and expense it would entail only to make something that doesn't excite me. And if you know me very well, you know nothing excites me like starting something else.