Month: January 2009

Word of the Day: Renewal

“…just find a little quiet time each day to withdraw into yourself…none of us can maintain the fertility of our beings without renewal.”

I recently started a course of career counseling, not so much to find a career, but to find my place within my skills and career. One discussion we had was about how I get energy. I think this is about renewal. How do you renew yourself in order to infuse energy into your quiltmaking. I think that this is an important question and is what helps us move on or ahead in our quiltmaking.

Birthday Activities

Every year, I try to figure out a fun and/or creative endeavor to arrange for my birthday. As I am trying to buy in my neighborhood, I decided that Color Me Mine, a pottery painting place was the way to go. I have been walking by it a lot and had been wanting to go in and do some painting. This was the perfect opportunity.

I sent invites to some of my girlfirends and a number of them were able to come along.

I painted this little bowl to match another bowl and a spoonrest I made a number of years ago when these types of stores first came on the scene. All of them also match my kitchen. In the pic above, the bowl is upside down waiting to be fired.

The funnest part for me was to see everyone painting and being creative even if being creative wasn’t their habit. I also really enjoyed seeing all of my friends, long and new, get along with each other.

2009 FOTY Possibility?

Jen posted this picture of a quilt she is working on to her blog, The Quilted Jewel (http://aquiltingjewel.blogspot.com/).I have been mulling over the 2009 FOTY block, and talking with TFQ about it. I still have not come to a decision. The block in this picture may be what the doctor ordered.

I like the movement and the 4patch, which is a block I was thinking of working with. I also like the way it fits together and is a real block not just pieces like FOTY 2008. I am not sure what is going on with the sashing and will have to have a closer look at it. I think I would have to have a background fabric if I decided to do this design.

TFQ and I are thinking about doing the same block to see what we come up with, which is still in process. I am excited about that possibility as well as I have been feeling like I need to work with someone on something. I don’t feel bad about collecting ideas regardless of what we decide to do.

A Quilting Jewel
A Quilting Jewel

Clipped from aquiltingjewel.blogspot.com

Reviewing Pamela’s DVD

Rosalie, over at Art You Wear, said she has been watching the new DVD from Pamela Allen and  posted a review of it to her blog. Rosalie has a lot of interesting textures posted on the site. I don’t know if she has made them all or if she is passing on information.  I know I am eager to hear what people think about Pamela’s DVD.

Art You Wear and me

blog it

Expansion of Design Wall Space


With some Christmas money, I decided to buy one of the Cheryl Ann’s Portable Design Walls. Terri had one at the CQFA retreat last year. She let me use it and I found it to be very useful. Despite our financial woes, I decided to buy one. It will come in very useful when I work on the FOTY 2008 quilt, which is my project for the retreat.
I looked around the web a bit to see if I could get a better price than Cheryl Ann was offering and ended up buying it at the Quilted Banty.They were fast!

The boys were gone over the weekend, so I set about trying it out. I wanted to make sure all the parts were there and I would be able to set it up. Above is a picture of the behemoth on the floor of my workroom.

This is the thing set up with some of the FOTY patches placed on it. I have to say that it is a bit wobbly. By that I mean that if you walk by, it waves a bit in the breeze you make. I may buy two extra legs to kind of stabilize it.

Once I put up the most recently cut patches, I had a sinking feeling that the FOTY 2008 quilt will be quite large. A lesson? Perhaps.


I am determined to get the piece sewn together this weekend. That may be more challenging than I originally thought, mostly due to the Blue. I really like all those blues together. You can see, in the photo above, that I have placed them together. In a kind of test, I also placed the greens and white background fabrics together (above). I like the look. This means that I my have to unsew all the patches I have already sewn together. Before I lose my mind, I am going to post them all up on the design wall to see what they all look like. I also have to remember that I cut second blue patches and have been doing so as I dig into other blues, so I don’t need to keep those blues together to get the same look.

I had planned a Rail Fence type setting, but may sew them together up and down as shown above. We’ll have to see. Your opinions are welcome.

