Finish Lines

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Douglas Adams*

That Swoon Quilt a long was like a million years ago.  Those darn Swoony quilt tops needed to be quilted and finished.  They were starting to settle into the sedimentary pile of quilt and fabric things that need the final push to be discharged to the heap of useful entities.

I decided that the Spring Blogger’s Quilt Festival would be a good deadline to self impose.  Hah!  

Turns out that was ridiculous.  I’m not finished.  The ship sailed.  The train left the station.  I missed the bus.  The deadline whooshed by.

It’s okay though. Really.

I met plenty of other for crucial deadlines in the meantime. And the Blogger’s Quilt Festival not only inspired me to head toward the finish line on this quilt, but provided lots of inspiration for future quilts to add to the sedimentary pile of things to finish.

*By the way, did you miss Towel Day, May 25th?   I’m so sorry I forgot to remind you.  (It’s rather harder to remember than Corduroy Day.  And I was preoccupied by World Turtle Day).  For more Douglas Adams quotes to live by, go here.

Happy World Turtle Day!

And now for something completely different…

I missed the Maker Faire in San Mateo this year.  I was busy making other stuff. But my most of my family made it…and they made this 4 second video at the Tinkering Studio set up by the Exploratorium.

I can’t wait for the sequel!

Deviation

I mentioned that I forgot to look at the layout on the ‘Stacks’ quilt from the Modern Quilts Illustrated Issue #1.  A number of comments and some other inquiries later, I suppose it’s much less of a mistake than I thought.

SO – here it is…

Mine ends with the long horizontal pieces of green, while the Stacks instructions and cutting inventory ends with the short ones. You would’ve thought I’d have figured out something was wrong when I put the pieces together and ran out of the longer strips of green, but still had plenty of the shorter pieced ones.

No. I did not.

In fact I went ahead and cut more longer strips of green. And didn’t realize there was a difference until I was writing the previous entry.

I blame the dogs for distracting me and sitting on all of the pieces as I was piecing.

They are not feeling least bit guilty or defensive.

Stacks from Modern Quilts Illustrated

My rule of thumb is that if there’s one quilt in a magazine that really I think I’m going to make, I’m happy.  I got a copy of Modern Quilts Illustrated issue 1 by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  I’m a fan.

I was motivated enough paging through to churn out “Stacks” the first of the three quilts in this issue. You got a sneak peak of it in the previous post with Murphy sitting on the quilt top. I managed to drag the top out from under Murphy to quilt and bind it yesterday. And as you can see….Murphy is back on top. I lured him back into the house with a treat and took these shots sans dog.

You’re welcome. I made my version with natural linen for the ground and various scraps of green fabrics for the zig zag part. (See if you can find where I forgot to look at the layout and went my own way.)  And because quilts made without Minkee backing these days are preferred these days in this household by dogs and people alike, the backing is this fun daisy printed Minkee.

Happy Mom’s Day

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Here’s a beautiful video celebrating moms doing the hardest and best job in the world.  (by Proctor and Gamble)  The cinematography, the music, the story – it’s all great – and it’s not selling soap.  Which is not to say that dads don’t also have the hardest and best job in the world.  They just probably don’t buy as much soap.

 

 

 

Modern Quilts Illustrated #1

Yay! I got a chance to review Modern Quilts Illustrated – Issue #1 by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Modern Quilt Studio.  I’ve long been a fan of their work.   I have at least two of their books, and I’ve enjoyed following CraftNectar, Weeks’ blog and Whipup, where Weeks used to blog and still sometimes does.

Back when Modern Quilt Studio was called FunQuilts, they were one of the few doing more modern renditions of quilts.  Now it seems like everyone’s jumped on the modern bandwagon, but I think the Ringle and Kerr books were closer to the cutting edge.

Modern Quilt Studio’s quilts all focus on color, shape and repetition.  I find them soothing.  The quilts in their new magazine endeavor are no different. There are instructions for three quilts in the magazine and that’ll be the case for all the issues going forward. This one is 20 pages, printed on nice heavy paper in full color, and has no pesky and distracting advertising. Each quilt has full page shot of a finished quilt, and also has three other color options illustrated.

If you really love the quilt they’ve sampled, there are kits available for a limited time in the original color way as well as the fabric stock keeping unit information for the fabric they’ve used if you want to source the exact bits yourself. There’s also features like “The Cutting Table” which includes tips musings and inspirations, and “Palette Chasing” which includes a picture and some colors to inspire fresh ways of looking at combining colors. This issue also included a page on Plush Fleece Backings which includes a diagram of the Anatomy of the World’s Warmest Throw.

I got a freebie in #1, but having seen it, fondled it, and made something from it (stay tuned for the posting on what I made), I would’ve paid for it. In fact, I think I’ll subscribe for the year. Issue #2 is already off the presses so maybe if I call, I’ll get it soon. (I really hate subscribing to stuff and not knowing which issue I’m going to get, and I don’t think that’ll happen here.) Go here to see Weeks’ post on what’s within #2. They’re working on issue #3.