Lovely Tidal Lace

Yay!  My friend and fellow East Bay Modern Quilt Guild member, Kim Andersson, of I Adore Pattern has a new fabric line!  Called Tidal Lace, it's full of fun and whimsy and I was lucky enough to watch her develop her first line from the beginning.  I'm a huge fan!

Working in top secret, I made a floor cushion for the Tidal Lace lookbookhttp://www.windhamfabrics.net/cgi-bin/fabricshop/catalog.cgi?brochureID=19.

Compass Floor Cushion, photo by Danielle Collins

The lookbook is filled with tons of other wonderful projects.  I especially love the star fish hairclips and the starfish pin cushions, but those are just what first pops out at me.  There are so many creative uses for these prints!

The Tidal Lace Lookbook. 

Congratulations, Kim!  I can't wait to see what comes next!

Pop Rox!

I adore candy.  I adore fabric.  So, a line of fabric inspired by one of my favorite candies?  Heaven!  My friend, Carol Van Zandt, has come out with a new line of fabric called Pop Rox and I was able to get my greedy hands on some of it.  There are two color ways, and the one I used to make my quilt is nice and bright, but I can't wait to make a new top out of one of the darker prints.

Here's what I've been working on...

In progress...

...almost done...

Finished top!

Now, I just need to find the time to quilt it up!

At the same time I was working on this quilt, I agreed to do a demo at the Voices in Cloth quilt show hosted by the East Bay Heritage Quilt Guild.  I decided to demonstrate how I put together blocks without using a ruler or pattern. For the demo, I put together this quilt with some of the extra bits of solids that I had left over from my Pop Rox project.  All of these blocks were done without any measuring!

 

To see pictures of me cutting and sewing like a maniac, as well as other pictures from the show, click here!

Stitch Modern 2014 Is Here!

This is the 3rd year that my guild, the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild, will be holding their annual show at the Piedmont Center for the Arts.  It's a lot of fun and we have a great time showing off our latest works.  I just got back from hanging the show, and as it does every year, it looks amazing!  If you live in the Bay Area, make sure you come and check it out. All our events are open to the public and many are free of charge, unless otherwise noted. You can find out more below, or on our website.

Stitch Modern 2014
January 31 – Feb 23rd at
Piedmont Center of the Arts
801 Magnolia Ave, Piedmont, CA.
Gallery Hours: 12pm-3pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

Jan 31st: 6pm-9pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts
Opening Reception

Feb 8: 12:30pm – 1pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts
Needle Ceremony- An informal memorial service for our spent sewing needles and pins based on the Japanese Hari kuyou ceremony which happens on February 8th. Bring your spent machine, hand sewing, and pins and join us in celebrating our tools and their service.

Feb 8: 1pm – 2:30pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts
Panel Discussion, Beyond the Bed: Exploring Quilts in the Public Eye – Please join us for a moderated discussion highlighting how quilts have gone from being household objects to objet d’art.

Feb 9: 12:00pm-2:30pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts
Family and Community Activity Day – includes quilting demos

Feb 13: 7pm-8:30pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts $5
Lecture: Ben Venom & Roderick Kiracofe

Feb 16: 12pm-3pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts
Sew Day with the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild

Feb 23: 9:30am-4pm, Piedmont Center of the Arts $75
Workshop: Round Robin Improv with Sherri Lynn Wood. SOLD OUT!

Want a sneak peak at the my quilt? Here it is right after we finished hanging the show with my happy little helper.  (Mine is the double wedding ring.)

Bill Volkening's New York Beauty Quilts. Ooooh! Aaaah!

In September, I was honored to be able to teach at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.  Although I only live about an hour and a half away, this was my first visit to the museum. (I know, I'm a lazy, lazy girl!)  The museum was lovely!  Our classroom was one of the small galleries, so we were surrounded by inspiring quilts while we sewed.  How fun is that?!

These ladies got a lot of great work done in class!

During a break, I was able to peak in at the exhibition, Collecting New York Beauty Quilts: Bill Volckening’s Passion.  I'm pretty sure that show was put there just for me!  I loved it!  Below are some of my favorites.

Pacific International Quilt Festival 2014

I breezed through PIQF this year.  Somehow, I did it in under 2 hours!  Here are a few of my favorites.

To see the quilts in more detail, just click on the image above!

New Pattern! Pennant Bunting Advent Calendar

Yay! Just in time for Christmas, I have a new pattern available! I originally made a few sets of these advent calendars to sell on my Etsy shop a few years ago, and got so many requests for directions that I decided to publish the pattern. Each of the pennants is a fully lined, button enclosed pouch and can be stuffed with little presents or treats to help count down the days until Christmas.  Make your own beautiful, heirloom advent calendar!

The best part of the pattern is that you don't have to wait for it in the mail - it's a digital download!

If you're not a DIY kind of person, I do have a couple of sets available this year, and you can find them in my Etsy shop.

Learning: Bojagi with Youngmin Lee

Last month, I took a Bojagi class with Youngmin Lee at the Pacific International Quilt Festival.  While the description and photos of the workshop that were posted online were a bit lacking, I was sure I would regret missing this class - and I was so right!  Of course, I didn't quite think through how I would be able to drive through notorious Bay Area traffic (made infinitely worse by a BART strike) to arrive at the class location 65 miles from my house first thing in the morning on a school day, so I was very tardy and missed the first 45 minutes of class.  I caught up quickly, though! 

You can get an idea of the stiffness of the cloth from this photo.

All of the stitching is done by hand.

This is as far as I got in a 6 hour class.  Not a very fast process!

Bojagi is a form of Korean patchwork that uses flat-felled seams to create a fully reversible square of cloth, traditionally used for a variety of things such as gift wrapping, covering food, and clothing storage.  Just do a google image search to see how wonderful and different they can be!  I was also able to work with a textile that I have never handled before called ramie, which is one of the oldest known cloth materials and is plant based.  According to Youngmin, ramie can be much more expensive than silk!

Youngmin Lee's beautiful patchwork.

As well as teaching us her stitching techniques which are made up of the tiniest stitches you can imagine, she also shared some of her work with us.  My pictures don't do them justice - they should be seen in person to be truly appreciated, but you can see more of her work on her website!

This was my favorite piece, all done in black ramie.

Can you even see those tiny hand stitches?

She has a DVD out teaching her techniques and it looks like a great resource.  You can also see more of her amazing, tiny hand stitches!