Hi all,
I've submitted the quilt to the right in the latest Quilting Gallery Weekly Contest. It's not a totally new work, I did it back in
October, but it fits the theme of Squares and Rectangles pretty well, or at least for how I see "squares."

Anyway, if you have found your self here from the contest, thanks for coming by, poke around, leave me a note.

If you haven't voted in the contest, go vote! Vote for me!  Or not, whatever, just check out the quilts and your voting lets people know their work is appreciated.

Liebster blog!

So, a little while back Angela, not my Angela, but Angela of Indomitable Angela, that Angela, selected You Quilt? as one of her Liebster Blogs.  Besides being pleased with myself for getting 5 Angelas in that last sentence, I was very flattered to get her note telling us about being a "Liebster Blog."  Now, other than Angela, you other 15 followers are probably going huh? Lieb'a what? (And those of you who found this blog by mistake or randomness are thinking this guy's a mess.)  Well, below is what Angela had on her blog about the Liebster Blog thing:


"What is a Liebster?  Liebster means "favorite" in German and paying forward the Liebster Blog badge is a way for those of us in the blogger world to spread the word about the blogs we enjoy and which inspire us. 

When you receive the Liebster Badge, tradition compels you to pass it along to 5 bloggers.  To accept the award you must:

1.  Link back to the person who granted the badge to you, thanking them for the honor; 

2.  Post the award to your blog;

3.  Give the award to 5 bloggers who you appreciate and value and who have less than 200 followers
4.  Leave a comment on those 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award; and

5.  Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you."


So here I go:
1. Angela, thank you! Seriously, that was very kind and I apologize for taking so long to get something up about it!  Indomitable Angela, check it out.


2. The badge:

3. The four (I know, it is supposed to be 5, but I don't really have 5 with less than 200 followers that I check out regularly. More on that below...) blogs I'd like to pass the Liebster Blog award on to are: 

 Along the Doodlescape 
     My friend Drew's blog.  Like me, he doesn't post enough, but his art work is very cool.  It is because of his blog that I started this one.  I figured, "What the hell, Drew's got one he's messing around with, why not?"

 They Call Me Rachel
     Rachel is Drew's significant other.  She is also quite talented and blogs on a little bit of everything.  

 Crafty Candace
     Candace, a relatively new blogger herself, was one of our first followers.  
Like Angela, of Indomitable Angela, she's been supportive of our efforts.

 Orange Explains It All
     I stumbled on to this blog awhile back.  Can't really remember how, maybe looking up men quilters or something.  Anyway, Fredrick does quilt, but really that's just a small part of it.  He's an artist who works in many genres, it's great stuff, check it out.


4. Comments sent.


5. "Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you." 


 Hmmmmm.....
                   1. Well, this is awkward, but I'm not so sure about this whole blog thing.  Yes, I've got one here, but I'm still not sure what to do with or why I want to be messing with one anyway.  You see, I really only check out a hand full of blogs on a regular or semi-regular basis.  
                   2.  When Angela, my Angela, not Indomitable Angela,  and I lived in K.C., we used to go to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum at least a couple times a month.  Every time, I had to visit two paintings, Canaletto's The Clock Tower and Rothko's Untitled 11.  Any 'shrinks' out there should have a field day with that!
                   3.  Favorite city: Siena, IT
                   4.  I've used the name Angela 15 (now 16) times in this post.
                   5.  In spite of being over educated as and making my living as a musician, I have never thought of myself as creative or artistic.  Between my wife's and my daughter's influences on me, I might believe it someday.

Proud papa...

Okay, so it's been awhile.  I could offer up all the usual excuses and reasons, you know, work's busy, out of town, etc. But, I don't wanna.  It is what it is and I want to keep work off of here as much as possible. So, on to the fun stuff...

Last weekend, my daughter's school district had their district/county wide art fair.  Man, some really wonderful things out there by kids at every age group! It was a blast.  It is great to see an entire district, and a big one too, that has such strong art programs.  Right on Prince William County!  

