Photo Inspiration

Here is an old photo I found. Isn't the contrast interesting?

"Sunshine" Baby Quilt

This is a baby quilt I made a few months ago.

I had sketched out the design (red and white) a year or two ago and finally decided to make it into a quilt.

This is the back: 

New Quilt

Here is a baby quilt I'm working on. I was inspired after seeing this quilt by SimplyRobin on Flickr. I love the simple colors in her quilt. I didn't have any gray fabric immediately on hand, so I went with white. And I'm going to rotate the squares and build the squares up with stripes of color. We'll see how it goes.

Art Journal

My friend gave me an art journal for Christmas that her sister made from an old (1960s) textbook. She took out the insides and rebound it with watercolor paper and white cardstock. I've been going at it every day for a week and LOVING IT!

Here is my entry for today. It includes a map underneath it all, plus some white gesso, Golden Fluid acrylic paints (LOVE LOVE LOVE Golden Fluid acrylics by the way), colored pencils, and Sharpie marker. I can't get away from that Sharpie marker, I love to put it on everything. Although, I find that the ink runs dry when in prolonged contact with the dried acrylic. I have a pen in my collection called "edding 300, marcador permanente." It's wonderful. I need to find one with a smaller tip, though. It seems to handle the acrylic with no problems and the paint doesn't transfer to the tip like it does to the Sharpie (especially the fine-tip Sharpies). Probably only pen lovers will appreciate this pen rant.

I also got some children's books in the mail the other day that I had ordered from Amazon. I sent copies to several people for Christmas. I love the artwork in both. One is Moon Rabbit by Natalie Russell and the other is Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet, who also wrote River of Words, a story about William Carlos Williams. Her artwork is beautiful and inspiring.

Orange and Blue quilt

Here is how the orange and blue quilt turned out. Some of the original blocks were preserved, but otherwise it was all cut up and reworked and I really liked the final result. It looks a lot more vibrant/colorful in person!

Geronimo the Giraffe

I've been thinking a lot about stuffed animals lately. How to make them have dimensional heads and four legs, etc. So I made this creature as an experiment. His head is crooked but I think that gives him some personality. I still have to stitch up the back and I may add more of that yellow ball 'ribbon' to give him a mane.

This video was helpful as a guide, and I also bought a simple pattern from JoAnns for a "dimensional dog." I didn't like how the dog looked but I reviewed the pattern for ideas on adding dimension to the head. I sketched and cut a piece of fabric to run up the back of the neck, around the top of the head, and back down the front of the face, matching up with the ears. It actually worked out well and I'm excited for the next experiment. Maybe a lion?

Two by Four (i.e. 2x4)

Last night I started thinking about what you could do with pieces of fabric cut out in 2.5" x 4.5" (2x4 finished), how they could be arranged, etc. So I cut some out and decided to put 18 together into a 12" square. I started randomly putting them together and came up with this design. It really is a log cabin, but there is no problem with matching of seams! And if you make a whole quilt with the same block, and rotate the block every other one, then the only seams to match in the quilt are the block rows. Which is like magic, to not have to match seams! You can be off 1/4" every now and then and it's no problem! As long as you square up the 12" block...

After that I arranged more pieces into a few other variations but for me this one is the most pleasing to the eye. I could do something with value but I think I'm just going to make it a random scrap quilt, because then the different segments could easily and quickly be chain-pieced.

On a side note, if you get a chance to go to the Huntington Gardens near Pasadena, the Bonsai Garden is incredible. It made me want to start my own bonsai collection. There were the coolest, tiniest most perfectly formed trees.