Store window inspiration for a quilt

When I saw these windows at Anthropologie in Santa Monica a few months ago, I nearly squealed... Were they inspired by a quilt?
Will they inspire me to quilt? (yes)

We've now had Baby 10 months. We got him when he was 3 weeks old. And because it's so fraught with grief and pain, I haven't been able to sew for him like I did for AJ and Ace. My heart is just too broken to go there. I describe it like this, "I lose him every day."

I've made him a little playmat quilt to send along with him. But I've also wanted to make a quilt that helps me process this pain. Especially if he may be leaving us soon. And as I was picking out some fabrics, I started going through my books looking for pattern inspiration.  Then as I was rocking him to sleep, peeking through old photos on my phone, I saw these pics. What great inspiration.  Now I know at least where I want to start.

Project Modern Challenge - Modern Quilt Guild

The Modern Quilt Guild isn't just in LA. It's ALL OVER. And the Modern Quilt Guild sponsors some cool challenges and contests... one of which my pal Alison recently won!
(Her quilt was entered into the challenge that was called "ORGANIC" and it's an amazing quilt. Read about it here.


The next challenge is one that I am really hoping to get my act together to enter.  It's called "FIND YOUR VOICE" and we are encouraged to use that terminology as inspiration for our own quilt. Find yours and enter too! You have until September 30th. Plenty of time, right?
(I sure hope so!)

Lucky winner

I've never been the type to win anything in giveaways or drawings, but in the past year - and only related to fabric or sewing.... I've won something like 3 or 4 times. (which is a lot for a girl who doesn't consider herself "lucky" - Blessed- YES! But "Lucky"- not very often.)
Well I won again! And not even something I entered... Which is funny. Remember how I posted about "generation Q magazine"??? I commented on their 1st or 2nd day, just piping in about some square or something and they picked me to win a set of books. I love sewing books!
And one of them is even written by another LAMQG member, Jake Finch.
So awesome. Thanks, generation Q!

Oh and this brings my sewing book collection to about 4,654,759. My goal is to try and do at least one project (how sad is that) from each book. Many of them are staples for me with creative inspiration. (I mostly follow images, not patterns) but some get great use. I think I may do book reports on those soon.

In other news: baby is still with us. He was supposed to leave last Friday, but the process has gotten elongated. (which is good so he can at least get to know the people he's moving in with over a few weeks instead of leaving us cold turkey) So he's here in my arms as I write this and though we had a goodbye party for him last Sunday, we are not sure when that day will be.
Thanks for thinking of us. Being a foster family is definitely one of the greatest challenges our family has faced, but it is drawing us together and growing us immensely.

Memories of Friendship Quilt

It's finished! And it's not called "The Beast" - but it is called "Memories of Friendship"
I wrote the following note to accompany it as it travels to a friend who is making a presentation on modern quilting and using it (among many others) as a prop.

Memories of Friendship
I made this quilt in stages.
This quilt started as one square with some old fabric and some new friends. We had gathered together to learn how to quilt. The old fabric was part of my eclectic and bizarre stash that I have after years of sewing clothes and collecting vintage fabrics from various elderly friends and family members. Each piece has a memory attached of who gave it to me, where I got it or the mystery of not knowing its history.
I often have a "game" I play where I love to hide what I consider "ugly" fabrics into my work. The idea that this discarded and unwanted fabric could be part of something beautiful means a lot to me on many levels. (I  live in a very old house, with lots of vintage patchwork  quilts, artwork on the walls, a creative family, a rescued dog and a foster baby we're trying to adopt. I love seeing beauty in the unexpected) I almost never quilt with a line of fabric, I like the unexpected, and the sense that no one could possibly make this same quilt.
 My new friends and I made wonky squares. I loved my first one and I used up many precious scraps to get the 5 complementary squares. 6 was all I could get. At one point they were even sewn together as a potential table runner.
Then they were ripped apart and stacked for months.

I got the idea to take them into my favorite new quilt shop (Sew Modern), and to pick the brains of the creative and fun friends who work there for ideas. Could we come up with a way to highlight these old fabrics with such a complex color scheme in a way that was fresh?
I'd come in with the idea of two stacks of squares and an off center spread of fabric between. They helped present some awesome and eclectic combos for fabrics, and suggested the wobbly placement.
I went home and pieced the rest by sight. If it needed orange over there, I'd cut and add it in... It was all done in the moment, responding to the overall feeling.
I quilted it with straight line quilting, something I've had little experience with before, but really enjoyed.
As I was basting and quilting this, it occurred to me how many precious friends and memories were represented by this quilt. Each fabric sliver reminds me of someone beautiful that I know. And to me that's what this quilt is all about. My  new friends, my old friends. My silver friends and my gold friends.