Anyway, now for the bragging dad part....  Not only was my daughter's work (below) one of the several from her elementary school to be shown at the exhibit, but it was the one chosen to represent her school in the exhibit that will live in the district offices! 

My daughter's work. Mixed media, paint, chalk and something else. Really, the technique was
beyond me, but it turned out awesome.

Some work from one of the middle schools.  I really dug these trees...might be a quilt in here....

And another thing...

Another proud papa moment was on Sunday when my girl comes up to me with some pieces of fabric (hers) and wants to make a little doll sized pillow.  Well, heck, let's go to the basement.  So, we went on down to the sewing room and I talked her through the basics about cutting the fabric, seam allowances, and a refresher on the sewing machine.  Before I knew it, her two best friends showed up and I had all three of in the sewing room going to town.   They did great!  All I did for them was use the rotary cutter and talk them through everything else.  They all used the machine themselves, slip stitched, everything else.  What a kick!  

Two of the three pillows the girls made.
(I forgot to get a picture until the next day and one of the girls wasn't around...oops.)

I'll post again in a couple days with something neat.  Angela Michaud-Mourer who's blog, Idomitable Angela , I follow, has named this blog one of her Liebster Blogs.  I am flattered and will post the details about that soon as well as start "flying" the badge.  Thank you Angela, sorry it'll take me a bit to get that posted, but I'm taking your nomination seriously and want to put some thought into it.

Until next time...

Testing, testing....

Ok, so I'm just playing with a new toy. I got a little tablet computer last week and wanted to try uploading pics taken with it directly to the blog. It works. Too easy.

Oh. and the pic is some of my wife's knitting stuff I've laid out while I design a needle roll.  Yes, I know there are plenty of tutorials, at this point you should know I like to figure it out for myself. And besides, Ang has a specific idea of what she needs in a roll.

Ok, enough for now.

Wait, two posts in two days. Lame posts, but hey work with me, I'm on a roll here. :)

Wanted to share this...

Well,
Clearly I'm not doing too well at keeping up with the blog yet, but I did want to share something.
Below is a link to the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
They've got a wonderful site all about quilts with many images of some great works.  If you're not familiar with it, check it out and sign up for the Quilt of the Month email. (I've link to February's entry)

http://www.quiltstudy.org/collections/quilt_of_the_month/

Been pretty busy, and I've not had too much time work on stuff, but getting their email and seeing these historical quilts is always inspiring.  I would love to see this collection in person and ironically will be traveling to Nebraska for work in about a week, but will be nowhere near Lincoln. Bummer.

Anyway, check it out if you can.

So, it's 2012...hmmm

Well, I'm not really sure how that relates to this blog, but I'll work it in somehow.  I never know just how to start these posts and it just seemed like I should say something about the new year and all.

Ah, wait a minute, too easy...

This January marks one year of this cheesy little blog.
It also marks 1 1/2 years I've been trying to quilt.

Ok, guess that is about it...

But, really, I've never been one for "New Year's Resolutions" or any of that nonsense.  I'm just way too cynical.  I look at January as more of a reset after all the nonsense of the November and December holidays.  (Hell, anymore the holiday nonsense starts before Halloween, ugh.)  January is back to "normal," whatever that is.  Back to a more set routine, less extra stuff to do because that is what society tells us we're supposed to do, etc.  (See, my cynicism is showing through.)  What does this have to do with the blog, not a whole lot except I'm going to try to "reset" the way I approach this.

I've been doing this, admittedly a bit haphazardly, for a year now.  I had no real plan, or goals with it, just something to mess around with.  I still don't have a plan, but I do have some ideas.  One, I want to get Ang to post a bit. She's only posted once and I'd really like to have her input and thoughts on stuff too.  I'll work on that.  I think I'll be posting more often, hopefully showing some WIPS and talking about the process more.  I know I'm bad about showing all that, but like I've written before, sometimes it comes down to spend the time writing about it or doing it.  Easy call, do it.

