OH that IKEA !

Sometimes I am asked where my inspiration comes from... OK maybe I ask myself when I am pretending to be interviewed for a feature in a quilt magazine, don't crush a girl's dreams...  but it is a good question. Where does inspiration come from?  Can you make it happen?

I think you find inspiration by being curious.  You cannot demand it to appear, as people do with things like respect... you must respect me !  OK, good luck with that.  Same with inspiration. Inspiration appear ! Nope. Nothing.

The curious mind finds inspiration when she least expects it.  Or when she has just had a lovely $1 breakfast at IKEA with her sister and niece.

This is what struck me last time...

My VINTERFINT mug... ooooo la la and made in France no less !

I think IKEA designers are amazing... the things they come up with to fill our lives with wonderful designs to please the eye.  VINTERFINT is their Christmas/Winter line this year and it is a treat.  I highly recommend a morning visit to your local IKEA to have a $1 breakfast and then peruse the wares.  This is not to say that IKEA is forcing me to endorse their store... they have no idea who I am... yet :P

To my eye this mug is a quilting design waiting to be let free from glass.

This is what I have come up with so far... I am calling it FLEGG... combination of flower and egg.  If IKEA designers can have fun making up names that we have to say when ordering their creations, then so can I.  "I would like my quilt done in an allover FLEGG design please."

The amazing thing is this is only one possible design.  I am doodling endless other options.

FLEGG practice number 1

FLEGG on the other side...

Keep your eyes, mind and heart open.  Inspiration is everywhere waiting for you to slow down and pay attention long enough to notice !

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection... my quilt not a Lexus

Here, finally, after much wiffle waffling over photos is my church door quilt...

I have nearly done myself in worrying about getting the perfect picture of this quilt.

I started with this...

but felt it was ho hum...

I even tried photos in the evening light to show the quilting detail like this...

  

and this...

Nothing was good enough.  Nothing showed just how lovely it was in person.

That is until a friend reminded me that when you go to see say a Van Gogh (who I love) you are bowled over by the magic of being in the presence of his art.  You are so excited to hold the image in your mind's eye that you make a stop at the museum store to buy a print.  As wonderful as that print or t-shirt or mug might be, it cannot compare to the original and here is the key  - it is NOT supposed to.

Now before you roll your eyes and say oh please here she is comparing herself to Van Gogh now... that is not my intention, though granted we are both slightly unstable redheads.  What I learned is as much as I love to share what I make, the pictures I take will never be perfect.  If I wait for them to be, it is as good as waiting for a brand new Lexus to show up in my driveway (though really I would rather have a Mini or a Fiat but they do not fit with the title of this post).

So here it is.  Since I moved to Ancaster 17 years ago I often said the doors of a local church (St. John's Anglican) would make a stunning quilt.  Well I finally did it and it only took me twice as long to post these pictures as it took me to make it.

Problem now being I stop at every local church to take pictures of the doors, and walls and windows in search of my next inspiration.  Please do not beep at me as you pass, I will jump, my photo ruined and may fall backward down the steps and injure myself in front of the church in question. Most unseemly.

and one more just in case

Does it taste delicious?

This is Tomtom, the first tomato harvested this summer.  For some reason as he grew a lovely yellow flower showed up.  I took a picture before he became part of a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich.  Quite delicious !

I kept this picture in my studio (once was my living room) for a few months.  It reminded me that beauty is everywhere, even in something as ordinary as a tomato.

One day, I think it was the day after Thanksgiving, I was cleaning my studio and found two red offcuts from my church door quilt.  Not being one who wastes fabric, I could see where this might lead.  I sewed the two pieces together.  Then I made it round... sewed strips of grey for the background, found a yellow and a green that agreed and as I played, this came about.

I put it on the longarm and with some lavender (in the grey) and red (in the red) and black (for details including the year in the right hand corner), it was complete.

I absolutely love it.  My tribute to Tomtom, the First Summer Tomato.  It reminded me of a blog post I read recently (Sarah Selecky - I recommend her to anyone who loves to write) in which she recommends AFNR, Art For No Reason... I have modified this to AFAR - Art For Any Reason :)

Thanksgiving... here in Canada

Hi :)

Quick post... I wanted to show my Aunt's Angry Rooster wallhanging.  I just finished quilting it to give to her tomorrow at Thanksgiving supper, to which she brings her fabulous sweet potato puree.

My Aunt Jackie is in her 70s and still loves to do handwork like applique. However she never signs her work !  Many times I have reminded her to sign everything, but she never does and tends to diminish her talent as many of us do.  We are all Artists, Quilt Artists, Fibre Artists, Sewists... whatever you want to call yourself... but all Artists (with a capital A).  I added my Aunt's initials JBDS and the year to the quilting as you can see in one of the close up pictures.