 (here's the back of the quilt)

My own quilt labels

Wanna see my quilt label?
Here it is! I've already made 25 quilts that this isn't on, but the next 25 will have this (or something really similar) on the back of them.
The little white box on it is for me to handwrite who it's for and the occasion.
I may also have a less feminine version for quilts that I specifically make for men or boys. Still working that out.
Whatcha think?

Printing my own Quilt Labels - Product Review

I've been wanting to make some fancier labels for my quilts for a while now.
Though I have heard that I could technically run fabric through my printer if it were ironed to freezer paper (anyone tried that?) - I simply haven't gotten around to it.

A few weeks ago, I made labels for my bee buddies to put on their bee quilts. I didn't want to spend the time waiting to get them back from Spoonflower (where I ordered them last year), so I dug out some printable fabric that I have had on hand for a few years and never used. Point to note: such fabric YELLOWS if you don't use it.
I started with the Printed Treasures paper, which I didn't love because it became SO yellow (it IS old, but still). Then I used June Tailor's line, which was considerably less yellowed.  But still my pattern bled a little bit when I rinsed and heat set it.

After all was said and done, I'd use the June Tailor paper again in a bind, but I am going to order my own labels at Spoonflower.  The quality is considerably better.

Bee Happy loves our Bee Babies!

Last year, when Melissa had a baby, the girls from Bee Happy all whipped up some quilt squares, sent them off to Natalie and she finished the quilt so we could present it to Melissa at a LAMQG meeting.

So when we learned that Janice had a baby, it was only fitting that we came up with something for her too. Now Bee Happy is notoriously chill about our deadlines, but we CRANKED on this! It was only about 6 weeks and we had a completed quilt out the door for new baby Emma.

We learned her nursery's color scheme and shared our fabrics and we all made squares in the Mod Mosaic pattern. Lori whipped up the top, Alison quilted it at our favorite shop, Sew Modern, and I finished the binding and label and sent it out the door!

Yay bee girls!

Here's another pic of me showing the almost finished quilt to the guild at our last meeting.

Old Artwork - post 2

I made 4 of these silk stained glass banners to hang in a church we attended in Chicago. They were 5'x6' long and a lot of work, but I hear they are even still in use!

My very first textile design experience was a silk painting and batik class that I took in Florence, Italy one summer. I haven't painted on silk in years, but it was how I got my start, how I got my first job - and I even ended up using my knowledge to write a curriculum that our company used for years on how to teach people about silk painting. 

I need to go dig those supplies up somewhere...  if you're ever offered the chance to paint on silk, it is an experience that is like no other painting. I highly recommend it. These are only the biggest ones I made - I also made probably 30+ other paintings that are in various places and uses right now in people's lives.

The pics below are from 2 years ago when I revisited my old studio in Florence and found my teacher was still there and remembered me! Not only did she remember me, but she had photos of me (completely dorky) with my work. That was a very amazing day for me to revisit this place that 12 years earlier had formed a major foundation for who I was to become.  These pics were really special to take.  The studio was in a converted convent and was exactly how I remembered it.

Old Artwork - post 3

More installments in my "old artwork" series:

I grouped these two together because they may or may not have happened around the same time, but it's clear the inspiration was the concept of embroidering scenery.

 This tiny piece was what I spent a rainy winter weekend on as we escaped the frigid Chicago winter for a visit to Arizona.  We stayed in a friend's vacation home and though it was rainy, the desert was gorgeous and I sat there inside, overlooking the endless pool as it dropped off into the cool and green valley. The desert had never looked so pretty to me.  Even looking at this now, I can remember more senses and feelings than I normally remember about that trip. Isn't that one of the great reasons we make art?

 This piece also was made on a vacation. It was the view of a valley below us at the home we stayed at in Hyderabad, India. I found it so funny that there were boulders in the yards of the homes below that were larger than the houses. I imagined this would be called, "The Boulders Come With the House" - I'm sure that the doors were probably that color, too - knowing India.

Typewriter jewelry

Recently I got it in my head that I wanted a necklace made out of a vintage typrewriter key. So I popped over to etsy and found a ton of options! But far and away, my favorite was the one that I ended up with. It's made by IvieRidge and I absolutely love it. I wear it all the time and get so many people asking me about where I got it.  Thought I'd share the source and the etsy love.