Rocky Mountain highhhhhhh….

I had a completely wonderful time at the Colorado Quilting Council fall retreat. Many quilters (including me) enjoyed spectacular views of the Black Forest from the The Hideaway. The ladies were enthusiastic and excellent company, the place is great, the food is good. If you have an opportunity to go to this retreat, you should!

I taught Pickup Sticks, a pieced quilt from The Quilters Practical Guide To Color. It is both an easy and tricky quilt design. Once you get it, it’s really easy… but getting it takes concentration. Everyone in the room was up for the challenge and made progress. I didn’t take enough photos, but you can see that what was going on in the classroom.

I also taught an applique class. I don’t have time in an applique class to take pictures so you just have to imagine the fun :-).

We were above 7,000 feet. By the 3rd day I could really tell that I had to breath a whole lot more than I do at home. Morning walks were out of the question. I like air in my air! I got home this morning and I can say the Sherman, TX, may not have scenic mountains and dry, crisp air, but it has a lot more oxygen. Yay, oxygen!

 

Tune in this afternoon!

Today is the day! I will be Pat Sloan’s guest on American Patchwork & Quilting Radio today (Monday, September 28) at 4pm Eastern, 3pm Central. Click here to listen to the whole show. I’ll be on in the second half of the program.

If you can’t tune in to listen live, you can listen to the podcast later. Click APQ Radio and follow the instructions to find my podcast—and many more.

I’m looking forward to visiting with you over the internet radio waves later today :-).

American Patchwork Quilting Pocast episode 278 Becky Goldsmith

I’m in American Patchwork and Quilting!

Used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine. ©2015 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

Used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine. ©2015 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

My wool eyeglass project is featured in the December 2015 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting magazine! See my project, as well as other featured projects from this issue, here: http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/december

This issue will be on newsstands October 6, subscribers will be getting their copy any time now. Look for this cover:

Used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine. ©2015 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

Used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine. ©2015 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

These eyeglass cases are quick and easy, and they make a great gift! In addition to glasses, they will also hold a rotary cutter—great for traveling quilters.

Fabric note: I used Pepper Cory‘s Brushstrokes line (not Peppered Plaids) for the background fabric in these projects. The colors I used are Tangerine, Horizon Blue, and Sprout. They have a good hand, they are neither too thick nor too thin.

I also love her Peppered Cottons. The warp and weft threads are different colors which gives the fabric depth. These, too, are a very nice weight to work with.

For lots more information about wool applique, please do look at our book, Wool Applique the Piece O’ Cake Way.

Cover

Which do you prefer?

beckygoldsmith-Text-2

I’ve written before about the 52 Week Photo Challenge online class that I’m taking from Ricky Tims. Best class ever! This week’s assignment is how to add a text overlay to a photo.—yet another cool thing that you can do in Photoshop that I had no idea existed.

I’ve taken 3 photos (Splish is one of them) and I like them all. If you have a bit of time, please do click here and then leave a comment on this post telling me which one you like the best.

Choosing the word(s) was the hardest part of this photo challenge. The same thing is true when you add words to a quilt, as I wrote about in this post. Text is powerful. It draws the eye and, no matter how big or small it is, what you say can dominate a design. The quilt that I made after that post is called Say Something (below), which is in The Quilter’s Practical Guide To Color.

The words take up a small percentage of the space on the quilt, but they are the focal point, dominating the design. This is good to remember when you want to make what may be a simple quilt into a more complex statement.

Update: Thank you all for your comments! I’ve decided to submit the car photo because I like it as is. After reading your comments, I think I need to make the word “splish” more legible in the water photo and I don’t have time today to do that. So, the car photo it is and I can mark that off the list. Thanks!

More show and tell…

Maureen Widder sent me this. Too cute! Maureen reports that the quilts that she made for her daughters were fun to sew. I would have to agree :-).

Maureen Widder's Completely Dotty quilt.

Maureen Widder’s Completely Dotty quilt.

The foundation paper pieced blocks are from our Completely Dotty pattern.

Show and tell…

Jan Hirth finished her Honey Beez quilt. Isn’t it happy! I love this pattern… it is simple and complex at the same time. And while I’m not going to make a 2nd one, I think it would be great fun enlarged (maybe a lot) and made into a bed quilt!

Thank you, Jan, for sharing the finished photos!

JanHirth-HoneyBeez-1

Jan Hirth’s HoneyBeez quilt.

Did you notice the large red circle in the top outer ring? That’s a nice touch, Jan.

JanHirth-HoneyBeez-2

Jan Hirth’s HoneyBeez quilt, detail.