Triple-Play Scrap Quilting: Officially Available!

My book, Triple-Play Scrap Quilting, is now officially available. Yippee!

So, with the book launch underway, there will be lots of fun activities over the next few weeks, not the least of which is doing a schoolhouse session and a couple book signings at the Spring quilt market in Portland later this week.

I recently had the honor of being the the guest blogger over at Stitch This!, the Martingale / That Patchwork Place blog. I have a little more background to the book here since I can be more verbose on my own blog than I can on Martingale's.

After I left my full-time, high-tech marketing job, I knew that I didn't want to go back to work immediately and that I had earned some well-deserved time in my sewing/quilting studio to work on my quilt to-do list. After making several quilt tops that had been designed by others, I thought to myself -- why not make quilts that I design myself rather than make quilts designed by others? That was June 2011.

I had been collecting yellow, black and white fabrics (which are NOT my typical style, by the way) and sat down with Electric Quilt to design something original for those fabrics. The result is the quilt that is on the cover of the book (which I think is very appropriate!)

It was so much fun making that quilt that I wanted to make it again. I had a jelly roll and some yardage from a Minick and Simpson fabric line and realized I could make the same quilt using those fabrics, but scaled bigger because the strips were wider than the original version of the quilt (which used 2" strips). This was the result. Fewer, but bigger blocks. And a much bigger quilt: 84" X 108".

Then I decided I wanted to use up some scraps and made it a third time but with smaller 1-1/2" strips. This one ended up 54" square.

And VOILA! The concept for my book. Three strategies for making scrappy quilts (1) from fabrics in a limited color scheme, (2) fabrics from the same fabric line, or (3) from scraps.

I ended up making 30 quilts for the book -- 3 each of 10 designs. One set of three didn't make it into the book because of space considerations.Yes, that's 30 quilts in one year. I sent off the quilts to Martingale, along with the draft manuscript, in June 2012. And now, it's almost a year later and the book is a reality! I think that there is a tremendous variety of quilts in the book and that they will (hopefully) appeal to a wide range of quilters.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin
 

Guest on American Patchwork & Quilting Radio

Two exciting announcements.  

First, on Monday, May 13th, I'll be a guest on American Patchwork & Quilting Radio, hosted by Pat Sloan. Such an honor!

And second, today I'm the guest blogger on the Martingale / That Patchwork Place blog Stitch This! Be sure to jump over to Stitch This! to learn more about my book.

I've had the pleasure of getting to know Pat because of my employment with Handi Quilter -- an honor that I most likely wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm looking forward to sharing the story and concept of my book, Triple-Play Scrap Quilting.

Here's all the information you need to know to learn more about the American Patchwork & Radio show:

The show broadcasts live at 4 pm Eastern, 3 pm Central, 2 pm Mountain, and 1 pm Pacific times.

Tune in to listen live via AllPeopleQuilt.com. The interview will be available on demand and via iTunes after the broadcast.

 

Seven Shades of Gray

I’m so intrigued by modern quilts. They aren’t my typical style, but I love them nonetheless. I think what I like the best is the simplicity of design (usually), the pure use of color (often), and the negative space that is crying out for a lot of unique quilting (always).

I think the cover quilt from my book Triple-Play Scrap Quilting (coming out on Tuesday!!!) qualifies as a modern quilt – although I didn’t realize it at the time I designed and made it.

Here’s my next attempt at a modern quilt.



I knew I wanted to use a variety of gray solids – from very dark to very light. Finding the various gradations of gray fabrics was actually the hardest part of this quilt. I wanted cool grays – not warm grays. You’d think the fabric manufacturers would have grays in all 10 standard values – but, alas, they don’t. They have three or four cool grays, and then three or four warm grays, and then a couple purplish grays, etc. So I ended up buying nearly every cool gray I could find the right set of grays for the quilt.



I have also been wanting to make a rainbow quilt – using pure colors in the same order they appear in the rainbow. So I combined the rainbow colors with the grays, and this is the result.

So the quilt center is done. I’m still figuring out what to do with the borders. I think it needs borders, but I need to figure out how to make them work with the rainbow and shades of gray concept. Thinking cap is still on trying to figure it all out.

Have a great day!

 

Color Scheme Inspiration

I’ve been a Pinterest-aholic lately – thanks in part to the fact that my new iPad can use the newest Pinterest app. (My old one wouldn’t let me download newer apps – but my mother is happily enjoying the old iPad for checking FB, playing games, and listening/watching online programming.)

My latest discovery on Pinterest is the amazing color schemes that are available for inspiration. I tend to get into a color rut in my quilts – since I naturally gravitate towards medium and dark colors in earth tones, reds, and blacks.

But, since I make quilts as gifts, not everyone likes the same colors I do. I love being able to draw color inspiration from new sources.

These are some of my current favorites that I’d love to incorporate into quilts:






This is done using online color picker tools and uploaded photos – and the options are endless. One of the more popular creators of color schemes is design-seeds.com. You can also go there to see the color schemes.

If you have  Electric Quilt,  you can also upload photos and use EQ to do the same thing. This is a sample color scheme I created a while back using EQ and a photo of some pottery I was buying in San Gimignano, Italy.

 

There are many ways these color schemes can inspire -- not just for quilting, but for decorating and more. Enjoy the color scheme inspiration!
Have a great day.
 

The Grand Beehive

Tonight my mom, sister and I went to the Utah's Beehive exhibit at the Utah Cultural Center in West Valley City. 

