Mid Century Modern Bee /July

It's been awhile since I linked up to WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced but I alway have WIP's  . . .

Here's my little house for Deborah at Simply Miss Luella. I have loved her blog ever since coming across it awhile back. You see, I had an Aunt Luella in my family and she was a wonderful, very special Aunt to me. I'd like to think that much of my artistic talent comes from her. She was an artist too and always encouraged me in my artistic pursuits throughout the years.

Deborah loves house blocks and asked us to make a house of our choosing that reflected our personal style. Well, I tried to include everything but the kitchen sink and it came out a bit on the busy side.

Let's see, we have . . .

• Green because my real house is green inside and out.
• Leaves to represent SpringLeaf Studios and all the leafy decor in my house.
• Flowers because I love flowers.
• Apples to represent my collection of fruit and veggie dishes and quilts.
• Scissors for sewing and quilting.
• Stripes because I love to use stripes in my quilts.
• A bird because I love bird watching and bird decor.
• My 2 new kitties in the studio window.
• My sweet kitty that's in kitty heaven now . . . thus the angel wings.
• And to make it all, I used a combination of tradition and newer fabrics including Kaffe and solids to represent where I've been and where I am now.

Do you think I crammed enough into one simple little house? Asking this question makes me laugh. We have enough crammed into our real house to last a couple of lifetimes. Perhaps my block is indicative of that. Maybe I ought to go clean out a few drawers or something.

The Winner Is . . .

Thanks to all who left comments regarding the magazine giveaway. It seems there are some who have not yet seen Generation Q Magazine. I hope that you will look them up and give GenQ a try. I learn something new with every issue I read.

The winner is Rachel of The Life of Riley who said:

Wow, congrats on being published. I really like the quilt pattern. My tried and true magazine subscription has always been Quilters Newsletter.

Congratulations Rachel!
Please email me with your address so I can get your magazine sent out.

Giveaway Reminder and My Winnings

Just a reminder that the giveaway for an issue of Generaton Q Magazine will close on Monday, July 29. Go to this post to leave a comment and enter to win. Don't forget to tell me what your favorite quilt magazine is and why.

Isn't it exciting when you do win an online giveaway? I've actually won 2 myself in the last couple of months. First off, I won this wonderful assortment of books from the Fat Quarter Shop during their book giveaway related to Spring Quilt Market. And they are all autographed copies too.

All three of them are great books and I can tell you I love a good quilting book. I may not make too many quilts exactly following someone else's pattern since the design part is what I love to do myself, but there are some great quilts in these books that I could easily be persuaded to make. My favorite is probably Dessert Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.

Most recently, I also won this colorful charm pack of Laura Gunn's Edge fabric line from Michael Miller Fabrics.  I'm pondering what to use it for and have a couple of ideas percolating. I might see what I can make from just the charms or possibly get more and make something larger? Can't decide at the moment but I do know I LOVE these fabrics. Great textures and colors.

Aren't these all just gorgeous? I love the colors, the neutrals, the prints. Just writing this post makes me realize I most likely will buy more and make something bigger. They are just too good to pass up. I think my favorites are the canvas looking texture and the circles . . . well the stripes too.  : )

Have a nice weekend.

Generation Q Magazine, Me, a Giveaway

I'm excited to share my first ever published quilt with you. It's called Flash Card and it's in the June/July issue of Generation Q Magazine.

Flash Card came about when I designed a block as part of Generation Q's Block Builder series. Each issue features a block starter which consists of a few lines. The idea is to take it from there and design a quilt block. The designer in me just can't resist playing along with these challenges. Below left is the starter block that gave birth to the Flash Card block and quilt.

The Block Builder challenge usually gets me thinking outside the normal quilt block approach and as a result, I end up with some pretty interesting ideas. Through the process,  I've also discovered that it's often the simple looking blocks that have the potential to turn into very dynamic quilts. I've had 3 of my blocks make the cut in previous issues so you can see I love to play along. When submitting for this round of Block Builder, the folks at GenQ asked me to make up my block into a quilt for their Spring Market issue. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. I highly recommend giving the Block Builder challenge a try. Maybe your block will become a quilt in one of their upcoming issues too.

Flash Card is an easy quilt to sew and great for using scraps. I used Kaffe Fassett scraps for the block centers. Karen Dovala of the Quilted Moose did the quilting and I just love how the overall floral pattern turned out echoing the floral prints. A light gray thread was just right to show up equally well on both the black and white solids and yet not distract from all the color centers.

As I worked on the quilt, I pondered what to do with the little left over HST. Couldn't let cute little scraps go to waste so I turned them into bean bags and sewed up a pouch to hold them all. Now you can use the quilt as a throw and a game too! The bean bags and pouch became a bonus project that was featured on Generation Q's blog. You can see that project here. My new kittens seemed to love the bag the most. I think it was the drawstrings.

Don't you think those scrap HST made cute little bean bags? I backed them up with 4 different fabrics from the quilt so 4 people could play at a time. 

There are so many different ways this quilt could be made and used. Here's just a few other ideas.

• Use novelty prints in pairs and turn the quilt into a matching/tossing game.
• Use different solid colors in place of the prints and have each player try to land their bean bags on a given color.
• Make the matching even more challenging by changing up both the block center colors and the triangle colors for multiple color combinations.
• Come up with your very own game plan.

If you don't know about GenQ or haven't seen an issue yet you don't know what you're missing. It's a great small format magazine loaded with quilty information. Here's a sample of what you'll find in this issue:

• Victoria Findlay Wolfe talks vintage poly quilts.
• At home profile with Melody Miller, designer of Ruby Star.
• Test drive basting sprays.
• Paper piecing basics.
• The next Block Builder . . . why not give it a try.
• Plus lots more including Flash Card by yours truly.

Starting with the June/July issue they are now publishing bi-monthly. Head over to their website to find out more and order your own copy. I think you'll like what you see. They are just the nicest people and have been most encouraging to me.

To celebrate my first ever quilt being published I'm giving away a copy. All you need to do is leave a comment and tell me what quilting magazine is your favorite and why. Become a blog follower for a second chance.

Comments are closed. The winner is Rachel at The Life of Riley. Congrats Rachel.

Color Choices

Do you ever feel like you make the same color choices over and over again?  I do.

You may already know I love green. Just look at the name of my blog and the banner. Full of greens. As a matter of fact my whole house has a lot of green. You could say it's my neutral color and it actually works quite well throughout the year with the change in decor for the season/holidays.

But seriously . . . here I am again making another cool colored quilt. These are my latest fabrics.

What is it about these cool refreshing colors that I keep coming back too? Perhaps I'm trying to imagine ocean and beaches instead of land locked Colorado. Don't get me wrong. I love living in Colorado, but we certainly don't have much water let alone an ocean beach.

Maybe that's why my pattern Cascade and my Tetris quilt featured cool colors. So did the circle room divider made for my daughter. They all bring a cool refreshing feeling to an otherwise dry climate.

Whatever the reason, I'm sure I'll continue to use lots of green and aquas in future quilts. I've planned for years to make a quilt with my collection of leafy fabrics. These are more traditional, but I still love them. Think forest and the joy of seeing the leaves come back in the springtime.

The next quilt I foresee on the horizon is going to heat things up a bit though. I'm going to use my second favorite color combo of melon/corals with pinks and oranges. How's that for a color description? You might be seeing some of these fabrics soon.

Hot right?  Now you might be asking why there are so many dots in my stash? I think perhaps that's best left for another post.  For now, why don't you go play with some of your favorite colors and tell me what they are and why.    : )

Pattern Survey

I'm deep in the midst of working up my next patterns and would love your opinion on a few things.
I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a moment to comment on the following questions. I value your input and really want your experience with my patterns to be the best it can be.

1. Do you prefer paper or digital patterns?
2. If you buy a digital pattern, do you use it by viewing on screen or do you print it?
3. If you buy paper, do you prefer loose sheet format or a stapled booklet format?
4. Do you buy a pattern with the intention of making the cover quilt pretty much as shown with the same or nearly the same fabrics?
5. Would you like alternative ideas on how the pattern can be used included in the pattern like those shown below?

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate each little bit of info you're willing to share.

Hope you had a very relaxing weekend and wonderful, safe 4th of July if you live in the States.

Organized!!

I posted recently about my need to get my scraps organized.
I save EVERYTHING . . . even the tiny tiny scraps and it was out of control.

Today I went from this . . . plus four more plastic boxes I didn't take pictures of.

To these lovely piles of color  . . .

I had a little help from these two . . .

It all fit nicely into these great carts . . .  kitties wondering where all the fun went.

I even threw some away which is amazing for me . . . from now on I'll be more discerning.

Now I'm all set to start something new tomorrow and it feels great.