Word of the Day: Communication

“We cannot communicate directly from mind to mind, and so misinterpretation is a perennial problem.”

“….we know no absolute truth in the world, only varying forms of ambiguity.” There is a lot of ambiguity in the quiltmaking world. Every quiltmaker thinks s/he knows best and is the best judge of good and bad quilts. It is easy to judge, but because communication leads to ambiguity, perhaps it is better if the works speak for themselves?

Tarts Inspiration???

This tea set has a lovely warm color and wonderful shapes. I can see sitting in a big comfy chair with one of these cups in my hand.

Spode Meadowsweet tea set vintage by asmallferret on Etsy
Spode Meadowsweet tea set vintage by asmallferret on Etsy

This is one of the most divine teasets we’ve seen.
Buttermilk yellow and moss green glaze. 4 cups and saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl (open style). 10 pieces in all. No chips, no cracks, no crazing, in perfect condition.

SFMOMA and the 1000 Journals Project

I have been slack about posting my various holiday adventures, but, with this post, will try and redeem myself. One of the great things I did on my break over the holidays was go to the SFMOMA with friend Julie. My goal was to see the actual journals from the 1000 journals project in person. Julie has posted a great set of narrated photos about our adventures.

The 1000 Journals project has, for some reason, captured my imagination. Faithful readers will know that I have posted about it, gone to see the film and have been trying to get my hot little hands on one of the journals. The film depicted a lot of back and forth with the SFMOMA about this exhibit because Someguy wanted to allow people to add to the journals. A great idea, but the curators aren’t used to allowing people to touch the art. I was really happy that they finally were able to work everything out.

They ended up putting the project in the Koret Education Center. There are people there to watch you, somewhat, working on the journals, so it probably made them feel ok about touching.

Stupidly I didn’t plan ahead and bring an art kit like I had planned, so I rummaged through my purse to see what I had:

  • an old temporary drivers’ license
  • breast health center “how to get your results” sheet
  • pink pen
  • Golden Gate Ferry schedule from 1997

With the pencils, glue sticks, pens, etc that the SFMOMA provided my theme turned into bureaucracy. I was able to make a page with which I was pretty satisfied. As Julie said, it was hard to make art standing up. Not very comfy. Other viewers of the exhibit also have a different sense of personal space than I do, so I had to glare at some people who were just too close, and ask them to step back.

I was disappointed to see that some contributors had basically defaced the books with a message of anger and hate of their own. If I had had colored paper, I would have glued it over those messages, which, I guess, is defacing the books as well, in a way. There was a lot of 13 year old boy potty humor as well. Sad to think that people aren’t enlightened enough to think up something that they would be proud to have endure through the ages. Perhaps I am just being a snob because what they wrote doesn’t fit my idea of ‘good’.

I had fun. I found that I actually can do a visual journaling piece. It made me think that, perhaps, I have too many options at home.

I am happy that I got to spend the day with Julie (no children/young adults=freedom) and that I got see and write in the journals. I feel like I made a contribution. The journal I wrote in was number 754.

Word of the Day: Happiness

I am glad that today’s word is not something awful like disaster funeral or death. Another post will fill you in on why.

Each entry starts with a little poem. Today’s poem clearly defines the word of the day:

“Let us not follow vulgar leaders
Who exploit the fear of death,
And promise the bliss of salvation.
If we are truly happy,
They will have nothing to offer.”

This applies to many things in our lives: work, politics, etc.

“If we attain freedom from the fear of death, a sound way of health, and a path of understanding through life, there is happiness and no need for false leaders.”

I think this poem and saying applies to the Quilt Police type of attitude surrounding our quilt work. Some people demand perfection by following their rules. We can turn away from this kind of attitude by having knowledge about different techniques, by educating ourselves. If we know “the rules,” we can reject them and not have a quilt that falls apart. Happiness comes, in one respect, from education. We don’t need “vulgar” leaders if we are happy.