Cut First

 Look at me! Cutting all in advance of sewing. That is a seriously big deal, folks. The vast majority of work that I do starts with me sewing, not planning. Even my book quilts generally start with a little bit of sewing before I stop and figure out what I'm actually doing. But this time I drew the pattern and cut everything before I sewed a stitch.

This is what is becoming of the necklace inspired fabric pull. It has a destination and pattern that will be available in not too long.  Pretty excited to share it with you. It's a rather cool quilt with a really awesome final destination. Soon.

What about you? Are you a cut everything first quilter? Or would you rather start then sew a little?

Just Sit Down

There are times in life when we need to push ourselves, when the teacher becomes a student, when the one who can't top talking needs to shut up and sew. This pillow serves a reminder to me to do all of that.

After my two days of teaching at QuiltCon I had the pleasure to take some classes. The pillow is the end result of my class with Yoshiko Jinjenzi. I jumped at the chance to take a class with her, even though I wasn't thrilled about making a pillow with sheer fabric. Whatever, it was Yoshiko Jinjenzi.

Turns out we were making a project from her book, Quilting Line and Color. I have the book, I constantly pull it out and drool, but I've never been inclined to make anything. The instructions seem fussy and overly complex. Well, this pillow was actually dead easy to make. We had a total of 5 minutes of instruction from Yoshiko and then we set to making.

As our first step we got to go and dig through scraps to create our own bits and bobs to highlight on the pillow. Every single person in the class had to resist the urge to squirrel away extra fabric. We were cutting little bits so it was quite fun to think about this fabrics on a very small scale.

After we picked our fabric, cut them to whatever size and shape we wanted, and laid them out on this gold fabric she provided we layered it with a sheer gauze. Some basting stitches to hold everything in place then we set to quilting the heck out of that sandwich.

That is, when we weren't crowded around her fondling the quilts she shared. It was half pillow class, half trunk show. But it was when she was showing her quilts that you saw the potential of this layering technique. Something I was quite easily dismissing at the beginning of the class suddenly provided inspiration. Of course, the intricacy of her work and the extreme attention to finishing details might have also had something to do with it.

In the end, I did get my pillow almost done. Despite the distractions of the quilts and my neighbours Marianne and Leanne and my SIL (way to represent Alberta in Austin!) All but the actually turning it into a pillow. Just as soon as I could I turned it into a finished project, minus the tassels. I knew that if I let it sit it would never get done.

This pillow is so far removed from anything I would normally make, from something I would likely every make again. Gold? Sheer? A Pillow? But it serves as a good reminder for me to just shut and sew sometimes. And for that reason it will keep a place of honour in my heart, if not my room.

Friday Favourites: Kate Inglis

There was a day, a few years ago that I came across this beautiful blog. Full of honesty and light and pain and creativity. Captivation at first blush. Fast forward a few years later and that loverly lady is in my house, threatening to steal my baby and chasing my girls with screams of zombie underpants. And I was totally okay with that because she was also taking pictures for my book. Ethereal and beautiful pictures of the projects, of kids, of my family. I can forgive almost anything for her beauty.

Kate Inglis is a writer, photographer, Mama, teacher, and more. She is a quiet, reflective soul who has a different set of eyes in her head for seeing the world. We love her first novel, The Dread Crew, in this house. I love her boys and all their energy. When we get together we can get lost in tangents about whiners who claim they have no inspiration to creative expression to Lego to old windows. Then there is the work.

I was, and still am, blown away by the work done for A Month of Sundays. Seriously folks, the photos are incredible. For a sneak peek head over to her blog.

The 5 days Kate and I spent together photographing the book were INTENSE. In between downloads and nursing sessions and breaks for cookies and lunch that my Mom made us we lived those projects. We drank wine at the the end of the day to just take a moment to breathe. Kate made friends with all my friends. I don't think I could convince her to leave her lovely home on the East Coast, but I'm thankful that she has family here and a potential excuse to visit beyond me kidnapping her.

Necklace Inspired Fabric Pull

One of the most exciting parts of quilting for me is the fabric play. It is one of the excuses I maintain for having a ridiculously large stash - shopping at home. It really is lovely to be able to just open the closet, rummage through my bins and bins of fabric, and come up with something pretty to play with.

Here I am playing with fabric from the latest inspiration. This quilt is for a deadline, so once I found my inspiration I dove right in! Above is the initial fabric pull.

Below is the final fabric pull. I decided to edit out the fabrics to reflect the inspiration necklace in direct proportion. It remains to be seen which fabrics actually end up in the final quilt, I'm not sure I have enough of each of these for the planned pattern. We'll just have to see!