Perspective…

While walking, I came upon this scene…

StripedStands-1

The way those striped things* are placed, each one farther away than the one before, so that your eye is drawn along them—into the distance. I liked the placement, and their orange stripey-ness, and the orange cones in the street. I took more than one picture.

In the next photo, because of where I am standing, those things* are lined up more precisely. You can put yourself where I am, looking down them.

StripedStands-2

This vantage point keeps the viewer on the left side of the image. It’s subtle, and it’s interesting. Scroll up to the first photo and you’ll see what I mean.

Why is this so? It’s because the line of those striped things* curves just a bit to the right in the first photo, which leads your eye toward the center of the frame. In the second photo, they are in a straighter line and the endpoint stays on the left side of the frame.

Most quilts, mine as well as those make by others, are designed in such a way as to keep the viewer centered. This makes me want to design a quilt (or quilts) that puts the viewer in a different place.

*What are those things called?!

 

Piles and piles of fabric…

Linda is on her way home after having been here since last Tuesday. We worked on two up-coming books. One book is about appliqueing with wool in combination with cotton and linen fabrics. I can’t show you any projects but I can show you a pile of fabric that I will use to make a table runner. Just looking at the colors makes me happy!

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We also went to McKinney to shop for fabric (twice) at both The Quilt Asylum and Happiness is Quilting. We are also working on a revision of our Piecing book and we needed new fabric for those quilts. I won the spending contest, but not by a whole lot :-). My fabric is now washed and folded (Linda helped me with that). Paul will wash her fabric when she gets home.

Most of the fabrics in my piles, below, are from our shopping trips, and some is from my stash. I’m sure that these fabrics will be joined by others as I make the quilts on my list.

PiecingFabricPiles-01

The fabric I bought seemed so much bigger when it was in the shopping bags than it does when it has been neatly folded and stacked. I suppose that’s a good thing—otherwise I would need another closet for my stash.

 

Also in American Patchwork & Quilting….

I love it! AP&Q featured our Quilter’s Applique Caddy on their favorite finds page! I always love seeing what cool things their ‘finders’ have found…

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As before, this photo is used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine. ©2014 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

Celebrate International Quilting Day!

Celebrate International Quilting Day me and TheQuiltShow.com beginning Friday, March 14 through Sunday, March 16. Everyone who signs on to TheQuiltShow.com will have FREE access to over 160 WebTV shows featuring some of the top quilting instructors in the world. You can also enter the TQS prize drawing with a grand prize of a BERNINA 550QE and wonderful fabric prizes. So check in at www.thequiltshow.com on Friday, March 14, and enjoy the shows and exploring The Quilt Show website. You can start with my show, Episode #611.

A winner, and another chance to win!

Lisa Boyer is the lucky winner of the box of crumbs. She was chosen by my very favorite random number generator—my mom. Once I explained to mom why she had just picked a number, she was very excited. Mom loves this sort of thing :-). Lisa, if you didn’t get my email, contact me at becky@pieceocake.com. I need your shipping address.

I have one more item on my desk that needs a home. This is an almost-finished small quilt. I made this quilt to illustrate a point, but it didn’t really do what I needed. I was in a rush and thought that maybe I could make it work but when I got around to quilting it, I had to admit that it just wasn’t going to work in the book. Luckily I had time to make a different quilt. But what to do with this quilt?

Hopscotch--02

I call it Hopscotch. It’s simple and graphic, and about 32″ square. I started quilting it in a variegated rose/red King Tut cotton thread. My intention was to unify the dark and white areas of the quilt. I think with more quilting, it would do that. Or, it could be quilted differently. The lucky winner is free to rip out the quilting I have done in favor of something else.

Hopscotch-Detail

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to finish this quilt. I do not want to add it to my (small) pile of UFOs. I’m hoping that one of you would love to have it.

Included with the layered, partially quilted quilt is most of a cone of the King Tut quilting thread that I started with, fabric cut for the sleeve, and black and white bias binding, ready to attach. Here’s Belle, keeping watch over the folded quilt (with the back showing), the sleeve, thread, and binding.

BelleAndQuilt

As before, leave a comment and mom will choose a number, this time on Wednesday.

It’s a crumb-y giveaway!

Welcome to my new blog home! If you have followed my blog before, and you want to still, please do click the ‘Follow Piece O Cake Blog’ button on the right, above my picture. (FYI: I switched to wordpress because it is easier to manage.)

So, about the crumbs in the post title… I subscribe to Ami Simms’ newsletter and a little while ago she wrote about a student, Megan Null, who was making ‘crumb quilts’. Megan let Ami film her, and her video says it all:

(Link to video here.)

I googled crumb quilts and, who knew! There are pages of crumb quilts! It looks to me like crumb quilts started with Bonnie Hunter and have now taken on a life of their own. I have been too busy writing the color book to have noticed crumb quilts. Sigh.

Anyway, back to Ami. She has issued a 2014 Crumb Quilt Challenge! I generated a lot of lovely, colorful scraps when I was sewing for the color book and for a few days I thought I would start my own crumb quilt(s). I looked at the pile lovingly… and then I admitted to myself that this is not something I am going to do. My pile of crumbs could become your very own crumb quilt!

BoxOfCrumbs

Everything in the box is pre-washed cotton—except for one piece of a silky polyester that is obviously not cotton. I was going to throw it away but thought maybe the winner would love it. There are little pieces and bigger pieces, strips, triangles, and other shapes.

If you would like a chance to win, leave a comment. I will have my random number generator (my mom) pick a number Sunday. I think I’ll be able to contact the winner from your comment but sometimes there isn’t a way to do that, so check back on Monday, mid-morning. I’ll post the winner. It could be you!