God Laughs

It's an old Yiddish saying. Man plans and God laughs. I started this year with a renewed creative drive. I had plans, such plans, of all the wonderful new stuff I would make and learn. Wanting to be more painterly in my applique design, I signed up for a beginning watercolor class. With the new quilt project's design nearly finalized, I started pulling fabrics.

And then everything changed. Just like that. While it's too soon to go into details because we don't have any yet. We've been waiting for details any.day.now, for almost a month. No need to worry, it's nothing dire, just a big change, and one that will be very good when we've finally come through it.

So, here it is, my working plan for the new Block of the Month. I'm calling it "A Fine Romance" after one of my favorite songs, written by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern.

Some of you who have been around this old blog for a while might recognize the design as one briefly posted a couple of years ago. The piecing plan is pretty much the same, but the applique is all new. I've been wanting to do something all viney and curvy for a while, this project seemed to be the perfect place for it.

With all the uproar around me, it's been a challenge to make even the simplest decisions. For a while I was toying with having the flower colors be much more random, but I'm thinking now that I'm going to stay with the rhythm of the colors falling in their own place. What do you think? The colors in the design are just placeholders anyway, so maybe I'll just have to make a few and see what I like.

Yesterday I added a few more colors to the palette. It seemed to need a more lemony yellow and some citrus greens. Several of the fabrics are from Moda's Grunge line, including the light background. The soft gray for the background accent piecing is a Riley Blake Basic which has a very similar texture. It's taken me a while to settle on the gray. I wanted it to be there, but not there, you know. This gray has a little more presence than that, and I may end up using the back side, or even replace it. We'll see.

The timing for the release of the steps is totally up in the air, just like everything in my life right now. It may have to be two months between steps, or even catch as catch can until things are finally settled, which I understand could be any.day.now.

Quilt Market Swag

One of the cool things about Quilt Market is all the goodies to be found. Companies anxious to debut new products often give out free samples. How do you say no to that?

And then there's Sample Spree. Oh yikes! (These fat quarters are just part of a huge bundle of Jinny Beyer's newest fabric collection. Yummy!) The spree opens the evening before the official start to market. Originally the idea was to offer samples, already made up, for purchase, to be used in a quilt shop to help sell the new product. Over time it became a way for shop employees to decorate their homes. And now it is an all out free-for-all with companies (especially fabric companies) selling individual items at wholesale (or less!) prices. Attendees line up more than an hour in advance to be the first folks through the door. Being shopping impaired to begin with, I like to show up about an hour into the event and just breeze through the doors. Hey, what's left is way more than I should be buying anyway.

This is the delightfully huge button we are given to wear while at Market, to advertise the newest issue. (Congratulations to Kathy H. She'll be receiving the newest issue! Thanks for all your terrific comments. We are going to be busy quilters this holiday season!) The fabric shown here is Mary Engelbreight's newest line. It's a-dorable. Lots of happy colors.

 

There are the free magazines to pick up. I've only read through a couple, the ones geared to the "modern" quilter. While well done, they are not for me. First of all they made me feel ancient (which I am at least ten years away from!), most definitely geared to the younger crowd. And, I have to say, the content was so simplistic (even childish) that I felt myself getting stupider by the minute. Still, I'm so happy to see young folks taking up the rotary cutting and making quilts. (Uh, did that last comment just confirm that I am ancient?)

 

My last great find came on my last shopping day, the first full day of Festival. These are pearl cotton from Lizbeth. They are gorgeous! The packaging says that they are for crochet and tatting, but you'd better bet I'm going to try working with them as both bobbin and hand embroidery thread. And the cool bubble thing? It has a little spindle inside, and a hole in the top, a perfect little carry case to keep the thread clean and ready for travel. I think it might be very handy for filling bobbins from balls of thread.

 

I have no intention of talking about the fabric that may be finding its way here. Suffice it to say that I've found a couple of new fabric manufacturers with terrific collections who are willing to play with me. I didn't go crazy in my requests, but I'm already worried about where I will put it.

