Month: July 2011
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Design walls
Would it surprise you to know that I don’t have an adequate design wall? I have one 4 ft by 8 ft piece of foam insulation board that I’ve covered with black fabric. It is great for taking photographs and lately I haven’t been making much that is bigger than that. It’s lightweight and I…
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Published: Color Confidence
This weekend I got my August/September 2011 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. Inside is my five-page article entitled “Color Confidence: Master Color Theory with an Easy Wall Hanging.” In it I explain basic color theory in easy to understand terms. My goal is for quilters to become more comfortable and confident in their color combinations.…
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Tutorial: Improvisational piecing: skinny strips
I’m trying something new! (Well, new for me.) Lately, I’ve had an inexplicable desire to do some piecing. Weird, huh? I was joking with a fellow guild member recently about how long it’s been since I actually pieced anything. It might have been Wedding Dreams in 2001! Although, I guess I did throw together a…
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Quilting Arts TV Series 800
I got my complementary copy of the Quilting Arts TV Series 800 DVD in the mail. Watch for me on Episode 810! You can check online to see if Quilting Arts TV is on your local PBS station, or you can purchase your own copy of Series 800 from Interweave. My segment was just a…
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Mission accomplished!
Yesterday was my favorite kind of day. Other than the obligatory walk (a whole three buildings away) to get the required celebratory Blizzard (LOL! Of course, it goes without saying that finding out that both “Windblown” and “Embrace 1” were accepted into the Houston show definitely added to it being a favorite kind of day…
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Happy dance for “Windblown” and “Embrace 1”
Woohoo! Today is a happy day! I just received notification that “Windblown” and “Embrace 1” have been selected as finalists for the 2011 International Quilt Festival in Houston. If I do nothing else during the year, this is the one show I always try to enter, so I’m very excited about this! This is the…
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Busy and productive, but not necessarily quilting
Ever heard the phrase, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken”? I’ve always thought it was coined by Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. Well, no matter who first said it, I’ve been putting it into practice these last two weeks. Pretty much every day since my last post…
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3D color wheel
I’ve been fascinated with the color wheel for quite some time. Maybe it’s because it organizes the myriad of possibilities in a way that I can grasp. Anyway, I stumbled across Dick Nelson’s 3D color wheel which I thought did a good job of explaining tints, tones, and shades, along with how they relate to…
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Big rotary cutting mat
I earned some unexpected money (Thanks for the suggestion, Ed!) so I celebrated by finally buying myself a really big rotary cutting mat. It is 36″ by 60″ and it pretty much covers all of the usable area on my work table. Before, I had two 24″ by 36″ mats side by side and they…
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Four strategies for organizing
There’s something about organizing stuff that is very satisfying to me. I find that many times, when I have a creative project that I’m about ready to start working on, I procrastinate. But, if I spend some time organizing my workspace, I can approach my creative project in a much more relaxed manner. Weird, huh?…