Book Signing!

Last night Julie and the wonderful staff at Patched Works in Elm Grove, WI hosted a book signing party for Colorful Quilts.  If you have never been to Patched Works, it's time to get in the car and take a road trip.  Julie stocks about 8,000 bolts of fabric in a wide variety of styles!  Our favorites happen to be her batik and kona solid sections but she also carries a wide variety of Moda, halloween, novelty, childrens and Westminster fabrics.  And, if your travels make you hungry, stop in at Le Cakery (it's right next door!) and have a soup and sandwich....and something sweet for desert.

We had a great time showing the quilts from the book and talking a little bit about the process of writing it from start to finish.  I love all of the quilts in the book, but two of my favorites at the moment are the cover quilt:  Club Noir, and Union Station.  Both are pictured below:

Thanks to everyone who joined us--especially my dear mother, sisters and niece Josie!  I am hoping she gets the quilting bug soon:-).

If you weren't able to join us last night, we'll be at Pieceful Heart fabrics in Lisle, IL this coming Friday and at Quilter's Destination in Arlington Heights, IL in November.  Hope to see you there!

Weekend Workshops

This past weekend, we had the pleasure of doing a trunk show and teaching 2 workshops for the lovely ladies out at the Berrien Towne and Country Quilt Guild in Bridgman, MI.  Janine and I both agree that teaching workshops is one of our favorite things to do.  We have never had a group of students that did not inspire us in some way.  After all of the years I have been quilting, I am still astounded at the different perspectives people bring to quilting.  These perspectives influence the way they look at fabrics, how they put fabrics together, and even why they are sewing in the first place.  And, there is nothing more satisfying than the sound of several machines humming, constant laughter and companionable chatter, accompanied by the smell of steam irons and cotton.

Here are a few accomplishments we witnessed this weekend--

On Friday, the pattern was Curved Log Cabin.  As always, one quilt can have so many different looks! Everyone used different looking fabrics in a wide range of designs from traditional to contemporary....

Reproduction type prints in a neutral palette with a tone on tone chocolate print:

Reproduction prints with a neutral alternate print:

Scrappy fall prints with a gold alternate print:

Batiks on both sides!

Some students even decided to make both sides of their Curved Log scrappy.  This takes some tenacity but is well worth the effort...

And there is always one combination that I love and wouldn't have thought of myself--like this quilt using Amy Butler, etc prints on the scrappy side and Kona stone on the other.

Saturday's pattern was Around the Block.  Again, we were blown away by the different fabric combinations and people's willingness to step "out of their box".

Of course some people started with their quilt already finished!

Brights and dots....and one of my personal favorite colors:  lime green

A mixture of various types of prints in a controlled palette.....we liked the selective cutting for the center in this block...

And this quilt using garden themed fabrics.  Centers here are also selectively cut and each has a butterfly, flower or a bee....

Both days, everyone got some blocks finished and were well on their way to having a finished quilt.  And Janine and I had such a good time!  So, thank you Berrien Towne and Country Quilt Guild for a wonderful weekend.  We hope to see you again in the future.

Book Shelf

The above is a picture of the greater part of my collection of quilting books.  Yes, I did arrange them in rainbow order....not an original idea...I saw it in a home design magazine a couple of years ago and have wanted to try it ever since.  So as soon as they finished the bookcase above my desk in our new basement, I arranged most of my favorites as you see here.  I have to admit it does make me smile every time I look up from my work (which is often!).

So, other than their colorful arrangement and the fact that these books made it through the final cut when I was purging my quilting studio of all extraneous objects, this collection of books would not normally be something of note on my blog.

But wait....what's that book at the end of the row?  The one at the end of the purple section??

Oh, yes it is!  It is a copy of our first book, Colorful Quilts for Fabric Lovers published by C & T!!  And, it will be available for purchase any day now!  I have a spot on my own bookshelf!

We are obviously REALLY excited about the release of our first book!  (sorry for all the exclamation points!!)  I can remember when I first became aware of sewing.  I used to swear up and down that I would never sew.  And now, I am up there with many of the quilters I have come to admire!

Vintage Handmade

Have you ever bought anything on Etsy?  I love it....sellers from literally all over the world.  So many different items (including fabric!) available on one website.  Recently, one of our very own Blue Underground Studios designers, Stephanie Sheffield, started her own Etsy shop called two sisters handmade.  Stephanie has always loved sewing, even before she started quilting and designing her own patterns.  She is always bringing her handmade creations over for our lucky household--doll's clothes, kid's clothes, tote bags etc.  I have been trying to talk her into doing a tutorial for some of her tote bags here.  If I can drag her away from her sewing machine for long enough, we'll get together and do that!  

Last week, she brought over a couple of little wallets she had made out of hand dyed wool.  And, a few days later, she opened her shop officially.  My favorite is the 'Olive Martini' wallet.

The leaf wallet is a very close second...

She also has some cute vintage items.  You can check them out your self here.

The shop is new--only a couple of days old--so check back often for her latest creations!!

