Category Archives: Staff Pick

Jean Wells: Ahead of the Curve Again!

June 30th, 2009 in Inspiration, Staff Pick
By Diane Pedersen

I have known Jean Wells for close to 20 years, since I first joined C&T Publishing. I was impressed, then, by her best-selling book, A Celebration of Hearts. Over the years, as I worked on her books, and tracked her progress through the quilting world as an artist and businessperson, she has always been ahead of the curve in style and technique.

Her latest book, Intuitive Color and Design, is no exception. It is the next step for many quilters who have reached a plateau in their technical quilting and want both inspiration and guidance on how to take the next step into art quilting. This book is so appropriately Jean’s: It resonates with her personality, her style. The curves, shapes, colors, and textures in the quilts come naturally to her as an expression of her artistic talent. The energy inherent in this latest work shows how naturally she draws with a pencil, slices with a rotary cutter, or motions in air as she talks to a class. There is freedom in her movement and commitment in her stroke. Having progressed through the technical aspects of quilting, she moves with her intuition: creates from her mind’s ponderings and observations. The result is pure, and purely Jean.

022 As one of the photographers of her quilts, I was in awe last November when they arrived in the studio. Now I can’t wait to see the finished book in July, to see what the talented C&T team has put together as the final package. This is a book not to be missed. If your budget is thin, save up for this one. It will keep you inspired and sewing through those hot summer months. If you can take a trip to Sisters, Oregon to meet Jean and see her annual quilt show, DO IT! In the meantime, get her new book as a gift to yourself. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Gift Box Studio to the rescue!

June 22nd, 2009 in Inspiration, Staff Pick
By Kristy Zacharias

June and July are jam-packed months for my family. Between the 6 birthdays, Father’s Day, and the inevitable summer weddings and new babies, let’s just say my head is spinning.

Yesterday as we headed out the door to my parents’ to celebrate Father’s Day and my sister Becky’s birthday, I realized that I had forgotten to wrap her gift! I found her a sweet vintage stone rose pendant that is dangling from a long, delicate gold chain. The consignment shop that I purchased it from didn’t have any boxes, and I was NOT going to put it in a gift bag that was way too big for it (I’m kind of a gift wrap snob, I guess). No, I needed something equally as sweet as the gift so it would be that much more fun to receive. And then I had a moment….HELLOOOO KRISTY!

I quickly dug out one of my Gift Box Studio books (Lolli, to be specific), popped out the Cube Box, assembled it, wrapped the pendant in pretty blue lace, placed it in the box and was out the door in literally 4 minutes!

GBS_BeckyGift

I should mention that I was one of the designers that worked on developing the product, but that was a few years ago, and I was in a rush yesterday, so I feel like I was on an even playing field compared with someone who has never seen the product. Having said that, I have to say that I was impressed with how quickly the box came together and how easy it was to flip through the pages to find a cute, corresponding tag. I thought I was just biased before, but Gift Box Studio truly is a great product!

Extreme DIY Excitement

June 12th, 2009 in Staff Pick
By Megan Wisniewski

2009 is a big year for me. I am saying goodbye to my twenties, getting married and buying my first house. Before I started working at C&T, I did not consider myself a crafty gal. Let’s just say DIY was not in my vocabulary. But, after being surrounded by so much creative talent every day for more than a year, I am excited to take advantage of all the EXTREME DIY OPPORTUNITIES in my future.

Oh Sew Easy Table Toppers

My first focus is home decor. I have the summer to make what is now a big empty space, a cute and cozy place to call home. Some of my favorite C&T books are from the Oh Sew Easy® Home Decor series. From curtains to table cloths, pillows and more, I can’t wait to pick my fabrics and create some of the projects in these books.

Oh Sew Easy Life Style

After I have had my share of DIY home decor, it will be time to move on to DIY Weddings. Place cards, center pieces, favors…oh my! It can all be quite overwhelming. Luckily, my cube neighbor, Lisa, is a super talented papercrafter. She created an series of DIY wedding accessories using our line of Blank Board Products.

DIY Wedding As this is my first time entering the world of DIY, I would love any guidance or tips our readers may have, and I’ll keep you updated on my progress. Thanks in advance for sharing.

Amazing Optical Illusions

June 9th, 2009 in Inspiration, Staff Pick
By Cynthia Bix

One side of the image below is a 15th century Venetian tile floor, and the other side is. . . a quilt!

compare

I know! Isn’t it amazing? When I first saw Christine Porter’s stunning quilts, I could hardly believe that they were made of fabric. They look like soft-hued, aged stone, and many of the designs really fool the eye in other ways, too. As she says in her new book, Viva Venezia! . . . “because of the placement of light, medium, and dark values, the [tiles] appear to be three dimensional.”

