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  • By Popular Demand – My Color Theory Class!

    Hello dear students and fans,

    One of the popular classes I have taught over the years is a class on Color Theory. I started teaching this class in response to several situations I encounter on a fairly regular basis. One is the scenario where a student might tell me they don’t feel confident about assembling their own color schemes for their projects; they are fine when recreating a palette identical to that in a pattern or book but feel overwhelmed if they walk into a quilt shop to pick their own composition. The other common scenario is when someone tells me they ARE color confident – they know what they like and picked colors they loved when they spread them out to work with but upon completion of their quilt, they didn’t like it and are not sure what went wrong.

    Yet another more abstract concept is that we tend to confuse pattern with color, we are quick to dismiss a promising pattern simply because we don’t like the color we see a sample made from not realizing that we might love it if it were in a different color scheme – I am guilty of this myself.

    If any of these sound familiar to you then you might consider taking my color class. It is a very thorough exploration of color using a series of cut and paste exercises on how color behaves, how to use color to emphasize pattern and design and  what common mistakes are made in working with color. Color is basically a science and you can learn the skills of working with it even if you do not have an intuitive color sense.  In addition, you will learn how to pick great color compositions by using a color wheel along with some other ‘innovative’ approaches that will allow you to pick unique color combinations that yield stunning results in your quilts.

    Fabric is far too expensive these days to risk investing that kind of outlay (both financial and the time spent) only to be disappointed in the finished quilt. My class is scheduled for this coming Thursday, January 25th, at A Common Thread; contact the shop to register for the class. If you can’t make this class, it will be repeated again in the Spring.

    Meanwhile, for your enjoyment, check out these two quilts in progress made by a couple of students in my Maplewood class at A Common Thread last week. These are both the same color scheme pulled from a formula on a color wheel – and a rather challenging one to make look sophisticated (usually). Both are stunning and though based on the same formula, each is uniquely different from the other.

    Two student quilts from my Maplewood pattern made in a Triadic color scheme.

  • Something to Crow About

    OK gentle readers, the proverbial ‘cat’ is out of the bag. I am proud to announce that I have now joined the ranks of fabric designers with a new line of fabrics produced by Northcott to be featured at Fall Market in Houston at the end of this month.

    Northcott approached me this past spring about using some of my quilt designs to produce printed panels with some coordinating textures and supporting fabrics by Linda Ludovico to create the line we are calling Maplewood inspired by one of my Garden Window quilts. Those of you who know me well have been aware of this but for my general followers, I have had to keep a bit mum about this until Northcott was ready to present the new line on their website, this has been a bit hard to do as I’ve been so excited about it. You can view the collection at Norhtcott’s Maplewood page along with some stunning quilt patterns made by their pattern designers utilizing the fabric line.

    Several of the local quilt shops where I teach are already planning to pick up some of the fabric and have even asked if I might come do an autographing the fabric panel event, I will keep you posted if we do that.

    The Garden Windows quilt that has been reproduced for this is my latest one ‘Clothed in Crimson’ and  I’m posting a picture of it here; if you visit Norcott’s page you can see the lovely reproduction they have created of it, I am truly amazed how well it has turned out. Meanwhile, I have self published a pattern for the quilt, which is available at a couple of the local quilt shops – A Common Thread and Pioneer Quilts, these are also shops where you should be able to find my fabric very soon.

    'Clothed in Crimson' my quilt that has been reproduced as a printed panel by Northcott Fabrics.
    ‘Clothed in Crimson’ my quilt that has been reproduced as a printed panel by Northcott Fabrics.

  • 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.