• Category Archives My Newest Quilts
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  • New Design Class

    I tend to get excited about all my classes, I wouldn’t offer them if I didn’t feel they were something to crow about. Every now and then though, I come up with something refreshingly different from what I have done before and I get particularly enthusiastic about those. My upcoming workshop for Northwest Quilters  in March is one such class. I have taught a couple of classes for my guild over the last few years and because most of the members know me by reputation if not by sight, I have felt it necessary to come up with something completely new whenever I have the honor of offering a class through them. I do have a cadre of ‘followers’ who take many of the classes I teach (sometimes more than once) and I feel an obligation to offer something new that I’ve not offered at the shops when I present a workshop for my guild; after all, many of the members have taken my other classes through shops already and I want to try to fill my workshop as well as possible.

    Though I never completed a degree in Art, I did take some fairly advanced classes in college and had a great professor who taught me some wonderful insights into art and what I was capable of. In his ‘design’ course – Form and Color – he encouraged us to use subject matter for our assignments where the preconceived notion of what your are drawing does not take over the process of developing good balance and composition. I still hear his voice telling us that “the moment you decide to draw a fish, that fish takes over your hand and directs what it should look like…” He showed us a unique way to find abstract designs in nature, he called these ‘Discovery Designs’. Those of you who have studied art will probably already be familiar with this design process but for many it will open your eyes to design possibilities beyond your imagination. The best part is that you don’t need to have good drawing skills to use this method.

    This will be a design class only, students will ‘find’ their discovery and then create working drawings to play with, fine tuning the design and rendering some color layouts using colored pencils. When you are pleased with your design, you will have a design you can enlarge to any size you wish and make a working pattern from which to make your quilt.

    I am anxious to promote this as much as possible through my website and social media, I have shown my quilt in progress over the last couple of months at guild meetings but only put the final binding on the finished quilt a few days ago. I was planning to show it again at the Northwest Quilters’ meeting this morning but the weather had other ideas; not only did our out of state guest speaker have to cancel (I guess the weather where she lives was even worse than here) but last night the word went out that the entire meeting was being cancelled due to treacherous driving conditions. It is my hope that I can reach a sufficient number of students through the newsletter and the internet.

    I have posted a photo of my project below. Bear in mind this is my original design, it is not a pattern that you will be working from to create this quilt, you will search for and discover your own unique design.

    A Discovery design, finding abstract designs from nature 'through the lens'
    A Discovery design, finding abstract designs from nature ‘through the lens’

  • What’s New!

    I’ve been a busy girl; finishing up some UFOs and working on new classes, samples and patterns. Among other things, I’m working on a new ‘cat’ series. All you Garden Patch Cat fans need not panic – there are still quite a few more fruity and veggie cats to come (Hint: the next one will be ‘Purrsnip’), but it was time to start thinking of what will come next.

    About ten years ago, I designed a block of the month program quilt for Story Quilts named ‘Temple Guardians’, a series of elegant stylized Siamese cat blocks. The program did very well but from day one, I kept getting requests from quilters who were not interested in making the whole quilt but would I “please offer the blocks individually”. At that time, Story Quilts did not wish to do that as they felt it would undermine the shops choosing to run it as a Block of the Month. Now, finally, after activity on the full sized Block of the Month quilt has tapered off, Story Quilts has finally given me the go-ahead to rework the patterns into individual wall hangings.

    I am excited! This comes at a time when I was already becoming interested in the whole ‘Modern Quilt’ movement but I have no desire to jump into making a bed-sized modern quilt. This simplified design concept creates an excellent backdrop for these very Art Deco style cats. It is my plan to produce individual patterns from all the original Temple Guardian cats, each in a setting with that ‘modern’ twist and each bearing a name that exemplifies a trait that makes a cat – a CAT.

    This first in the series is ‘Dignity’ (what is a cat if not dignified) and it measures about 21″ x 35″ depending on quilting. The more intricate quilting you add, the more shrinkage you get in the finished quilt. Of the two samples pictured below, the cover sample belongs to Story Quilts and the second sample with the black and turquoise border blocks is mine. YES, I will be offering Posh Cats as a class for those who want help in assembling the quilt. The cats being simple and streamlined are a great subject for those wanting to learn hand applique – most of the pieces are fairly large and have very few tricky areas like points and valleys. The cats can also be fused of course, for those to whom hand applique is the ‘A’ word; or HA (more appropriately). I, for one, love to laugh – HA, HA, HA.

    in my new cat series - Posh Cats. Each will be named after a ' catly' personality trait, this one is 'Dignity'. This is the pattern cover sample.[/caption]
    Dignity pattern cover photo
    Dignity pattern cover photo
    #1 in my new cat series - Posh Cats. Each will be named after a ' catly' personality trait, this one is 'Dignity'. This is a second sample with a black and turquoise border and more intricate background quilting.

    On another topic, one more ‘new’ addition to the website is a list of the lectures I offer for guild or event programs. You will find it under the ‘classes’ tab in a link directly after another link with class descriptions of all the classes I offer. Many of the lectures are old favorites like The Principles of Landscape Quilt Design, Color Theory and The Art & Craft of Quilting, but there are some new additions including a brand new trunk show and talk about ethnic influences in my work that I call ‘Global Dances’. The talk and trunk show include my ‘ethnic themed’ work such as Molas, Sashiko, my Animal Totem series and other quilts with ethnic motifs or symbolism.