What a treat it was to be an editor on the team that produced this book! Not only was Christine herself the embodiment of soft-spoken British charm, but her words and photos also led me on a vicarious tour of Venice. Christine’s husband Nick took the tantalizing photos of Venetian canals, cathedrals, and of course, the timeworn tile floors, whose wonderful designs look remarkably modern.

But the best part was finding out that these quilts, which look so daunting to make, are actually within my reach as a “basic” quilter. I imagined that they would require Y seams, complicated piecing, etc. etc. Instead, the complex look is achieved in many cases using simple strip piecing.

It’s really the clever fabric and color choices that make them look so remarkable. With a full set of fabric closeups accompanying every project, it’s hard to go wrong. The secret is in the kinds of fabrics you use . . . and I’ll leave you to discover that secret for yourself in Christine’s book.

Now I’ve got my eye on this Chevron quilt:

chevron

Although Christine uses fabrics that mimic the floor tiles exactly, she also encourages quilters to create the same designs in wider selections of fabrics of our own choosing—and throughout the book are vivid examples of individual interpretations.

I’ve got some lovely hand-dyed Cherrywood fat quarters that would look just beautiful in a version of that Chevron quilt. . . .

Dresden Plates Rock

May 15th, 2009 in Staff Pick
By Teresa Stroin

I love Dresden plates, always have. Something about the symmetry appeals to me. I’d been planning to make one out of batiks since a shop hop two years ago. (Yes -two years! Actually, it might be three. . . .) At each shop on the hop, I purchased 3/8 yard of a batik or two or three. So I’ve a nice collection. When I got a chance to work on Anelie Belden’s new book Thoroughly Modern Dresden, I was excited and intrigued. Excited, ’cause, well, I wanted to make a Dresden. Intrigued because I’d seen her quilts. They’re gorgeous. Could I really do it? After reading her book and understanding her construction methods, I found I could!

Along with her projects, Anelie gives you tips on mixing and matching block sizes, Dresden blade styles, and settings. This suits me because I hardly ever do anything exactly like I see it. I loved the colors and the setting of her Blue and Yellow Sunshine project. They match my kitchen. But it was too big for the wall where I pictured it. I switched the quarter-block size from 12″ to 9″ and, just for fun, I changed the blades’ top style to pointed from three-sided. I used my batiks and added some other fabrics from my stash. Within a day I had it up on my design wall and then sewn!

My Dresden plate wall hanging

I love this blue and yellow wall hanging and might even make it into a clock. (See Lynn Koolish’s book Fast, Fun & Easy ® Creative Fabric Clocks: 6 Timely Techniques for Fabric and Paper. Another “can I really do this?” that I found I really could do.) However, I have a problem – I don’t always finish things right away. (Anybody else have any UFO’s out there? Yup, I thought so.) I drafted the outer border design and selected the fabrics, even cut some of the pieces. That was 6 months ago. I “got distracted” and started a queen-sized batik Ohio Star quilt for my husband. Now that I think about it, that’s complete except for the borders, too, and I’m onto something else. Am I seeing a pattern, here?

Inchie Ruler Tape to the Rescue

May 12th, 2009 in Staff Pick
By Carolyn Aune

I had a bunch of flannel scraps left over from 2 quilts I had made for my son and my husband. The quilts were fun—very scrappy with many “manly” plaids in primary colors, but now what to do with all the leftovers? I was tired of all those plaids, so a third quilt had to be fast, easy, and most of all, it had be made with just the leftovers I had—no buying of fabric for this quilt. Without much idea of where I was going with this, I sewed together a bunch of blocks. When I arranged them, I didn’t like the blocks right next to each other so I added navy blue sashing and border to separate all the busyness of the plaids. (Okay, I admit it, I did have to buy a little fabric for the sashing and border.) When I finished the quilt, it needed something more. I added some buttons, but it still needed something so I decided to use red perle cotton to do big stitches down the center of the sashing and around the border.

carolynquilt
I am not great at keeping my lines straight or my 1/4″ long stitches even, but that is where our Inchie Ruler Tape came to my rescue. I just stuck the tape down the center of the sashing and stitched away, using the evenly spaced marks along the edge of the tape as my guide so I could sew evenly and straight.

It worked great and made the job much quicker. I am happy with the results, and I even like this “leftovers” quilt better than the first two I made.

quilt-detail-1

Just a word of caution about stitching with perle cotton through flannel—it is nearly impossible to sew through 2 layers of flannel and batting with such heavy thread. I had already machine quilted around the blocks so I used the big stitches as embellishment. I sewed the perle cotton only through the top layer of flannel and caught the batting. It looks good and was not nearly as hard as trying to actually quilt all the way through the layers.