Dreaming vs. Doing

At any given time , I have about 20 projects in the works around the house.  Actually, if I were to physically count them all, I am sure the number would be way more than 20, but putting a cap on it makes me feel better somehow.  A few weeks ago I went into a local quilt shop and found a lovely collection of batiks that I just had to have because they would make a great Archipelago.

What remains of that stack and the unquilted top is sitting on my cutting table.   I have three unquilted Posh Tot tops next to my sewing machine on my sewing table and one half-quilted Posh Tot top on my longarm frame.

On the back of my longarm, there is a rubbermaid box with the blocks for two quilts:  A Log Cabin and an i-candy.  In my fabric closet, I have an entire tub devoted to projects that are in various stages of completion.  One is a hand-pieced dresden plate that I started on a trip to Florida about 12 years ago.  I no longer do a ton of hand piecing, but I do have the dream of finishing that quilt some day.  On my design wall:  the blue green glass door quilt waiting to be sewn together (I talked about this quilt in an earlier post).

There is a quilt over the back of a chair in my living room that has the binding sewn on and is waiting to be sewn down.  I don't need much encouragement to start a new project!  I have met dozens of quilters who talk about their UFO's (unfinished objects).  Some say that they simply have to flit from project to project--that it keeps their creative juices flowing and their perspective fresh.  Others have said that they have to limit the amount of projects that they have in the works at one time so that they will eventually finish some of them.  Still others have told us that they only allow themselves to have one project, and the fabrics for one project, to be on their sewing table at any given time.  On some level, I admire this trait, but I could never function that way.  And, even quilters who say they only work on one project at a time admit to dreaming about future projects while they are working on the current one.  So here it is--one of the most critical parts of living with creativity in your life (according to Amy Walsh) :  dreaming.  What ever your method of sewing, however many projects you have stashed around your house, you have to allow yourself the opportunity of thinking about things you could make, things you might make, or even things you have to make.

While recently browsing my mother's collection of vintage books, I came across a novel called O the Brave Music! by Dorothy Evelyn Smith.  If I am contemplating starting a new book, I usually read the first couple of pages to see if it piques my interest.  I have been thinking about this 'dreaming thing' for  a while now and I was pleasantly surprised to find some words right on the first page pertaining to doing vs. dreaming.  As the novel begins, the main character is actually in church, contemplating making a little suit out of pink silk ribbon from a hat on the girl in front of her for her invisible man that she carries with her everywhere.  She mentions her broken promises to make this suit and the following words about the subject really rang a bell:

"I knew in my heart that I didn't really want to cut into the pink silk.  It was such lovely ribbon, so thick and soft and yet crisp; so bright and glowing.  My fingers itched to cut and snip and stitch; to fashion the stuff into a darling little suit....But I really didn't want to cut the silk.  If I cut it, it would be finished.  Done with.  If I didn't, it would always be there; the beautiful suit I could make anytime I liked."

A couple of paragraphs later, she remarks that she is glad she did not cut into the ribbon and make the suit.  "I felt, confusedly, that while I never possessed it, it was most truly mine.  Afterwards it would be lost to me."

I feel I can relate to this sentiment.  I like to think of future projects and "belonging" to me! But perhaps I am a bit more positive than the poor girl who agonizes over cutting a length of ribbon.  While I may no longer 'possess' a finished work, I have within my possession thousands of others!

You know it's a good day when....

.....you leave your house in the morning and the trunk of your car is empty. 

You return several hours later with a trunk full of Marcia Derse bolts!

The making of a green glass door

Of the four patterns I had at spring market, my favorite is green glass door.  I actually drew this design shortly after we opened--over 5 years ago!  It took this long for me to get together a great grouping of green fabrics, make the quilt and write the pattern.  That's one of the funny things I have found about designing and publishing patterns--often designs that we sketch out take years to come to fruition. 

Anyway, starting a second sample of green glass door is one of the first things I did upon returning home from market a few weeks ago.  This time, I decided to make it in blues.  It always starts with some sort of inspiration for me...in this case, a collection of blue bottles I have sitting on a windowsill in my studio.

Then, a stack of fabrics.  It never hurts to have way more than you could ever use!

Then I dive in and start cutting pieces, one at a time.  Although I usually like to cut multiple pieces at a time for the sake of efficiency, I make an exception for this quilt because I want to make fabric placement decisions as I go along.  As I cut, I place the block centers on a design board.  A big part of the success of a green glass door is having an even dispersement of large/small, dark/light, funky/non-funky prints.  I want to make sure that I do not cut too many of my favorites, which could make the quilt less interesting,

I also like to make sure to include some really random fabrics--fabrics that I bought because I loved, but did not necessarily have a plan for.  Like this print with the chairs...chairs with birds!  So random and so fun!!

Sometimes, things can get a little messy on my cutting table during this process. 

Once I have cut the centers, I start cutting strips for the frames and pinning them up on the board with the centers.

Once I think I have the frames and centers set, I start to sew them all together.  It's a lot of fun, really.   And I like how the process of making this particular quilt differs from our other quilts.