Soooo, it's been awhile since I've posted anything. I've been very busy on a couple projects, as well as practicing, practicing, and more practicing. I'm getting much better and more comfortable with my longarm and currently have a quilt loaded that has strips of fabric so I can try different textures on each strip. It's fun and I'm really figuring out what I like and don't like to do- straight line are on my list to conquer.
It'll be fun when I finish and can see all the different textures together. Plus it's a nice and bright quilt that'll look superb on my bed. So many colors!!!

 Another thing I completed last month that was on my to-do list was my business card! Now that my name is in print on a card, it's official! I'm in buisness...


Didn't it come out great? I just love the tiny print and design. It was well worth the hours and hours of sizing, and re-sizing and drawing between Illustrator and Photoshop till it was exactly what I wanted.

And last but not least, I'm working on a new pattern. Some good friends of mine have requested a king size quilt and I've had this idea for a quilt for quite some time and when they gave me carte blanche to make it I got really excited! They're providing the fabric, which I've heard is going to be an assortment of colors. I gave them the requirements for yardage and can't wait to see what they come up with! Here is the initial drawing for an idea of the finished product...

I had this vision in my head of leaves falling into water.

Here is a portion of the pattern tacked to my wall. My husband thinks it looks like a map of the universe or a complicated mathematical equation. So, of course, since that makes me feel like a genius, I tell him that yes, I did base the composition off of a mathematical mapping of the stars. It took forever sitting with my telescope and making notes until I came up with the perfectly balanced composition.:) 

So, until I get the fabric for the above pattern I'll be practicing on my longarm and working on more ideas to put down on paper and later fabric.

Here it is, quilt number 2! This one was commissioned by a good friend of mine for one of her long time childhood friends, who is about to have her first baby.

When my friend, Kristy, first told me she wanted a quilt for Shannon, she said she'd like one of the fox designs. She told me Shannon was having a girl and I knew I had to do something more delicate for her. It took me a couple days of brain storming until one day, while walking my dog, it popped into my head. A fawn is delicate and graceful and perfect for a baby girl. So I did a quick sketch and this is how the fawn began...

This quilt was a lot of fun to do and left me with a fair list of areas I need to strengthen. The fawn was really easy to construct, however, the honeycomb shapes in the background posed a lot more problems than I thought they would.  When I did the Fox quilt my mom had mentioned that she was surprised how well I did the diamonds because they're considered to be a more difficult shape to quilt. I kind of understood what she was saying until I did this quilt and really discovered how difficult a shape can be when I sewed, ripped, and sewed again until I finally got the corners to line up perfectly.

The two other areas I need more practice are the borders and the binding. First of all, I didn't realize the boarders are there to manipulate the edges into being the exact same size, thanks to my mom, I'm now full of the knowledge on how to do that properly. Secondly the binding. Ugh! the binding! I'm not so sure I like binding and will spend my next project trying to figure out a modern quilt solution on how to end binding. I also might set up some practice quilts to practice the binding and conquer that problem. We'll see. This will take some thinking...

 

The small things...

Someone at my day job recently made fun of me for overusing the word fun. I recently switched offices and he asked me how it's going there. I responded by saying "fun!" Apparently fun is not a word he associates with wor and he decided to let everyone in the office know that I thought work was "fun." Horrible. I, of course, didn't let this phase me and will continue on, with what is my idea of fun, at work.

While, this incident has not changed my perspective it has heightened my awareness of what is and isn't enjoyable to people. For instance, I enjoy waking up at 4:40am so I can spend quality time walking my dog, slowly cut up fruit for my smoothie and stare at the wall while processing being alive. Staring at the wall gives me quality ideas I can mull over during the day and put into action when back in my quilting studio at the end of the day. Others like to sleep until 10 minutes before leaving for work and function just fine. Whatever floats your boat...

My whole point, which I am slowly getting to, is that little things make my day and I have observed a definite overuse of exclamation marks when responding to text messages, Facebook posts, and emails. I have learned to edit a little but it's really hard.

And so with this realization I am going to exclaim how thrilled I was to get a much awaited package of fabric from Sew Lux and open it to see a delightfully wrapped bundle with beautiful ribbon! Soo excited to be working on this new project!!!!

This just made a rather rough week melt away 

That spotty material is the rump of the really cute fawn appliqué that will be attached to this quilt. 

On top of it all when I saw the fabric fanned out behind the fawn I got a brilliant idea for the patchwork. I'm scrapping my previous idea and heading in a new direction... Detail coming later once I've worked out the pattern. Till then I hope you have a little fun in your life...

Get your own happy package at sewluxfabric.com

Fawn

This is an exciting new tool I got! It's a chalk that wipes off easily so I can mark where to cut the fabric! 

Here's the new quilt I'm working on. I drew the deer, cut it up in sections (notice the butcher-esque sectioning of the deer) and then left seam allowance when I cut up the fabric. I unfortunately forgot to mark spots throughout the pattern that should match up when I put the fabric together, so last night while working on the face I sewed a cheek to the forehead... I just laughed at myself and went to bed. On tonight's agenda I will be ripping the seam out of a cheeky forehead:)

My first quilt!

Finished product

Before the Longarm quilting

detail

Back... I just loved the fox fabric!

Here's my first quilt! I did everything from start to finish as well as designing the pattern. It was so much fun seeing something from start to finish....

Size is 35" x 50" perfect for a baby's first quilt!

First impressions

First posts seem important, as important as first impressions. One word too many or too pretentious and I've lost your interest and you're gone forever! But if you hang on for a few more words then I would like to discuss my first impression of quilting. My Mom tried for YEARS to get me to quilt with her and honestly I was too snobby to really take to it. I have a BFA and MFA in painting and drawing and to me quilting was too crafty for my attention (notice the word "was").  As she urged I played a bit, every time I went home to visit she thrust some beautiful fabric in my hands and I joyfully built a quilt, it was always fun, I enjoyed it thoroughly and returned home with big ideas to continue on my own. But then my paint and canvas called, I felt guilty not painting, which led me to abandon all thought of quilting within a day of returning home. Every time she mentioned my joining her in business, showed me a quilting magazine, or took me to a quilting show I thought it would be a great thing to do, in the future... but... for now I'm painting.

Quilting, in my mind, was for older women who sew stars in squares in a wallpapered room with lace valances in the countryside; I was way too urban and young for that. I also had trouble acknowledging that quilting can be art, in my world oil paint is luscious and sexy and can change the world and I never thought of fabric as holding the same potential.

That is, not until after a year of what I'm calling a painting sabbatical, the clouds opened up on an opportunity and I was sucked into the quilting world to the point where I now own my very own 12' Long Arm quilting machine, have filed for a business license to operate a business making quilts, patterns, and providing long arm services. I am, to say the least, soooo excited to be embarking on this journey. The ideas I've long suppressed are thrusting themselves out so fast I've started carrying a journal in my purse to jot them down! I've realized quilting does not mean stars in squares, it can be anything I want it to be, it's a two dimensional plane- just like canvas- and I'm ready to throw my thread to the wind and wholeheartedly redefine my preconceptions of quilting. I am after all young and urban and quilting...