I submitted my beehive medallion quilt to the exhibit and they accepted it. So one of the reasons for going to the exhibit was to see my quilt.  

Here it is in all its glory. It had a very prominent place in the exhibit (which wasn't very big). 

 

 

And here's the proof it's by me:

It was fun to see my quilt hanging in the exhibit. There were some interesting beehive items to seem but I wish there had been more on display. It only took about 20 minutes to look at everything.

Have a great day.

 

A Basket Quilt for Easter

I hope everyone has had a nice Easter Sunday. We had a nice program at church by the choir, and then it was my  week to  teach the adult Sunday School  class. After church, I had dinner with my parents.  Now just counting down until the start of a new week. I'm always a bit more tired on the Sundays that I teach. It's only a 40-minute class and I don't stress out about teaching, but it takes energy to keep the lesson organized since you never know what kind of comments or questions will pop up that will derail my nicely planned sequence of teaching. Today was one of those days!

On the quilting front, I finished a quilt top yesterday.

 I've had the fabric for more than a year, and had designed the quilt around the fabric. So it's been on the to-do list for a while. I've been experimenting with different settings and decided to set the blocks as a square-in-square so  I could stitch up as a straight setting (rather than on point -- which can be a pain IMHO). I hope that the secondary star pattern surrounding the corner blocks comes through in the design since that was my intent.

I've developed a new appreciation for negative space in quilts because of the amazing quilting that can be added. Hence the light blue and pink triangles surrounding five of the blocks. I can just imagine some great  quilting in there -- perhaps feathers since this is a fairly traditional quilt.

Don't ya just love basket quilts?

My  HQ18 Avanté longarm machine is now set up in my downstairs family room. I found a throw-away quilt top I never finished and put it on with some ugly fabric as backing. I had fun trying my hand at free-motion quilting, setting tension, basically just getting to know the machine. I've been using up orphan blocks on the same ugly backing (I received a lot of it by mistake from Keepsake Quilting, and they didn't want it back.) I've been doing ruler work and more free-motion to hone my skills. Now I just need to get enough courage to put a real quilt on the frame and do something real. One of these days....

Have a great week!

  

Antique Quilt Trunk Show

What at treat!

Last week at work I had the unexpected pleasure to see a trunk show of about 40 antique quilts.

Sandra Starley,  a nationally certified quilt appraiser, historian, researcher, quilt collector, lecturer, designer and instructor, came by the Handi Quilter offices. Sandy has an extensive collection of antique quilts (early, unusual and masterpieces) and spent a couple hours with us sharing many of her quilts that span  about 100 years -- from early 1800s through early 1900s.

I took lots of photos and will be doing a blog post  on the Handi Quilter blog next week using those photos. But for my post here  I'm linking to  a couple of my favorites from her collection.

This antique crib quilt from about 1845 was just exquisite. Sandra has several posts featuring this quilt, as well as her reproduction  of several of the blocks.

But this was my favorite one from her collection -- an 1850s Rose of Sharon applique quilt.

You'll  love Sandra's  blog, Textile Time Travels. You'll see many close-ups of the quilting and fabrics in her amazing collection of antique quilts.

 

Quilt Border Decisions

I finally have been able to spend  some time in my sewing  room. Not a lot of time, but better than nothing.

So I designed and stitched up this quilt top -- except for attaching the borders.  I can't  decide which way to attach them.

Should I  add the house border with the roofs pointing away from the center? In this layout, the border houses are oriented the same way the center houses are.

Or should  I add them with the roofs pointing towards the center? This is the layout I'm leaning toward. I think the border units look more like houses oriented this way for some reason.

Such a dilemma.

Have a great day!

My New Power Tool

As I’ve mentioned before,  I now work for Handi Quilter doing marketing communications. I found out once I joined the company that they loan used Handi Quilter longarm quilting machines to employees. After four years of employment, it is theirs to keep.

I knew there was a waiting list. (I put my name on the waiting list my first week of employment!)

One has to be employed  for three months before getting a machine. (My three months of employment was up at the end of December.)

The employee is required to purchase the frame/table for it. (A used frame became available for me to purchase in January.)

And it is dependent  on a used machine being available. (Who knew how long that would be??)

Well, surprise … surprise … surprise!

On Friday I got an e-mail  message saying that my machine was available! Yippee! So I now have an HQ18 Avanté, which I’ll set  up on an 8-foot frame. (I could set my frame up as 12 feet, but I don’t have a lot of space and most of my quilts are narrower than that.) If I ever decided to quilt for others (and that’s a big IF, not a when), I could make it 12 feet.

So now I’ve got to get the frame set up so I can set up the machine. Of course my sights also are set on adding the HQ Pro-Stitcher which provides computerized, robotic quilting of digitized designs.

Have a great day!

 

Utah's Beehive

I recently found out that my Deseret quilt, which prominently features a beehive medallion, will be part of an upcoming exhibit called "Utah's Beehive".

The exhibit is being put on by the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City from March 7 through May 2.

They are revisiting an exhibit from 1980 called "The Grand Beehive" which was in the Salt Lake Arts Center. The recreation of the exhibit will feature many items from the original show, but will also feature modern interpretations of the beehive, by contemporary artists.

I submitted a photo of my quilt via e-mail and literally within minutes found out that they want to include it in the show.

Since I've collected all kinds of beehive-related things for about 20 years, I'm sure I'll love the exhibit. Now I just need to get a sleeve sewn onto the back of the quilt! Have a great day!