Around a hundred years ago Henry Ford said you could have one of his Model T cars in "Any color so long as it's black."
I may take his advise when it comes to putting borders on my modern house quilt blocks.
They each have a lot of colors on them and I'm looking for a frame effect.
There will be an inventory process to look for black fabric pieces that are big enough to contribute to this project. I love to collect lots of small cuts of different fabrics since most of my quilts have a scrap look to them. I have too many interests in colors, shades, and patterns to make a quilt with only two fabrics. I'm not sure I have the discipline to either.
This strategy works well for applique, but is less than ideal when trying to find longer and or larger pieces for borders.
I'll keep you posted on how the hunt goes.I have a lot of black fabric somewhere.
Either way it will likely be a slow process forward as life has been on the busy side these days.
Creative work for me has its own ebb and flow.
There is always something going on, but things move between one focused project and several things getting worked on at the same time.
It seems the more crazy my non-creative life is, the less focus I devote to the creative side.
Projects have been all over the map lately with none of them getting a lot of attention but lots of them getting a small amount. I started reading 3 books at the same time if that tells you something about my frame of mind. Isabel's Bed (long story) and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? are the two that I like the most.
The only thing that got finished recently is the above rainbow sock and that is just because of the amount of baseball games we have had lately and a bit of weekend travel of my part.
In case you're wondering, it's self-striping yarn from British dyer Fab Funky Fibers that moves through 15 different rainbow colors and has a decent amount of cashmere for a very soft feel. I don't usually knit socks for myself but I will confess I'm keeping these even if they are too crazy to wear out and about.
I hope to have a quiet summer with some rare relaxation in store for me. I have lofty goals of finishing a big quilt before the PIQF entry form deadline. They haven't posted the entry form yet, but the deadline is usually in the August time frame.
Some people don't like to see their quilts hanging in the show and find it annoying to have an unknown person officially judge their quilt. I take the judge comments with a grain of salt and use them to improve future projects as best I can. The real reason I like to have my quilts in the show is to inspire other people and hope it leads them to their own new creative fork in the road for them.
It isn't often you see beautiful beach photos in black and white. The resorts want to show you all the glorious colors of the sky and the water.
About 2 years ago I was in a state of mind where I only wanted to load my film camera up with black and white film. I thought it was too progressive to shoot in color. I've of course gotten over that since, but this shot I took in Maui in 2012 made me want to go there again - too cool off, if nothing else - but it I also kinda want to load up another roll of black and white film sometime soon.
Photography aside, the reality is that I am not heading to Hawaii again any time soon, but I am trying to stay cool and doing my best to entertain myself in parallel.
I've been knitting socks because the take zero prep work and are portable enough for baseball games. We have been really enjoying a lot of games this year with the boys.
I have a strong urge to finish up some quilting projects still brewing, but the urge to get a little sleep has been winning out over the quilting these days. I hope when the school year wraps up that I find some cycles to play and maybe start hand quilting a big quilt top. That would involve me putting all the blocks together on one of my many projects.
I guess I'll challenge myself to get on the stick and finish a quilt top in May. That may be too lofty a goal, but it's good to have a stretch goal, right?
Hope your creative work is going well. If you're heading off to some exotic beach this summer you won't bump into me, but feel free to send me a post card!
All the hipster mod quilt makers seem to have their own twist on a plus themed quilt these days.
It isn't hard to find images of them and they are all pretty and look like a piece of cake to put together.
I'm not sure I'm up for a serious challenge in my next sewing endeavor so maybe that is why I'm thinking of a tiny quilt for fun with this little theme.
For now, it's just graph paper, but if I get more than 5 min to rub together, I'm interesting in trying one of these little creations.
If you have a favorite one out there feel free to send me a link. I'm on the hunt for more inspiration.
With warmer weather finally here and some end of the year school activities on the horizon, it seems that summer is either here or almost here.
The family is keeping me busy as usual but in the bleachers of baseball games I'm still making little creations.
The best news is that my argyle sock was indeed found. It was in the laundry bin. Don't ask me how or why it got there (it's still clean!) but I'm thrilled to have it back. So thrilled that I got to work on knitting up the second one while we were at swimming and baseball this weekend.
I'm also sewing along on this sloth project by Kiriki Press that I got a while back. I'm no embroidery expert but thankfully you don't really have to be to have a little fun with this project.
My monthly weekend quilt group came over briefly and they were all working on super inspirational projects. I almost absconded with my friend Carol's book called Teeny Tiny Menagerie which has tons of adorable embroidery patterns in it. I already ordered a copy of it. I will have to make some shelf space for it. It's worth it.
Hope that you are enjoying some warmer and longer days with more sunshine and some extra time in the garden - like we are.
