Other Artists
Recently we went to Disneyland for a vacation. It was a special birthday for DH so he got to pick the trip. I had a great time, because I love Disneyland, but it was very tiring. I don’t think a pair of shoes exist that would make walking on concrete for 14 hours a day 3 days in a row comfortable.
One of the highlights of the trip was meeting Susan of the History Quilter website and podcast. I have had some GREAT experiences meeting Internet people IRL and some experiences where the people should have just stayed in my computer. Meeting Susan was a great experience. I left the park in order to meet Susan. The boys rode all the rollercoasters, Tower of Terror and other stomach lurching rides while I was busy. We met at my hotel and then walked over and had smoothies at a cafe nearby.
Our boys are similar in age and have similar interests, so we had stuff to talk about on that subject. I was thrilled to hear about her new machine and that she lived in my area early in her life. Great visit!
Pam of Hip to Be a Square podcast recently had a major fabric giveaway (closed now, sorry). She was kind enough to send me the Pointillist Palette fabric. If you don’t know, Pointillist Palette fabric was designed by Debra Lunn and Michael Mrowka back in the dark ages of quiltmaking. This fabric cemented my friendship with TFQ, got me stashing fabric and started my Pointillist Palette series. It was one of the first lines I noticed that was so vibrant and bright. Some day I’ll write about one of my first meetings with TFQ.
Anyway. I still have PP fabric waiting to be made into the last 3 quilts of the PP series, but getting some more is never a bad idea. Thanks, Pam!
I clicked on a link to some new fabric by Daisy Janie and saw that she has something called the Lancaster Diamond Quiltalong. The design looks just like my Renewed Jelly Roll Race. There are some small differences, but essentially the designs are the same. As I often say: there is almost nothing new in quiltmaking.
Tutorials
Adrianne, Little Bluebell reminded me of another way to make half square triangles (triangle squares). If I think about it right, some of the edges are on the bias, but I know that won’t daunt you intrepid piecers!
Do you get inspiration from the Quilt Index? Here is a tutorial on how to use it to your best advantage.
Around the Web
I receive the Cloth Paper Scissors Daily newsletter, which provides their daily blog post in my email. I don’t always have time to read it, but I saved one called “Start a Letter Writing Campaign.” I put off reading it for a few days, because the title made me think of petitions and political campaigns and I want to stay as far away from that stuff as possible. Boy was I wrong. This was a homage to actual letter writing with pen and paper. I loved it. Perhaps you will, too.
I am embarrassed to say that I missed this homage to the quilts the Bay Area Modern quiltmakers entered in the county fair on Adrianne’s site.
Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner does some interesting things. Over the weekend, she was tweeting about putting a zipper in using her embroidery machine. I could not visualize it and neither could landscape lady. Katie is great at posting videos and so we asked her to do so. She did! Check out this blog post including the video that shows a zipper being put into a little project.
Lazy Girl Blog has a round up of interfacing. I think there is never too much information about interfacing. This appears to be a new line of interfacing by Lazy Girl Quilting. I am not endorsing these products, as I haven’t tried them. Just letting you know what’s out there.
Lisa Call had a great post on clutter recently. I am guilty of the pen dilemma!
Ruth of Pippin Sequim (remember her from here?) was featured on the QuiltCon blog for her block for the QuiltCon challenge. She really shines in the blocks she made.
Mobile Quiltmaking
I am an inveterate journal writer. I write almost every morning and draw and doodle in my journals. They are not beautiful and are very text heavy. I have illusions of people studying them in awe after I am dead.
Now that you have stopped laughing, gotten up off the floor and are back to reading <insert stern look here>, I will continue. 😉
I have dabble in OneNote, Penultimate, SpringPad, MobileNoter and Evernote. My friend swears by Evernote and I miss the tactile feeling of the pen on the paper. The stylus on Penultimate just doesn’t work for me. So, when a friend sent me an article where Evernote has teamed up with Moleskine, I was very interested. The fact that I can put drawings into Evernote may make me move, at least partially, to online journaling. I’ll update my app and see what I think. The update may only be good for the pay per view version in which case I will only come back and tell you nothing happened. I am not buying a $50 app just to try out a mobile journal. Sorry kids.
Other
I got a notice from Tomspoolery that they are closing.
I have an account, but I didn’t use them that much. I tend to go towards SeamedUp for this kind of thing, but this blog is really my go to place for organizing my projects. I also have a file for each of my quilts and stuff gets stuck in those files as I work on a quilt.
Still, I am sorry to see them go as I think they made SeamedUp a better place.
I also liked their color scheme – very cheerful.
Then…I was going to continue…
If you haven’t been over to SeamedUp lately, go check it out. They did a major overhaul recently and the site is looking really good. I don’t think it has reached Ravelry proportions yet, but it will.
BUT, then this…
SeamedUp died this week. I really liked the new color scheme and recent changes. I thought things were looking up for them. First Tomspoolery, now SeamedUp. Sad. Many people are moving over to ThreadBias. I reserve my preferred login and I uploaded one project, but I don’t want to spend more time on another site that doesn’t have longevity.