My big Creative Nudge for you this week is that I've uploaded a bunch of quilt photos from the Houston Quilt Festival!
Check out my photo page and you'll see over 100 photos uploaded so far – more on the way! (And our first 2 Quilt Festival videos will be up on our video page starting tomorrow.)
This quilt (detail above) was one of my absolute favorite quilts at the show, and judging by the constant crowds inspecting it closely, it was a real hit with the quilters too! (See the whole quilt on my photo page)
"Dixie Dingo Dreaming" is by Susan Carlson. I have 2 of her books, and I just love her techniques. (Serendipity Quilts is still in print, and we have a few copies still in stock) As you may have noticed from my Tokyo Quilt Festival photos, I like taking photos of people as they take a close look at the quilts. There were plenty of people leaning in closely and trying to figure out how the heck Susan created this effect!
It is a carefully assembled collage of dotted fabrics, that gives the effect of a Pointillist painting by Georges Seurat. The original image was essentially posterized, then each segment or value was translated into a different dotted fabric.
And have you guessed yet what fabrics she used? It is all imported Australian fabrics from M&S Fabrics, created by Aboriginal artists Down Under. Absolutely fabulous!
I am including links to Australian fabrics and magazines below, plus a link to our African fabrics. If you like the colors in this art quilt but like to work with something a little larger scale, I think you'll like our beautiful collection of African themed prints, and imported African fabrics. Our African batiks and hand-dyes make a nice complement as well.
Our 14 year old played a solo in a high school jazz concert tonight, and he had kind of a rough night. He's had stomach flu, so he was not real perky to begin with, but somewhere between the band room and the stage his reed split, and he had to go on with the show with a split reed. Needless to say he was not thrilled with his solo, although I suspect few in the audience noticed. We encouraged him to resolve his frustration by thinking about how he could avoid the split reed in the future (carry a spare in his pocket for performances) and he was feeling better by bedtime.
When quilters make a mistake, we use the Frog Stitch (Rippit! Rippit!) and keep sewing til we get it right. We know we have to learn from our mistakes right away or we'll have a bobbly quilt top or a warped border. I think that making quilts is a way for us to work through our problems in life, because as we discover and fix problems in the quilt, we are somehow working through issues in our head. Ripped a hole in the quilt top from too many Frog Stitches? No problem! Just applique a nice big flower on top! Now add a few more for a garland, and suddenly a mistake becomes an award-winning embellishment. I just love how that works.
sharing your passion for fabric…
Luana
Would you like to share your enthusiasm for eQuilter ?
Send us your own Testimonial!
"Emerald Isle" – Tour of Ireland
June 5 – 15, 2012
11 Magical Days with Luana
including the Intl Quilt Festival of Ireland
Try our new eQuilter Exclusive Pattern Designer!
Share Post:
