The Quilt Candy Virtual Trunk Shows continue today beginning at 11 CST on Facebook Live. You can watch live or any time afterward when it’s convenient for you. There’s a lot of great talent being displayed.
My own trunk shows will be Sunday at 4 pm CST and Tuesday at 6 pm CST on my Facebook business page. It’s kind of fun to watch them live but I have caught many afterward as well. Either way you get to see it all!
There are more designers hosting short Facebook Live events in the Quilt Candy Trunk Show! I hope you’ll take a peek. Remember that you don’t have to watch it live, you can watch them any time after they go live, too.
Today’s designers:
Tomorrow’s designers:
April 3 12pm EST Darcy Hunter www.facebook.com/darcydoodlequilts
April 3 1pm EST Teresa Weaver www.facebook.com/yoursewingfriend
April 3 2pm EST Annette Ornelas https://www.facebook.com/southwind.designs/
April 3 3pm EST Jo Westfoot – The Crafty Nomad www.facebook.com/thecraftynomad
April 3 4pm EST Lynn Kane https://facebook.com/puppygirllynn
April 3 5pm EST Geeky Bobbin https://facebook.com/geekybobbin
April 3 7pm EST Laura Strickland https://m.facebook.com/orangeblossomquilt/
April 3 8pm EST Jen Frost https://www.facebook.com/FaithAndFabric/
If you like what you see, go ahead and “like” that person’s Facebook page because she will likely share other good stuff and you’ll want to be part of it. I’m up on Sunday, I’ll see you then!
A group of quilt designers have teamed up to offer a fun and free event online during this time. Each designer will spend about 15 minutes showing some of her favorite quilts. You can watch live on Facebook at the top of each hour from 12 noon to 8 pm Eastern time every day from April 1 to April 10.
If you don’t catch it live, you can still watch each video when you have time. Today’s designers:
Most of the time when I have a design published, it’s because I pitched it to a magazine and they accepted it. But last year, a magazine in the UK came to me, which was very exciting. I have often purchased Love Patchwork & Quilting because quilters in other parts of the world sometimes have a different aesthetic, or at least a different viewpoint, and it’s a good way to expose yourself to their ideas.
Love Patchwork & Quilting Issue 85. Get a digital issue today! My quilt is inside. 😊
They had seen my Instagram and wondered if I would design a scrap quilt for an upcoming issue. They didn’t have to ask twice.
I just finished a quilt top and now that it’s done I can say that I like it. But along the way, I hated this thing. Too much stitch-and-flip, too many ugly intersections and not nearly enough forgiveness for my style of sewing. None of this was the fault of the designer, Erika Bea, or the publisher of the pattern, American Patchwork & Quilting magazine. The blame lands squarely on me, and we’ll get to that in a minute.
It’s called Color Catcher, and it will look all right from the back of a galloping horse—which is a very old quilter’s mantra of unknown origin. I took a few lessons away from this project.
I returned home on Monday night from a teaching trip, and just in time. News of the pandemic broke soon after and has only intensified in the days since. I’m thankful to be safely back home. I have no travel plans for a while.
Coronavirus particles. Colored transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of three coronavirus particles.
My daughter and I were reflecting on all the news last night. We concluded that only a handful of times in your life does something touch everyone in the country, or in this case, most everyone in the world. The last time I felt this way was 9-11. That was more horrific but this is unsettling and it’s not over yet.
I’ve been working on something totally outlandish and I have decided that the most important guideline for making art and doing original work in your quilting or any creative field is this:
You can’t be afraid to make something that nobody else has ever made.
You can’t be afraid to make something ugly.
You can’t be afraid to waste fabric or time or effort.
I started out with a simple idea of making a few more samples for a class I’m teaching at Vermont Quilt Festival this summer. It’s all about improvisationally-pieced curves.
It was innocent enough as I began. Pull, cut, sew, press, audition. Repeat.
One key is to have enough contrast between the fabrics in each block. And you want them to do different things. Curvy looks good with straight lines, or geometric looks nice with floral. You want a bit of tension between them.
As soon as this went up for its audition, my heart skipped a beat. Remember that for any audition you always want to stand WAY back across the room. You don’t get a good perspective if you are too close.
I ask a lot of questions: What would happen if I put in a very bold and graphic fabric like the blue and white above?
What would happen if I started mixing up the pairs? Could I put a center patch in that hole above with a partial seam? (Answer, yes you could!)
I cut and sew and add more blocks. I stand across the room. I fret. I thrill.
A color story starts to emerge and the quilt seems to be pink, red, orange and yellow. Very analagous. I decide that I should add more blue and blue-green and also some very darks.
I learned long ago from Mary Mashuta and Roberta Horton that if something sticks out like a sore thumb, you should add more of it. That’s right! If it resides in more than one place, your eye will move around the quilt instead of going straight to that one place. It’s absolutely true.