Something I have been thinking a lot about is why I have this blog (still don't know for sure yet) and what I want it to be.  After looking at so many blogs, most about quilting, I do know I don't want it to be like most of what I see.  In general there's nothing wrong with what I see, but it is not me.  And often, I'm not sure it is really represents the people running the blog.  It seems that a lot of people want their blog to be just like so & so's or something.  You know, they have all the perfectly staged photos with the immaculate sewing rooms and occasional amazing recipes.  Blah.  Now, if you're using your blog as part of a business, I get it, you have to present a certain image.  But, really, some of these blogs seem like they're trying to convince the world they live inside a quilting/sewing book and everything is always perfect there.  Wow, this got real cynical didn't it?

Oh well, this is the You Quilt? blog version 2012.  Not new, and not necessarily improved.

If I keep this up I'll have to change the blog title to "Darth Quilter."  (Inside joke for my work friends.)

How about a quilt, let say a WIP....

So this is what I've been messing with.  On the right is a flower my daughter did this summer.  Her medium; poster board, Sharpie and duct tape. Yep, bright green duct tape.  Kids are great.  Their art is so cool, so real.  They don't over think it, they just do it.  As soon as I saw it, I wanted to make a wall hanging based on it.  So, I did what I do just dove in.  That's what she does and it works great for her.  We can learn a lot from kids, but that's for another post I guess.  

I'm trying some things that are new to me on this one.  To try and capture the duct tape, I made the flower out of strips, just like she did, and raw edge appliqued them on the background.  Not fusing them left them a bit "loose" and wrinkly and to me helps recreate the duct tape feel.  For her squiggles, she used black Sharpie, I'm trying my hand a couching black yarn on.  Only one so far, but I think it'll work well.  It is a simple piece, raw and spontaneous (well her original was, obviously mine isn't) but a good chance for me to try some stuff and learn a bit from my kid!

Tree of Life

Well, I'm finally back again.  Yep, the same old stuff keeping me away from updating the blog, you know, life.  But, I've got a fun one to post today.

Some really good friends of mine got married in November and Ang and I wanted to do something special for them.  We decided to work on a quilt together, make something from one couple to another.  But, what the hell kind of quilt would the two of us come up with together?  I like modern, solids, bright, off-kilter things and Ang is much more traditional and folk arty in her tastes.  

Ang had a great idea revolving around a tree of life idea with two birds representing the couple.  Her various ideas and doodles led to our starting point below:

The drawing led to the appliqued tree on the right.  I still can't believe the tree is one piece.  It is hard enough for me to imagine cutting it out, let alone sewing it on.  There could be a good tutorial in here about enlarging the 5x6" drawing on the left to a 30x30" panel.  But, since I didn't really take notes at the time, let's just say it took a bit of trial and error with my printers enlarge/poster function.  Eventually it worked and we ended up with a full size template for Ang to use.

Okay, great, we've got the central part of this quilt figured out an in progress, what about the rest?  Well, that was my part, and for all the doodles and ideas I came up with none were any good. (Well, that's a bit judgmental, none felt right for this.)  Of course, Ang saves the day, or at least my butt.  When walking the dog one day she notices a neighbor's front door has a nice Frank Lloyd Wright inspired window panel.  She sends me over to check it out and see if I like the design too.  I find the house and yes, that panel is cool, so I draw a picture of it real quick and head on home.  Now we have our basic design elements.  That window panel we saw inspired the top and bottom panels on our quilt.

If I had been smart, and had some extra time, I'd have written down a lot of notes during this project.  There could have been half a dozen posts related to this quilt along the way.  Working the way I do, "just diving in" like I've written before, we ran into numerous headaches and "learning experiences."  

Overall, I think it worked out well.  

Ang's Tree of Life design

(Hand applique, leaves and flowers wool felt)

Oh, and another thing!  My daughter and I were in the wedding party for our friends' ceremony.  Our daughter Madelynne was so excited to be in the ceremony and have a dress like the bridesmaids, Ang wanted to make something special for her as well.  Ang knitted this really cute scarf/shawl to compliment her dress.  It looked great and Madelynne never took it off the whole day.

(Here's my obligatory super cute kid picture. Look out maybe next month I'll post some pics of our super perfect meals too, hahaha...no.)