Join the Northern Illinois Quilt Shop Hop

banner-r2You have all summer!  From June 1 through Aug 31.  Get your passport and join the shop hop while supporting your local quilt shops!

Find out all the details here... including the possibility of winning a new Bernina sewing machine!  Each store will also be raffling off a basket worth $100 worth of sewing supplies.

You will get 15% off your purchase at each store on the day you get your passport stamped–how can you go wrong?

I’m going to visit every shop this summer, with a goal of finishing in June or early July.  I’ll be blogging about each store and showing a picture of each raffle basket. (with permission from each store).

I will be accompanied by my reluctant assistant who is in charge of the GPS.  We’ll be heading to your local store soon!  See you then!

Reluctant Assistant.

Reluctant Assistant.

Bloom Where You’re Planted

IMG_1487[1]Most everything is planted in the garden now.  My job going forward will be mostly to weed and to water and to wait.  Some of the seeds will not sprout.  Some of the plants will whither and fade.  (This is the last year I’m trying rhubarb. For 3 years now, I have planted and watered and not had anything come back the next year.  Might have to do some reading about that.)

Bugs will eat the cucumber leaves to within an inch of survival.  Japanese beetles will descend on the raspberries mid-summer and I will spend hours picking them off and dropping them into soapy water.  Rain will not fall enough.  Rain will flood.  White butterflies will lay eggs that turn into worms that will eat the cabbage and cauliflower.  And the weeds will take every opportunity to hog the nutrients from the soil and suffocate the vegetables and fruits.

Still.

Still, I cannot walk away.  It’s hard for me to imagine an act more basic than growing my own food.  In the early morning the birds chirp overhead.  The air is fresh.  Dew on the grass seems like a twinkle of paradise.

One morning a red-tailed hawk perched so close to me, I could almost hear her breathe.  She glanced casually at me and hopped over to the ground squirrel hole.  She cocked her head comically and peered inside.  Squirrels are hiding deep today.  With a final glance at me, she lifted herself back off the ground and flew back to her nest.  Maybe later.

Another evening, no one was around, as I puttered and weeded.  The skies were a heavy gray and the air was thick.  Silence enveloped me.  The raspberry branches reached for me in the breeze.  I stood upright and  looked to the skies.  At that very moment a lone sandhill crane flew overhead.  As it passed directly over me it made several warning cries.  “Storm!! Seek shelter!!”  was what I heard from the crane, though at the time, no words formed in my head.  It was simple instinct. A moment later I saw the lightening in the distance.  By that time I was already packed to go back home. Minutes after arriving a storm blew in that knocked down trees and cut electricity, causing hail and torrents of wind and rain.

I have no doubt the crane was communicating.  I have no doubt I got the message.

Maybe nature communicates with us all the time.  Maybe we’re not always listening.  Maybe listening to the birds is good for us.

Maybe.

Special thanks to my nephew for helping me to till this year.

Special thanks to my nephew for helping me to till this year.

Couldn't do it without you kiddo...thanks!!

Couldn’t do it without you kiddo…thanks!!

Needle Punch Peonies

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As I wait for this years’ peonies to find the courage to rise and bloom, I am inspired by a picture of last years’, and so I pulled out some wool, some roving and decided to needle punch a bouquet of peonies.  If you are not familiar with needle punch, it is the process of using needles to insert colored fabric into another fabric.  The process of punching the roving into the wool actually creates a whole new fabric because both fabrics become one.

Here’s an example of some roving, which is essentially semi-processed wool or cotton fibers.

Samples of dyed roving.

Samples of dyed roving.

Needle Punching on my sewing machine.

Needle punching on the sewing machine.

Using special needles on a machine and a needle punch foot, you can use your sewing machine to “punch ” the roving down into the wool fabric below. You’re not using any thread, and if you have thread sensors on your machine, you’ll want to turn them off.  After that, the process is a lot like painting with watercolor, or more precisely, like charcoal drawing, using the different colors of the roving to create shading, shapes and color.

My intent was to capture the carefree way the flowers moved and “relaxed” into the group.  I always want to loosen my style.  Sometimes my art is uptight.  One of the reasons I enjoy working with fiber over paint is the amount of control that one must give up to the medium.  That’s exciting and unpredictable.  (Some people love precision and this may be frustrating for you.)

