"Elegant Circles" by Christine Barnes
Who’s up for some color? Christine Barnes, author of The Quilter’s Color Club, gave us a terrific lesson on color basics tonight and she showed how to achieve some really cool effects with your fabric selections. Click here for the replay.
I also did a quick demo on how to use Silicone Release Paper to trace and transfer embroidery designs to felt or fabric.
Click here for the current Wednesday Night Live! schedule – see you next week!
Last December during a visit from my sister and her kids, we were brainstorming what to give to our parents for Christmas. As we sat pondering, we realized, together we had 4 kids, ages ranging from 7-15 who could create something within that very afternoon.
We landed on the idea of making placemats to custom fit their wooden TV tables (a top-secret call to our brother who lives near them got us the table measurements).
My sister and I laugh at this. Apparently things become more relaxed after the kids move out. Growing up we sat every night at the table minding those manners Dad drilled into us. Definitely no recollection of dinner in the family room and certainly no TV! Continue Reading…
Recently I made 3 felting kits as gifts for children. Using a file box (available at any craft store), I arranged a variety of colored wool felt, a huge assortment of colored wool roving, a few felting needles with handles that I made from philo dough for easier handling, and a piece of 2” thick foam.
For the inspiration, I included a couple of amazing needlefelting books here at C&T—Fast, Fun & Easy Needle Felting by Lynne Farris and Indygo Junction’s Needle Felting by Amy Barickman. I made a label for the top of the file box on the computer, printed it out on inkjet-printable canvas and spray-glued it onto the lid.
The kids loved them! They furiously felted for days. Faces full of smiles. The best part about these gifts…environmentally friendly, no plastic and zero noise (well maybe just a hushed swish-swish as the needle enters and exits the felt)!
In the spirit of felt… let’s have a prize drawing!
Felt is not just for needle felting, it has wonderful texture for stitching up some adorable softies, too. If you love felt as much as we do…you’ll love Fanciful Felties by Samantha Cotterill. Here’s your chance to win an electronic copy of her book, plus a colorful bundle of 20+ pieces of wool felt (12″ square), courtesy of our good friends at National Non-Wovens.
To enter, just visit our Fanciful Felties photo gallery and decide which funny picture is your favorite. Then leave a comment here to tell us which picture you like and why.
Increase your odds of winning! Enter an additional comment for each action you have taken from this list (tell us what you did and link to the proof when possible).
Deadline to enter is Sunday, 7/3/11 at midnight PT. Four comments will be randomly selected to each get an eBook and felt bundle – winners will be announced here on the blog on July 11 (no giveaway on July 4). Good luck!
7/5/11 update: ♥ Congrats to our 4 randomly selected winners – Debbie, Virginia, Amanda, and another Debbie!
♥ Congratulations to last week’s winner of a copy of Colorful Stash Busters!
Lizard94517All stash safely stored in nibs and drawers but alas, not organized! Maybe this summer.
This is the label from my latest baby quilt. It’s an “I Spy” quilt that I made using conversation prints. Everything imaginable is pictured, from toast to dinosaurs, and basketballs to tricycles. I quoted a hymn on the label that you may know, “All Things Bright and Beautiful”. But, to my dismay, I got one of the words wrong! I put “wild” where it should say “wise”. I thought about re-doing it but it had taken several tries to get it just right so I decided to leave it and call it my “humility block.”
Most of us have heard of humility or humble blocks. The story goes that Amish women introduce an error into their quilts because “only God can/should make something perfect”. It keeps one humble. To my surprise, when researching it for this blog post, I read on several websites that this is a myth. When asked about it, one Amish woman said that she makes enough mistakes without introducing them. Another said that just assuming that you need to purposely make an error or else your quilt would be perfect is a type of arrogance in itself.
All the same, I enjoy this myth. When I make a more-visible-than-usual error, I chalk it up to my humility block. And move on.
(I made the label with TAP – a fantastic transfer product. See this link to learn more.)
If you’re looking for creative inspiration for a little summertime fun, then you’ve come to the right place! Our Creative Troupe has some inspiring pieces to share with you this month – click on the pictures to zoom in a bit.
© Wendy Sheppard
Wendy Sheppard’s “Scrabble” quilt was featured in the August issue of Quilter’s World Magazine. Isn’t it amazing? I am blown away with the details of this quilt, she even included the tile trays! Stop by her blog to learn how you can personalize a Scrabble quilt for your own family.
© Laura Bray
Laura Bray shows us how to spice up our cocktail parties with hand embroidered Gnome napkins. I just love how festive and whimsical this napkin is! Stop by her blog for step-by-step instructions and to see the cute presentation showcasing the final piece.
© Angela Huddart
Angela Huddart takes us on a quilting expedition this month, starting with her Grassington Tree art quilt. I just love the way the soft purple jumps out against the sea of brown and the stitching of the fallen leaves… flawless. Continue Reading…
I’m in Vermont! As the Acquisitions Editor for C&T Publishing and Stash Books, I get to travel to some of the regional shows to search for potential new authors, observe trends, and generally listen to what quilters and shops are interested in and excited about. I am really excited to be here as it is my first time to Vermont Quilt Festival.
