DSC01531.jpg, originally uploaded by Colorful Quilter.
Each week I have an Artist Date with myself, a practice recommended in the Artist’s Way. Sometimes I go on a field trip outdoors, to an art gallery or a museum, or I’ll work in my studio doing something completely different.
This week I worked on a quilt top from a pattern – 4-Patch Stacked Posies. Since I design my own work, working from a pattern is one of the ways I keep up with what others are doing in the world of quilting. Are my methods current or can I learn something new from another designer? This is especially useful for me since I live in a rural area and it’s tough to get to a city without a half day’s drive.
This pattern’s premise is that it’s supposed to be a simple way to get a completely different look for each block from only one fabric. Although I like the overall look, I thought the instructions were confusing. I ended up with 21 unusable blocks out of 33 because I followed the instructions (all five pages of them) but they were misleading. To Mary Lou Hallenback’s credit, she did email me a way of correcting the blocks so I can use them, but it involves fussy cutting 21 more pieces. Not the simple method I was looking for.
The quilt in the pattern is shown with sashing and borders, but I won’t be adding those. I like the blocks themselves to tell the story in the quilt, and I add borders only if they add value to the quilt itself, not just to make it bigger.
I’m writing this from Flickr, my first blogging post from their site. We’ll see how it goes!
Always nice to touch base with you and see that you keep doing new things.
Here the summer school break is almost over and I really haven’t done any quilting. I made slip covers for my 2 love seats in the living room. Then I needed to paint the living room. I feel comfortable choosing fabric colors but was quite intimidated to pick paint colors other than light tints. With the help of a friend, I chose “soft pumpkin” I love it and it really compliments all the colorful Mexico stuff in the room.
We were in Austria for 2 weeks in July and went to many art museums. I noticed that the walls were painted deep, rich colors rather than the white that US art museums usually do the walls. I often found myself thinking about the color of the walls and how much that complimented the paintings. That also gave me courage to be come home and paint the living room a stronger color.
A friend asked me to make a quilt for her using some cotton drapery samples. I really liked the samples so am taking the project on. With less than a week til school starts, I pulled them out today. It is fun be playing with fabric again. She is only paying me a few hundred plus materials so I can’t let myself get to wrapped up in choosing fabric. Just do it.
“Almost French” was a book that our book group read a few months ago. I enjoyed it. Our latest book was Barbara Kingsolver’s newest book “Animal, Vegetable and Miracle.” Looks at food and eating in a way that many quilters look at life and using what is available to us. Highly recommend it.
Miss seeing you on a regular basis. Let me know when you are down this way so we can have dinner or something.
ginger