After punching out the basic shapes, just add some background texture.

Adding texture through small quilting patterns. I added some batting to the back for stability.

Adding texture through small quilting patterns. Add batting to the back for stability.

What it looked like before I added the topstitching.

What it looked like before topstitching.

As the final touch, add topstitching to the whole arrangement. This brings a bit of dimension, with a “pen and ink” feel.  All of this is very textural. Interesting to look at, interesting to touch.

Anyone can do this with a little inspiration, some wool, and some roving.  You can purchase hand needle punch kits at any craft store and I’m sure most sewing machine manufacturers have some form of needle punch accessory.  (Bernina does, for certain!)  After that, the sky’s the limit.

Machine tip:  Be sure to clean out your sewing machine really well after doing needle punch.

Now get out there and have fun!!

Final piece.

Final piece.  Not sure if I’ll turn it into a pillow cover or garment or something else entirely!

 

 

 

How modern is Modern?

Everybody knows quilting has taken a turn.

When I was growing up, even into mid-life, there simply wasn’t anything modern about quilting.

Quilting was traditional.

I inherited stacks of quilting books from my mother-in-law, all of them filled to the brim with beautiful designs pieced from blocks with special names, and techniques passed down from generation to generation. When you learned to quilt, you started with blocks that were already well-known:  Log Cabin, Nine Patch, Flying Geese, Dresdan Plate, Drunkard’s Path (!), and don’t forget Sun Bonnet Sue.

To this day, I am fascinated by my mother-in-law’s quilts:  her meticulous piecing, her hand-quilting and attention to detail, the HOURS and HOURS she must have put into many of them.  They seemed unattainable to me, hallmarks of patience and perfection, dedication and perseverance.

Thank heavens, today’s designers have set in motion a quilting rennaissance.  They’ve blown the lid off the quilting world and set new standards for what perfection looks like.

It’s fun.  It’s colorful.

And it’s original.  Of course, we all still need to learn technique. And good design never changes. It has an eye candy appeal that defies description.  Young  graphic artists have made their way into the world of sewing and quilting and given it new life.

People like Tula Pink, Kate Spain, and Angela Walters.

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Years before the latest “modern” quilt trend seemed everywhere, I created this sample for the store.  Such a simple design, taken from “The Modern Quilt Workshop” by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  The book was published in 2005, far ahead of its time.  Yet it paved the way for the kinds of things we are seeing out there now.  Simple graphics, free form quilting, negative space, and color color color.

I love that traditional quilting is still as popular as it has always been.  I love even more that quilting has opened up to new people who are using fabric and design in unusual ways.  And most of all, I love that people seem to be making things, spending time thinking and constructing and using their imaginations and their hands.

Is that modern?

Whooshing Poems

Have you ever been called to create something?  I’m not talking about receiving a phone call, or a commission request, or even an inspiration from a fabric or pattern.

I’m talking about a full-press, hard-core, wonder-full, mystical, unexplainable urge to create.  I’m talking about  brief clarity from the signal of cosmic consciousness, the Holy Spirit, the Great Mystery, a siren wave of energy from the universe.

Sounds melodramatic?  Maybe.  But I think we hear from it all the time–especially those of us who are creators. And I don’t think it’s always about huge endeavors.  My experience is that sometimes, something in the universe just wants or needs to be created, and it searches for a receptive mind/spirit to assist in manifestation.  The key word here is “receptive”.

You can call me crazy for this belief, but one day a couple of years ago, I watched a TED presentation that reminded me that I am not alone.  I’ll attach a link to the entire presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert. The part that stuck with me the most was the visual of an American poet who told Elizabeth that sometimes she would be out in the field with her family when she felt a poem coming…she could see, feel it heading toward her, and she had to drop everything, run into the house and write it down before it whooshed past her.  If she missed it, the poem would continue on, in search of another poet.

Wow.

I wish I were always so in tune with the universe.  Here’s a link to Elizabeth Gilbert’s entire presentation, and a quick view of the next thing I’m going to create. I don’t know why. I don’t ask why any more.

But I’m up for the task.