A Quiet Nod

I've been a little remiss in mentioning a recent bit of good news. It's not been out of some desire or need to keep the news to myself. It's all because my local Bookstop went out of business. Last December when my article and quilt were featured on the pages of Quilting Arts magazine I gauged the timing of my blog announcement about this by whether or not the magazine had made an appearance at my local Bookstop bookstore. A few weeks ago, Bookstop, really a mini Barnes and Noble, was permanently closed and so was my nearest, a mere two minutes away, bookstore. Now, it's not as if there are no other bookstores in the Austin area. There are plenty. But, each one is at least 10-15 minutes away and requires a bit more effort to get to. None of these other stores are so convenient that I can just pop into them on a whim. So, it's been a boon for Amazon and pretty much a bust for me in terms of keeping up with when the next issue of Quilting Arts hits the newsstands. All this is my convoluded way of saying: 1. I've got a new article in the latest issue of Quilting Arts and 2. Thank you to those of you who have so sweetly emailed your congratulations and therefore informed me that the issue is available.


The focus of this article is crafting with what I call "low volume" fabrics, that is graphic prints combined with whites and neutrals. I think I've mentioned before that I periodically need to take a break from the intense colors of hand dyes and work with fabrics that help me focus on different design elements.


This may sound silly, but it's almost cleansing to focus my attention in such a distinctly different way.

The Fruits of my Labor

Two different kinds of fruit, two different labors, and two distinctly different results.
First there's this kind:


Luscious, little key limes. They were totally an impulse purchase. I was completely drawn in by their appearance, especially so because I've never bought or cooked with key limes before. Naturally this necessitated my finding a recipe because along with being impulsive, I'm inherently cheap and I wasn't going to let these guys go to waste. I knew that I didn't want to make key lime pie. I realize it's the obvious answer, but I've never really liked key lime pie. I thought I'd like to make some cookies. And a few keystrokes later I had all the info I needed to make these:


Key lime cookies with homemade key lime curd. Go ahead. The appropriate response is yummmm. I used recipes I found here and here . The curd recipe is for lemon curd, but I figured substituting limes wouldn't be a big deal.
The second fruit, a pepper, went into another kind of recipe.


I used it to stamp these fabrics and after I was done dipping it in wax it didn't exactly look delicious.


But, like the key limes, it helped to contribute to a finished product that I hope will be enjoyed.

Colors in Combination

That's when they really sing...I think. And actually quite a few others do as well. The painter Josef Albers spent his life painting colors in combination and writing about it.
I think I go through phases of love with a particular pairing. For a while I couldn't get enough of orange and pale purple. Then it was chartreuse and purple. After that I abandoned purple in favor of turquoise and enjoyed it at various times alongside chocolate brown, red, and orange.
Well, I have a new color passion: yellow and gray.


It might be a case of "which came first?" because I've been noticing gray and yellow pairings in my work lately and I'm not quite sure whether they preceded my awareness of this color combination in the world around me.


The funny thing is I'm not a huge fan of yellow as a stand alone color and probably less so of gray. But, I just love them together.
What about you? What color duets do you think sing better together?

Leftovers

Hopefully the kind you want as opposed to the kind you consume out of a sense of guilt associated with wasting last night's uneaten dinner. Oh, and also, the kind of leftovers that have nothing to do with last night's dinner. These leftovers are a few unsold items from a little craft fair I participated in yesterday.
A few new camera straps.


And a couple sets of coasters.


I've added them to my shop if you're interested.

Wee Little Photo Shoot

I had me one of those yesterday. At least that's the way I saw it. I had been wanting to photograph a couple of quilts that I made for this book. I hadn't bothered to take any photos before I sent them off, but now that the book is slated for release in May, I figured I'd take a few pictures and add them to my flickr set. I've tried taking full shots of quilts at home or even in studio settings, but they always seem to lose something. Anyway, I remembered a particular spot in a particular park and thought that using that place as a backdrop would be fun, so off I went...to Williamson County Park in lovely Cedar Park, Texas.


It's actually only about 25 minutes from my house and down the street from where my kids and I swim. It's a very well maintained park with a great trail that winds it's way through the park, past soccer fields, a pavilion, and this being Texas, cow pastures. Along the trail is an old, weather beaten shack. It's not big enough to enter. I suspect that it was some kind of grazing station for the cows before the rich and powerful of Williamson County decided to fence off the pasture on the other side of the trail.


I saw it as a perfect venue to shoot my quilts.

Missing in Action

Actually, I'm not missing. I'm just guest blogging over at Simply Robin and I'm giving away some hand dyed fabric bundles. So, if you want to be entered in the drawing, scurry on over there and leave a comment.
While you're there, check out Robin's amazing quilts made out of her own hand dyed fabric. Very inspiring!

Spring means...

Sewing. Actually, every season means sewing, but I love sewing clothes especially in the Spring. In Texas, Spring is really a milder extension of the long summer and that requires the right kind of clothes to brave the heat. This year I've started my Spring/Summer sewing by adapting a pattern to mimic a favorite but worn out top from past years.


I've owned this top for several years, but now it's stained and even a little holey, so no longer wearable. I had thought about taking it apart and creating a pattern based on it, but the prospect of spending that much time ripping seams wasn't particularly appealing.


I happened upon a Simplicity pattern that resembled the original design enough that I thought I could adapt it.


And I did. I selected the version of the pattern that eliminated the ruffle at the bodice and at the armholes and added the ties around the neck edge instead of a collar or facing. I also sewed in fewer buttonholes and buttons because I didn't think that I'd ever want to button it to the neck.
The Swiss dot fabric came from Purl Patchwork online.


It came out pretty much as I envisioned it and I'm definitely planning a second one...maybe even a third.