Quilting Inspiration from Nature
What inspires you? What do you think about when you choose fabrics for a sewing or quilting project? Do you find yourself drawn to certain colors, shapes, or pattern styles? I get much of my creative inspiration from nature. Some of my earliest and most enduring memories are of specific landscapes and places and the […]
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Endings and Beginnings – A Personal Note
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” This quote, usually attributed to Lao Tzu, but perhaps written by someone else entirely, nonetheless speaks to me – especially given what is happening in my life right now. Journal Quilt – Tree of Life. Journal Quilting is one of the ways I process my life experiences […]
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What I Did This Summer… Fun with Sew Alongs on Instagram
First, for those who enjoy a little backstory: (if you don’t care about backstory, skip on down to the Sew Alongs – I won’t be offended!) One of the challenges of pursuing your passion (or something related to your passion) as your vocation is the risk of adding so many financial and/or performance related pressures […]
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Out of My Comfort Zone – Desert Modernism Challenge
Why do I love Spoonflower so much? As an independent designer (as well as consumer), I get a terrific way to create custom textiles for my own use, as well as to sell 20+ different types of fabrics (plus wallpaper, gift wrap and ready-made home decor items) printed with my original artwork to designers and […]
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Adventures with Spoonflower – Changing Seasons
In my last post, I shared the origins of my Around the World and Back Again collection. This time, I’d like to share a bit of the inspiration behind the designs in my collection Changing Seasons. For several years, my dear friend June Mears Driedger and I co-hosted Storytelling in Fiber retreats at the Hermitage […]
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Adventures with Spoonflower – Around the World and Back Again
I haven’t been posting lately, but I HAVE been creating. 🙂 Working on designs for a couple of new fabric collections has made me reflect a bit on previous work. Today I thought it would be fun to revisit the first fabric designs I ever uploaded to my shop on Spoonflower.com. Around the World and […]
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My Adventures with Spoonflower
Sadly, the repairs, unpacking, and setting up again of my basement studio has yet to be finished, which has really been cramping my creative style… However, Spoonflower is having a fantastic half price sale on fat quarters (all fat quarters – not just mine!) now through midnight on Nov. 8, 2018 – which also reminded me […]
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Colorwash Bargello
What makes a quilt a bargello quilt? And what does colorwash mean? In the introduction to my second book, Colorwash Bargello Quilts, I credited 3 main influences: Centuries-old bargello needlepoint, also known as Hungarian point, flame stitch, or Florentine work. Modern strip-piecing methods pioneered in the 1970s by quilt artists such as Barbara Johannah Colorwash/watercolor quilting designers in […]
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Celtic Quilts – My Journey
My first book Celtic Quilts: A New Look for Ancient Designs was published in 2000 by Martingale & Co. The following has been excerpted from a lecture/trunk show that I have shared with quilt guilds, quilt show attendees, and various community groups around the country. I’d like to share with you some of the things […]
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My Quilting Story
Back in March of this year, the Missouri Quilt Co. ran a contest: ”Quilting touches so many of our hearts on a much deeper level than just pretty fabrics pieced together. For some, quilting is an artistic outlet. It is a medium to allow your creative talents to really shine. For others, quilting can be […]
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