Every month we feature the work of different members of our Creative Troupe. We are so inspired by their creative ideas and the passion they share with others.
Have you joined the Creative Troupe yet? It’s a free program for all crafters, quilters, sewers, artists…with lots of perks. Click here for more information.
So let’s get this little blog hop started!
© Linda Hansen
Linda Hansen used Liquitex® Iridescent Medium and beads to add a nice shimmer to the whimsical cupcakes she fused to her pink fabric cuff. What a sweet bracelet for the cupcake lover in your life. Doesn’t it look good enough to eat?
© Andrea Currie
On January 19th, Andrea Currie was a guest demonstrator on Wednesday Night Live.
We challenged her to put her creative touch on our Ready-to-Go!® Blank Board Petal Pot and she came through with flying colors!
This cute basket can hold anything from a crafty cork stash to dried flowers to your favorite mementos. Continue Reading…
A creative life is filled with challenges and rewards, puzzles and curiosities. This ongoing series of poems attempts to express the “Aha”s and “What if”s, the deep ponderings and casual observations of an inquiring mind trying to make sense of reality. May it serve, for you, as a bit of “Everyday Inspiration” along your own creative path.
Soulful work
Is important
Because
It’s all about
The journey.
Without
Putting your heart
And soul
Into it
When you arrive
At your destination
What have you got?
(Maybe a goal—
But the work
Hasn’t changed you
Like it would
If you were
Into it—
There’s no imprint
On your Soul.)
Recently we celebrated Liz Aneloski’s 20th year with us. Liz was our first full-time editor and we believe our 4th or 5th employee. Liz is both an editor and an author. She has been instrumental to our success over the years, having been the developmental editor for many of our bestselling authors including Judith Baker Montano, Alex Anderson and many more. In her spare time, Liz and Alex have co-authored the very successful Super Simple series and the All-in-One Quilters Reference Tool.
We celebrated this major milestone at Prima’s Restaurant in Walnut Creek with the entire editorial team and Liz’s husband Mark. It was great fun to hear her talk about the old days, when she and another editor shared a space so small, that if Liz wanted to leave her desk, the other editor would have to stand up and move her chair out of the way so Liz could pass by.
We are lucky to have Liz as part of our dynamic editorial team and we all asked her to stay another 20 years!
She said she would think about it…
We were Lutradur lovers, fabric fans, and happy TAPpers tonight! If you missed the show, click here for the replay.
Three projects were shared – each used fabric, Lutradur® and TAP® together. Above is a quick and easy block for an art quilt or wallhanging—I used TAP to transfer my flower photo on to a frame of Lutradur. Then I used fusing powder to adhere the Lutradur to the batik fabric with Angelina fibers melted in. I also made a cute fabric Valentine’s card with heart-shaped embellishments cut out from Lutradur that had a lovely vintage images TAPped on to it.
Lastly, I showed some fun ideas for fabric scrapbooking inside a Ready-to-Go!® Blank Canvas Book. It was such a fun hour, it went way too fast! Thanks to all who attended the live webcast, and also thanks to all of you who watch the replay…we hope it inspires!
Next Wednesday, I will have just returned from CHA (the Craft & Hobby Assn Trade Show) and I’ll tell you ALL about the show…and I’ll have some wonderful new projects and techniques to share from some of our colleagues at the show.
See you then – 6pm PT (9pm ET) – now go make something!
When piecing blocks, quilters take a personal approach to backstitching their seams. A common method is not to backstitch when seams will cross. However, if backstitching is desired, here is one way to minimize the multiple layers of stitches:
Insert the sewing machine needle about the length of 3 stitches into the seam line, while maintaining your seam allowance width. Sew backwards for 3 stitches, then stitch forward down the length of the seam. With this method, there are two lines of stitches on top of each other, which produces less bulk than 3 lines of stitching would within the seam allowance. Also, it is easier to keep the fabric edges from being sucked down into the feed dog using this method.
Anita Grossman Solomon describes this method in her book, Rotary Cutting Revolution.
Happy Quilting!
— The Tech Editors
A creative life is filled with challenges and rewards, puzzles and curiosities. This ongoing series of poems attempts to express the “Aha”s and “What if”s, the deep ponderings and casual observations of an inquiring mind trying to make sense of reality. May it serve, for you, as a bit of “Everyday Inspiration” along your own creative path.
We coax
We pull
We pin
We tug
We stitch
We undo—
We smooth
We press
And we force
Two curves
To match up
In some
Ungodly fashion
And then lie flat—
All in a
Day’s work
For a fabric whisperer…
Don't you just want to go MAKE something?
When developing a new product, we are sometimes left with trial pieces that didn’t pass muster.
Alex Anderson’s 4-in-1 Essential Sewing Tool was a good example of this, because it had to be shaped and glued and pieced and capped just right. Wood parts can change with humidity and other factors.
But waste not, want not…so I offered some of the not-so-perfect tools to a ceramics class that is held in Bolinas, California.
In some cases, the caps were stuck too tightly to the base, or the seam ripper had come loose…mais voila! The potters now have new cool tools to make interesting striations, imprints and smudges on the clay. And they love that this tool doesn’t roll off their worktables.
Alex was thrilled with the creative use of her sewing tool!
If you missed the show last night – never fear – the replay link is here! Please allow a few moments for the recording to load. If you need to fast-forward or rewind, use the slider bar at the bottom of the replay screen.
We painted and collaged ourselves silly with Ready-to-Go!® Blank Board Products. Our guest demonstrator was Andrea Currie – she whipped up the most adorable basket using the large petal pot and pages from a cool old book filled with beautiful botanical illustrations.
I shared several fun textural painting techniques you can achieve when you blend your acrylic paint with gel medium. I just finished my file box above by adding scruffy scraping and stamping to the top with dark purple ink, then adhering some coordinating ribbon and a large decorative button.
Be sure to join us in our Digital Lounge next Wednesday night (6pm PST; 9pm ET) for a Valentine’s episode…we’ll demo some creative ways to create beautiful valentines with fabric, TAP® and Lutradur® – don’t miss your chance to win a great prize! Just click here at showtime and enjoy the show – type in the chatroom and make some new friends!
The editors have an exciting new quiltmaking project!
Mary Wruck, C&T’s Business Development Manager, is on the board of the NAMTA (National Art Materials Trade Association) Foundation. They are doing a fund-raising auction, and Mary asked us if we could make a quilt. After a fair amount of dicussion, we decided to do a “slice” quilt—where one image is sliced into a number of pieces. Each person does their own slice, then all the slices are put together.
Six of us volunteered, and we decided to do a quilt of Van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles. We wanted an image that was amenable to being interpreted in fabric, was in the public domain so there wouldn’t be any copyright issues, and would be recognizable.
The first step was to enlarge the image to create a pattern the we could work from. This was done using a digital projector to project the image onto white craft paper that was taped together to make a big enough piece (about 6′ x 5′).
Full-size pattern
The next step was to divide it into 6 slices.
Lynn and Sandy folding the pattern to get it divided into 6 equal slices
Lynn slicing the pattern
Everyone has their slices and is starting to pull fabric. We need to have the quilt done by mid-March, so check in later this month and next to see our progress.
A creative life is filled with challenges and rewards, puzzles and curiosities. This ongoing series of poems attempts to express the “Aha”s and “What if”s, the deep ponderings and casual observations of an inquiring mind trying to make sense of reality. May it serve, for you, as a bit of “Everyday Inspiration” along your own creative path.
Things
Present themselves
When they need to get
Done—
You can’t
Run from them
You can’t
Hide from them.
But until they show up
You might as well
Not worry
About them.
