Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I am trying to wean you all nicely as I won’t have a reliable Internet connection for the three weeks starting on Friday. Here are some inspiration photos for your viewing pleasure.
I should also say that I will be thrilled to post the quilt (or visual journal page) of anyone who makes a piece using one of the photos I post as their inspiration on this blog. Have fun!
i saw this tile on Franklin Street and thought it looked a lot like a Grandmother's Flower Garden, but with a twist. It is in an entry way in an apartment building.
I have totes on the mind this morning!
I love the graphic nature of this tote and the cup images are perfect. I would love to see this fabric somewhere and make my own tote out of it. I am not that fond of the ribbon breaking up the middle image, but fighting with my sewing machine over buttonholes makes me understand how a ribbon would be so much easier to apply.
I saw this tote on Flickr this morning and thought that it looked similar to the Eco Market Totes that I have been making. One of the attractions of the Eco Market Tote is the shape of the bag part, which this bag shares. I will have to look around and see if I can look at the pattern in person. Let me know if you have made one of these totes.
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I am in a hard place in my life at the moment where I sincerely dislike the work that I am doing. I don’t dislike the skills I have or what it takes to do the work. I don’t dislike the profession or the people in the profession. I am simply astonishingly bored by going into the office and doing the same work day after day. While I struggle through the process of figuring out what to do next, creativity is incredibly important. I have found it difficult to inject much creativity into my life recently as I race around from one task or obligation to the next. I find it difficult when I can’t get to my machine or when I am too tired to be inspired. I have been struggling with visual journaling and trying to squeeze some hand piecing into the spare moments. Nothing is perfect in the creativity department.
As a result, I have, once again, turned back to quilting podcasts. They are a perfect fit at this point in time and space. I can listen in the car, on the train, at the doctor or at swimming.
I have been listening to one podcast for a long time and recently switched to Annie Smith’s Quilt Stash podcast. I immediately felt a great sense of relief and calm. Annie has a wonderful voice and she speaks intelligently. The other podcast host[ess] used some strange grammar, weird words and odd idioms. It began to get on my nerves.
Tonight I listened to podcast #119, a visit with Diane Gaudynski. I always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about DG for no good reason except jealousy. Bad, Artquiltmaker! Now I am in love with Diane Gaudynski. The interview was so warm and friendly and Diane gave some wonderful tips in a warm and effortless way. I immediately put her book on my Amazon wishlist.
As a result I am back on the quiltmaking podcasts as a way to get some creativity into my life. Try out Annie Smith’s podcasts.
I know I should be writing about the Gabrielle (pronounced Gob-Ree-Yell) Swain class. In short, it was fantastic. More on that tomorrow; I am making it an early night.
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There is a restaurant in the City called the Slanted Door. I like to eat there because there are many, many offerings sans wheat. It is very hard to get a reservation as well as a bit pricey for regular visits, so usually I get take out and enjoy it at my desk. In the winter they have a particularly wonderful chicken noodle soup with NO wheat.
One day, when it was pouring rain, and I wasn’t downtown so I stopped at a restaurant near my house looking for a lunch of Mexican food. I got a variety of sensory delights.
First, they had fantastic decorations hanging all over the walls and ceilings. Many of these items were hand crafted from items you can buy at IKEA. There is a green lamp in the lower right hand corner of the photo above. It is garbage can that has been embellished and had a hole cut in it.
There were many, many parrots in cages.
They also had a variety of mosaics.
There was NO dust either. The waitress told me that they spend two hours in the morning dusting. She also said that they take stuff down that is broken or too gross.
Finally, they had the most unbelievable chicken soup. Not chicken noodle soup, but it was GREAT.
We often think of landscapes as including mountains and trees. This weekend I was reminded that beautiful landscapes can be underwater as well when I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I love the subtle colors in this little scene.
I am doing lots of inspiration photos lately, because I have had no time to sew. I thought these windows at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the trees behind were fabulous.
There is an old building downtown that I visit periodically for an appointment. I finally figured out how to get the photos off of my computer. Here they are, corners and all.
Note the two different corner blocks?
These are some titles from a restroom floor. I know it is weird to take photos in the restroom, but some of the old floors are so great that I just can’t help myself. These are in block form, but the block is made up of smaller pieces. If you look at the bottom picture carefully you can find the larger block (towards the right side). I fyou were to use this design to make a quilt block, you might notice that you can’t put the entire block together without partial seaming. The partial seaming makes the block interesting.