 

 

 



Beth's Day Out

It's true, too true, when I'm home I hunker down. A week can go by with leaving the house, it would be longer if hubby and I didn't have a weekly breakfast date at the Court Street Grill. I had an appointment yesterday morning, and I had this earthshattering idea: why not visit a couple quilt shops, and pop into the yarn shops along the way. After all, I've culled out my stash, I have room for more, and I'm free to choose my direction.

My first stop was Twisted Warp & Skeins. While the shop has a very nice collection of yarns, its focus is more on spinning and weaving, just what I was looking for.

Yes, I am in pursuit of yet another hobby. I've always wanted to learn how to spin yarn, my request for Christmas this year is a spinning wheel (and a kitchen island, but that's another story). This shop offers a basic spinning class, and has a variety of wheels to test drive. I'm being good and won't sign up until November (after Quilt Market and the new book release), but I'm giddy with the idea of trying something completely new to me.

And, of course I found some yarn to bring home. The colors on the skinny skeins are off, they are more of a cold purple than the magenta shown, these will make two pairs of knock out colorwork socks (gotta love the sparkle!). The blue green of the larger skein is bang on colorwise, there were three more of these, but they are already caked up and being knit up to make a sweater for my granddaughter.

 

 

A spectacular quilt shop is just around the corner. A while back Miles of Stitches moved from a lovely but small store front, to an expansive new location just a few miles further down the road.

My jaw dropped when I stepped inside.

Fabric! Wonderful shelf after shelf of tone on tones, my favoritest kind of fabric. I was just stunned. I had no idea that this fantastic playground of color was so close to me, less than a thirty minute drive. (Or an hour and a half if you include the distraction of the yarn shop along the way.)

 

They also have a terrific selection of polka dots and stripes, also on my favorite list. I decided to buy fabric for the new Sneaky Piecing Tricks workshop sample I'm working on.

 

 

So, that did make the trip business related, but that just can't be helped. The yardage in the lower left is for the new workshop design. The fat quarters are for my stash, because I can!

 

I had intended to visit two more quilt shops, and perhaps another yarn shop, but the hubby called to tell me he was coming home from work early. He's been battling a cold and rest is what he needs most. I figured he'd like to have me around to baby him, so I cut my shopping day short. But now that I've reminded myself of how much fun stash enhancement can be, I don't think it will be long before I'm on the prowl again.

 

(I don't know if it's Freudian, but, as I've written this, in several places I've typed in "love" in place of the desired word. I'm taking it as a good sign.)

 

In search of color

It has been a dreary winter, dark, gray and wet, with hardly any snow to brighten the day. It's so hard to keep my spirits up when the world feels washed out, simply drained of life.

What's a quilter to do? For me it's time for a little stash enhancement. I am drawn to clear, bright colors, like a moth to a flame. The fabrics at the top of the post are the silks that I found in Sarasota. I bought almost every fat quarter on the shelf, leaving behind only the brown, gray and taupe. I felt bad for them, and I tried to add them to my stack, I really did. But I just couldn't do it.

Why do I need rick rack? I don't know, yet. But it had just arrived at the shop when I was there to pick up my new machine, and it was so joyful! What am I going to do with it? Well, I think that's a question that no self-respecting quilter needs to answer.
Having chosen a word for this year, I decided that I needed a reminder, for those times when I think I must have lost my entire mind to get on a plane, meet up with people I have never met and put myself at their mercy.

To make it, I used Corel (my fav graphic design program) to find a font to set the right tone, reversed it and printed it out on a sheet of the Wash Away Applique Sheets. I decided that the tiny inside curves would be no fun at all, so I separated the letters into two parts.

And then, since it's been nothing but gray and dreary, happy embroidery was definately called for. The background is microstippled with WonderFil's fantastically fine Invisifil, but I matched the colors so well that it hardly shows. That turns out to be a good thing, since I could hardly see where I was going