The binding is ready for hand finishing... which I know my Aunt enjoys doing, otherwise I would have machine finished him for her.

Meet Rad Rooster... in all his angry glory.  Not a turkey but a rooster with attitude.

I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving... I am grateful that I have eyes and hands that allow me to do the work I love.

Blessings to you all,
Tania

I, for one, was totally surprised...

I have been living in Ancaster about 17 years now... and we have a fall fair each year. Unlike every other of the last 16 years, this year I decided to actually enter a quilt.  It is one of those things that I say and say and say I'll do but so seldom actually do, at least that has been the way up until now.  No more I decided, words are fine, but action is required !  To enforce my new proclamation I entered two quilts.  I know, I know, I can't be stopped once I get going.

The quilts I entered were perhaps, perchance, shall we say... less than traditional.  My logic here was that if they did not win that was down to the fact that they were not regular quilts.  This of course assumed that the judges would follow a traditional path (not of course that there is ANYTHING wrong with traditional).  I may have mentioned previously that I tend to make misjudgments, this is another such case.

I dropped off the quilts and tried not to think any more about it.  You may imagine my delighted surprise (really I think I may have squealed, ok... shrieked) when my daughter let me know that both my quilts had won a prize. I had a first and a second in the categories I entered.  She had photos to show me in case I did not believe her.  How well does my child know her Mum !

Here are the quilts with their pretty ribbons.  Both have been posted on my blog before but of course they deserve a second shot at fame.

Honestly I was really surprised I won. I was thrilled and touched, but most of all I was humbled... that I think so little of my abilities and so little of those who were the ones to judge them.

 p.s. Stay tuned for my next blog post, it is what I have been working on like a mad hermit for the last two weeks or so...

How do you know it is Fall ?

I know because I pick up my crochet hook again... yarns in bowls and baskets and on tables and chairs... and I am continually trying to remember where I left my crochet hook, luckily I have a pottery mug full of spares.

This week I was asked to make a couple of crocheted items.  As soon as I could get myself to the yarn shop, I did.  I spent a few hours blissed out among the baskets and baskets of yarn.  "This could go with this or that and then you could add this and oooo look at this one."  Now before you ask who went with me, I went with myself.  I was muttering like a mad woman, crooning over my cart of yarns.  There were at least a few other people there doing the same, at least I prefer to think of it that way.

I picked up Bernat Blanket yarn to make this:

And some more Bernat (Supervalue and Premium) to make this:

Crocheted pumpkins are my kryptonite. I am powerless to do anything but make more and more and more of them.  Big, medium, small, solid orange, variegated, white, grey even.

These are the ones I made a few years ago for our Thanksgiving table at my sister's house, so you can get an idea of their tremendous potential !  But be forewarned, these lovely wee things can lead to disputes over who gets which one, or ones.  We did have to regularly venture into my niece Ella's room to reclaim those she had decided were hers, which was nearly all of them.

But enough of my chatter, I have things to do, things to do... I am coming my pumpykins, I am coming...

Curious Case of the Happy Brownie

Ahhh brownies... that is what this quilt top reminds me of...Brownies.  Not the fudgy, chocolatey kind.  No my friend, more along the lines of twit-a-wit-a-woo.  Those words send shivers down my spine.

"Oh no, not Brownies, not Brownies again.  Can't I just stay home and watch TV?"  My pleas fell on deaf ears, after all my Mum was the Brown Owl.

Brownies was wearing a scratchy unflattering brown polyester dress with heavy black lace up shoes. Brownies was pretending I was outgoing, pretending I cared to fit in.  Brownies was about team work and conformity.  Brownies was sitting on the hard wood floor of a gymnasium, legs stretched out to meet those of another across from you, all of us spread out in a long line. Other Brownies ran across our outstretched legs as fast as they could trying to step in the spaces between. Brownies was cringing and bracing for the crush of a solid black laced shoe on my skinny, bruised legs.

One day I met a lady, I will call her Dilly.  She was funny, irreverent and full of mischief.  I should have known.  As we talked somehow the topic turned to Brownies.  She ADORED being a Brownie.  She recalled those meetings with something close to joy.  Her eyes sparkled with memories.

However for me the pain of being a Brownie never went away.  I could not find anyway to face this trauma but to make a quilt about it.  This is my quilt design.  It is called the Curious Case of the Happy Brownie.  To remind me that while I suffered in my Brownie Pack, there were some who found happiness there, bizarre as that may seem to me.

If not for meeting Dilly and our chance conversation about Brownies, I would never have made peace with my Brownie self.

Twit-a-wit-a-woo.