“modern” quilting
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May 22, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. If you frequent your local fabric shop on a regular basis, you may have noticed that the owner was missing for a few days last week. International Quilt Marker for spring of 2013 was going on in Portland, Oregon. For those of us who wish we could go to Quilt Market each season, here is a treat. The folks from Fat Quarter Shop video taped the entire Moda School House presentation and posted it at YouTube. You’ll get a sneak peek at the newest fabrics coming from Moda, and their designers. Our fall seminar guest, Pat Sloan, makes an appearance at 15:36 in the video. I’ll warn you the “show” is about 45 minutes long. You might want to watch it in segments, or just treat yourself to a cup of your favorite beverage and sit down to watch the entire thing. I loved getting […]
May 12, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen again. We’ve been talking about the modern quilting movement and their recent gathering QuiltCon here at the blog of late. One quilt hung in the show at QuiltCon has caused quite a stir among quilters. It definitely “ain’t your grandma’s quilt”! But first let’s back track a bit. In the early 2000’s a group of quilters in Lawrence Kansas wanted to erase some of the “goody two shoes” from the image of quilters and worked together to make a quilt depicting the demise of Sunbonnet Sue. Many quilters were incensed by this attack on the beloved traditional pattern. Apparently some parts of quilting are to be held sacred. Here is a link to an image of the quilt, now residing in a university archives in Michigan. At the International Quilt Show in Houston in 2010, Rochester quilter Randall Cook caused a commotion with his art quilt […]
May 8, 2013
Hello all, It’s Mary Ellen back again. Between the garden, and the sewing machine I haven’t had much time at the blog lately. So I’ll try to catch up a little bit today. I taught a class today on designing your own “drunkard’s path” layout. Part of the class was also learning how to stitch that curve in the block without any puckers. I must say all the students were successful at that. YAY! Accurate cutting and very few pins are the keys in my book. I used Anita Murphy’s drunkard’s path book as a resource (thanks again, Helen). We also went a bit high-tech and used Google images to see SO many gorgeous variations on it. I had brought color photos, but one of the students had her iPad with her so we went on the internet. The students were floored by the versatility of the “module”. I think […]
May 1, 2013
…is back! 🙂 Again have to apologize for being MIA. Life just runs over me sometimes… 🙂 April wasn’t the best of months around here…(see my blog for the story), but after all April showers DO bring May flowers, spring is in full force around here and it is time to “wake-up”, renew, enjoy the sunshine in your face and grow, grow, grow….Mother nature is so good about all that, we just need to follow! 🙂 Don’t you just LOVE all these first blooms, riots of spring color? I can easily go out for about 10 minutes and come back in with over 100 photos on my digital camera! All of which are quilt inspirations of course… Every spring, this is the color that fascinates me: This incredibly vibrant, “in-your-face” green that is in all the new growth! Specially when it is either against the gray of the tree bark […]
April 15, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Are you a nut for those gorgeous pre-cut bundles that every quilt store puts out to tempt us? I know we could cut them easily enough ourself, but we’d never get the little sample of every fabric in the line without driving some poor salesperson nuts cutting little bits for us. And the ladies behind us in line would be shooting daggers at us with their eyes. So much time is saved when someone else (actually some computerized machine) has done all the cutting for us. And then there are all the beautiful patterns written specifically for pre-cuts…I could go on and on. It seems, from the ads I’m seeming of late in the newest quilting mags, that a new pre-cut is coming along–pre-cut hexagons. Don’t flinch at the thought of sewing those. They don’t require hand stitching. Here’s a free pattern and a very […]
April 14, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It is a beautiful morning here in the neighborhood-truly, not tongue in cheek this time. The canine and I had a great walk in the sunshine, and by the end I had taken off my gloves and hat. (whisper-I think spring is in the air) When we returned home, I took a circle around the garden in the spots that aren’t too squishy wet to see what’s up. It’s time to do some clean up of the parts I can reach from the paths–too early to walk on the beds. Don’t get overly anxious you gardeners out there. It’s not good to pack down the dirt walking on it too soon. Lots of leaves are in the beds from our Snyder trees-no matter how late the last fall raking occurs, more leaves come down after. The daffodils are looking great, the hellebores too. Starting to […]
March 19, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’ll bet we could guess your generation from what “tats” means to you. Here it means ink. This is one way in which I will never be a modern quilter, but it was interesting to read how these members of the Modern Quilt Guild wanted to celebrate their quilting by getting a tattoo. For many it was not the first. Here’s the blog entry from them about the experience: click here.
February 22, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here. All of these little bits were in my inbox this morning! what a day! modern quilt example: I follow this blog each day and I think Victoria’s work fits my personal definition of modern quilting. Lots of white, modern fabrics with traditional blocks. What would you think about having her as a seminar teacher? Would there be enough interest? Hmm..? How many of our members have an interest in modern quilting? Or would like to explore it? McCall’s Quilting University video portal: click here and/or here. Free tutorials on many topics free e-book of pillow covering patterns– some modern, some not: click here. new (somewhat) technique and book I will definitely be trying!: click here. spent the morning with the little guys at the Explore and More museum in East Aurora. The place was swarming with little people. Had a great time, but boy am […]
February 19, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen here on this blustery day. I just blew in from a round of errands. Went into BJ’s to get printer paper and ink in a little drizzle, came out to blowing snow. I thought that was to come later today?! Winter in Buffalo I guess. Well Downton Abbey fans! Season 3 is over-what do you think is coming next? Spoiler alert-don’t read further if you haven’t seen the season-ender yet. About a month ago I had read in some publication about the demise of 2 characters with no reference to who those characters would be. Of course I had my own theories of who was going. I must say I didn’t have this one on my list of possibilities. I didn’t cry my eyes out, as I am reading many other fans did. Or do you think they have may have left the door ever so slightly […]
February 8, 2013
Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Yesterday I watched another video from Jenny Doan at Missouri Star Quilt Company where she made her version of the antique quilt that has hung behind her in many of her earlier videos. I absolutely love that quilt. I always knew of the pattern as the hummingbird, but Jenny was calling it the periwinkle. I wanted to find out if they are just two names for the same block, or if perhaps there are small construction variations or proportion variations. Off I went to the site Quilt Index to have a look. I found quilts by both names and was able to take a good look. What I like about this site over some of the other wonderful similar sites is that one can pull up several photos of quilts side by side to compare them very easily. There also is a magnifying feature if […]