It was around this time that I panicked and thought the whole thing was just too bizarre. I made two sets with this stripe and dot, above. Would I be smarter to just make blocks in one size with two fabrics each? Maybe that would be better. But honestly.
If you look at these two blocks side by side, which one is more interesting? I decide to
I make a few smaller blocks so that I can fill in awkward spaces as needed. After each finish, I walk across the studio for the best possible view. It does you no good to stand close by.
At one point I shoot a text to a good quilting friend.
At some point you have to start thinking about how you’re going to sew it all together. I decide where I can add fillers and coping strips and I start to think about sections and partial seams.
I make decisions about repeating fabrics to help tie the whole mess together. I trim and skootch and trim some more. I hope to high heaven that it will lie flat.
After about three days, it comes together! Just below is the final version, 68″ x 83″. I had free time to spend and this is how I spent it. My husband did laundry and meals while I hunkered down and didn’t talk to him very much. He’s a very good sport!
When he came in to the studio and saw it on the design wall, he crossed his arms over his chest and thought. He wasn’t sure.
His answer did not bother me. And I think that is when I realized that for three days, I had been forging ahead without fear.
And that is exactly what you will need to do in order to make art, to create something original no matter what your medium is.
The payoff is that you will have something that has never been made before in all the history of humankind. Nor will it ever be made again. It is yours and yours alone.
My favorite night of the quilt guild’s year is the garage sale, hands down. There are always things to be shared and treasures to be found. My small guild in Holdrege, Nebraska had a garage sale in January. I tried hard to find interesting things in my studio that I no longer needed to benefit the group in a small way.
I recreated this image and it doesn’t do justice to the hundreds of 1-1/2″ strips I had on hand. The strips were passed to me from a co-worker (I think) at Quiltmaker quite a few years ago. They were of every persuasion and they weren’t terribly appealing. I knew they wouldn’t do well just stuffed in a bag but I had an idea.
I had a delightful time with Hastings (Nebraska) Quilter’s Guild last night, presenting Let’s Play Drezzup to about 50 people. This program is in three parts:
I have to rush to fit it all in one hour but it’s getting good feedback. Whenever I pull this trunk show out in preparation for a program, I get all excited about Dresden Plate again! I could spend the next five years on these quilts alone.
Hello and welcome to Stash Bandit! I’m Diane Harris and it’s nice to have you here.
I’ve been telling the story of some blocks I received in the late ’80s.
This takes us up to The Rest of the Story, in the words of Paul Harvey.
When the quilt top was finished, I still had the other half of the Nine Patches left over. It seemed a shame to throw them away.
All of those fabrics had been cut into patches for me. The stitches had been taken for me. The blocks had been gifted to me. I just couldn’t pitch them.
I brainstormed for what to do. Making another quilt wasn’t sensible, but using them in this quilt was. I toyed with creating a border but decided to sew the halves together into wonky Nine Patches.
Only one of these has a signature. It belongs to Lorena, my renegade friend who had to sign one name in each white patch, of course. Two of her names are on the quilt front and two landed here, on what will become the back. (If you knew Lorena, you’re laughing.)
For the quilt back, I set the new wonky Nine Patches into columns with scrappy pink setting triangles and sewed the columns together. Lengths of two more pink prints went down each side to make it big enough. And now we are ready to quilt.
While this is no masterpiece, I had so much fun making it! It brought back memories of so many people and our happy times together. There’s even a block from one person whom I didn’t really care for, but I’m glad she’s on the quilt. Funny how time softens the edges.
These blocks have stayed with me for around 32 years as a UFO of sorts and as soon as the quilting is done, they’ll be an FO instead! What a victory! I guess it’s never too late.
In case you’re wondering, these are the names found on the quilt.
Kathleen Ernesti, Donna Rector, Ellen Boyle, Gloria Nelsen, Penny White, Velesta Halbur, Sandra Renli, Wilma Amen, BJS, Doris Volk, Joyce Pick, Shirley Anderson, Maxine Kraemaer, Sue Sindelar, Sandy Eckert, Inger Hansen, Lavonne Hornik, Mattie Niewohner, Daytime Friendship Quilters, Mary Goetsch, Lila Brown, Marilynn Heller, Julie Deering, Carol Monk, Elsie Acklie, Joan Waldman, Lorena Edna Marie Kouba, Peggy Haas, Genelle Trowbridge, Shirley Hassler. There’s an unsigned block from Sherry Stuifbergen.
I can’t wait to reimagine another long-stored project, but right now I have my mind on Dresden Plate quilts. My next two programs will feature my Dresden collection and I want to have some new things to show. All of that upcoming. Until then, keep on scrappin’!
I’m a quilter who loves everything about the process and I enjoy sharing it with others. My energetic trunk shows are lively entertainment for your quilt guild. I’d love to come to your city so give me a call and Let’s Talk Quilts!