true blue quilts: Inspiration Day

After the last school year, I stopped teaching history so that I could a) devote more time to my quilt patterns and b) spend more time with my youngest daughter, who is growing up so fast! Last week they started teacher’s meetings, and I would have been busy the whole week. To celebrate ‘not being busy’ - or I should probably say ‘being differently busy’, I permitted myself the luxury of running errands on one of those weekdays. And, in the process, I ended up having a rather inspiring day! I find it so satisfying to buzz around on a day that I would normally be working. It’s almost like playing hookie.

First, I went to the library to get a book on teaching elementary school art (I’m still teaching art--more on that later!). There, I spent a happy, decadent hour in a comfortable chair by the window looking through art magazines. I discovered several new artists this way and am always interested to see how different people use color and texture to transform every day objects. If you are a visual person (and I am) looking at pictures/paintings is such a great source of inspiration. I love the library and magazine racks at bookstores. Even home dec magazines are a great place to find artful inspiration. They often feature beautiful artworks of all types--representational and abstract on the walls of rooms that are drool-worthy. As an aside, the Des Plaines library is also kind enough to hang a lovely vintage quilt near the magazine stacks. I couldn't find a plaque (if there is one) with any information about the origin of this quilt but I sure do like it's simplicity.

I then moved on to Home Goods, where I continued my inspirational errands with another favorite of mine--dishes. On Friday, (and everyday, for that matter) my favorites were blue and white. I will never stop wanting to make blue and white quilts. In fact, Blue Willow - one of my very first published patterns, is all about blue and white dishes.

The above photos were taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this summer.

To assuage my guilt for what could be seen as a frivolous day, I went to Home Depot to run a much needed errand--we needed stain for our privacy fence. But something happens to me when I am in the paint department at a hardware store. The paint chips call to me like a plate of chocolate chip cookies and I am suddenly inspired to repaint every room in my house (much to my husband’s chagrin). I always come home with a fistful of color chips and hang them randomly on the wall. Then, I try and convince my dear husband, who hates painting, that a year is really not an unreasonable time to start thinking about a color change in the kitchen and bathroom!

I find the arrangement of all of the paint chips at hardware stores really spectacular, don’t you? In fact, they are practically begging to be made into a quilt!