Fearless Design for Every Quilter

May 5th, 2009 in Staff Pick
By Lynn Koolish

fearlesscover One of the things that I really like about being an editor here is that I learn so much from the books I’m working on. In the last few years, a number of the books I’ve edited have either focused on or included discussions of design.

One of my favorite’s is Lorraine Torrence’s recent book Fearless Design for Every Quilter. One of the reasons I like it so much is that the throughout the book, there are examples of how students in Lorraine’s design classes approached a variety of design exercises. You see at least three approaches to each exercise and all are done using fabric so you really see how something might work in a quilt.

What is also unique, is that each student’s exercises are critiqued (by Lorraine and the other students) so you can read about what was successful and what wasn’t.

highly recommend this book both for individuals who want to improve their design skills and for groups who want to work through the exercises together and develop their critique skills.

designexample

Canvas Book Tour

April 27th, 2009 in Fiber Arts, Inspiration, Projects, Staff Pick
By Lisa Fulmer Bruce

Children's Counting Book designed by Georgie Gerl

I am in LOVE with the new Ready-to-Go! Blank Canvas Books. I have barely tapped into all the creative potential this surface offers. But boy, oh boy – there are some scrappers and crafters and artists out there who are just going to town with it!!

I thought you might enjoy a little blog-hopping tour to see the canvas books in action – amazing stuff out there!

A group of 13 very talented designers are doing Circle Journals for each other – a great concept that they developed together at Winter CHA this past January. After one year of scrapping each other’s photos, page by page, they will be showing off all 13 finished journals at Winter CHA in January 2010.
Lorraine, a collage artist in the UK, has been creating a book one page at a time with fabric and found objects… March 31st – April 2nd – April 3rd – April 8th
Cheryl, one of the lead Fiskateers, created a gorgeous photo album about her friends – you can watch her “Birds of a Feather” tutorial on Fiskars TV too.
The popular Crafty Chica used the canvas books for one of her projects on her crafting cruise last month – click here to see more pictures from the cruisers!
I experimented a little with watercolor pencils – they work so beautifully on raw canvas!
We taped people at one of our workshops using all kinds of different techniques to create their own personal book
One of C&T’s authors, Rebekah Meier, makes gorgeous fabric art collage books.

If you have played with canvas books, let us know and we will add your pictures to our Flickr Gallery! And if you love them as much as I do, grab our blog badge that features one of Rebekah’s creations and show it off!

icreatetreasures_canvas

Craftivites at Chevy’s

April 17th, 2009 in Papercrafts, Projects, Staff Pick
By Kerry Graham

On a Friday night a while back, we went out to Chevy’ s for dinner. It was the perfect night to sit outside, and I know they have a big patio area. I reminded my 5 year old that she had been there once before on a school field trip. Being a 5 year old, she says, “You mean the place that only has tortillas to eat?” I explained to her that we were just doing a restaurant tour with her school and told her about all the yummy things they have to eat, she thought it sounded great so she got all dressed up, purse and all.

We arrive at Chevy’s and who do we run into? My co-worker Matt and family. They were just finishing up as we were sitting down, so we didn’t sit with them. Had we known we could have met there, our kids are the same age and are friends, and could have kept each other occupied. Oh well, no one was bored at our table, regardless… I brought a box of craftivities! (Is that a word? Well, it’s a good description!)

I brought our little blocks that we like to make. They are the perfect size for travel or as “occupiers” while waiting for dinner.

What my Craftivity Kit contained:

1 1/2″ Ready-to-Go Blank Board Blocks
Paper (precut to the exact size of these blocks. This is key because what mom has time to cut a hundred little squares? I found the paper in square, circle, heart and flower shapes in the scrapbooking section at Michael’s.)
Glue Sticks
Stickers

We were able to make a block and then dinner came. Perfect! I quickly put everything in the box, closed it up, and we were ready for dinner.

My plan is to turn our Ready-to-Go Indie File Box into a Craftivity Case. You may be hearing about this in a future blog post.

Quilters’ TRIMplates® Investigation

April 17th, 2009 in Staff Pick, Video
By Megan Wisniewski

10661 When I found out that Wendy Mathson’s new Quilters’ TRIMplates® not only make it easy to sew Storm at Sea Blocks, but also claim to help you do it with perfect accuracy, I had to get more information. I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist, but sometimes, if it sounds too good to be true…well, you know how it ends. So, I put on my reporter hat and went to work. I will now disclose my findings, but in case you feel like skipping the details, my scientific evidence concludes that YES, Quilters’ TRIMplates® really do allow you to create perfect, gorgeous, Storm at Sea Quilts.

First things first, visual evidence. Check it out. This is Wendy Mathson demonstrating how to use fast2cut® Quilters’ TRIMplates to sew a Storm at Sea block.

C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.