I arrived in the afternoon, so I had some time to go around to a few local shops before the Award Ceremonies started at 6:30.
My first stop was to one town past Essex Junction, where the festival is held, called Willston. There, I had heard about a great new shop that was packed with modern fabrics, loads of patterns, and bunches of our Stash Books titles. Stitched (website due to be launched next month) did not disappoint.
I love their tag line: ‘Make Your World’. I was thrilled to see that they stocked all of our Stash Books titles and had made up quite a few shop samples for them. Here is one of Kajsa’s designs from Scandinavian Stitches:
When I spoke to the shop assistant, she said that as soon as they made up the sample, they could not keep the book in stock. They live up to their name of sewing your world because they offer everything from quilting cottons to voiles to knits and even some pre-cut felt. They also see a lot of sales from their Bernina’s because they have a service and repair shop right there in the store with a knowledgeable staff (all Bernina owners themselves) who welcome any questions. I think they have done an excellent job being in tune to their customers needs. For example, I loved that they had so many samples made up—from bags to shirts, to quilts. These samples help their shoppers visualize the designs and they are able to convert those books and patterns into sales because of it.
Their bestselling pattern is the Mail Sack from Pink Chalk Fabrics. I just love Kathy Mack, so I was thrilled to hear that. Go Kathy! As I was shopping, their shipment of Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi had jut arrived, including some laminates! I tried (okay…begged) them to open the wrap off the bolts and cut some up for me, but the owner was busy adding the finishing touches to her booth over at the Festival Marketplace so…no dice. After paying for my collection of fabrics, I went on to one of the oldest quilt shops in Vermont over in Essex Junction: Yankee Pride Quilts.
Image from their website
Yankee Pride specializes in traditional fabrics and have close to 1/4 of their shop dedicated to civil war fabrics (yummy!). They also have an impressive selection of flannel and batiks and a basement dedicated to their classes and lectures. Continue Reading…
Quilt made from screenprinted fabric by Rayna Gillman
Tonight was all about surface design…C&T author Rayna Gillman shared a really cool screenprinting technique from her book, Create Your Own Handprinted Cloth.
Dale Anne Potter, one of our Surface Design Ambassadors, showed us how much fun it is to draw and paint with Inktense pencils on fabric. This episode is overflowing with inspiration – enjoy!
Join us next week for a lesson on color theory from Christine Barnes – and you will be able to select fabric colors with more confidence.
Click here for the complete schedule of upcoming webcasts.
See you soon!
As I mentioned before, my friends’ daughters are starting to have babies. Lots of babies. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up and make a quilt, as I’d like to, for each newborn. Well, this baby just had a 1st birthday so I made him a toddler quilt. I had so much fun! I made trips to all my local quilt shops buying just about every conversation print I could find. In all, there are 72 fabrics in the quilt. The family can play both I Spy and Matching because each fabric appears twice.
Now to stop procrastinating, get the card written, and mail it off to the east coast!
(Thanks to Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins for the inspiration for this quilt in their book Covered with Love.)
I know, I know it is way too early to think about Christmas…right? Or is it? Throughout the year I find myself collecting bits of information that will help me as I select gifts to either buy or make for my family and friends at the holidays. Things like…Vanessa likes Peerless Coffee best, or Rick wants the 5-minute Pizza cookbook and Debbie’s present is under the guest bed behind the box of ribbons. The problem is finding all those little notes I write to myself throughout the year. If I just had one place to write them down and keep the information, a place I’d remember to look when I’m ready to get started. Some people go to their latest electronic device, but I think I would rather use something handmade…and with supplies I already have on hand.
When I saw this great paper album by Melissa Thiesse, I knew I was on the right track. Melissa used a file folder (brilliant!) covered with various scrapbook papers and trims to make a fabulous photo album. But, what if I used fabric to cover it instead? I could use the same process I did in Spectacular Cards and Make Spectacular Books (click here for pdf) by replacing the paper base with a sturdy file folder….
I am so pleased with the way this project turned out! The finished dimensions of the notebook are 6 1/4″ x 8 3/4″ and about 3/4″ deep.
In her introduction Mary Cowan (of Mary’s Cottage Quilts) says her primary goal with her book Colorful Stash Busters is to “encourage you to let loose a little with your color options.” For each of the 10 projects in the book, Mary shows us two different color possibilities so that, along with busting up our stash, we will see that there is always more than one successful colorway for any quilt.
Colorful Stash Busters is the latest release in our Quiltmakers Club series. Each of the Quiltmakers Club books is a collection of projects from one well-known patternmaker. We bring each collection to market in book form at a great value—when you do the math you are getting each of the 10 patterns in this book for less than $2 a pop!
So now you are thinking, “Gee, sounds great, but will I really use all the patterns?” Heck yes, you will. Feast your eyes on this sampling of projects from the book and tell me they aren’t absolutely, positively alluring. You will see the real question to be asking is “Which project will I start first?”
First up, the Wild Webs Quilt was created by Mary completely from her stash of scraps, using a special triangle ruler instead of paper piecing which “made it so much easier!”
By the way, you can click each of the below page images to enlarge…
Wild Webs Quilt
and the alternate colorway…
