Last Saturday was the three year anniversary of this blog! Tom and I have met our challenge to produce a new post each week, minus one or two weather-related repeats, such as last week’s.
To mark the previous anniversaries, we’ve produced posts of the top ten most-viewed posts of each year. Below you’ll find the links to those posts. The topics range from fabric collage instructions to travelogues of my teaching to contemplations on creating art.
In this Saturday’s regular post, we’re going to change things up just a bit. Instead of the top ten most viewed posts, Tom and I have picked our favorite posts of the past year, the ones that we’ve enjoyed writing or ones where the response from readers was especially interesting.
So, you can check years one and two favorites out now, and on Saturday, see if your favorites of this third year correspond at all to ours!
And to those of you in the US, Tom and I would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, hoping that you have an enjoyable and safe holiday weekend. (In photo above are stuffed pumpkins that my mom makes every year to decorate our own, and others’, autumn season.)
Serendipity Quilts for Sale
My book on fabric collage, Serendipity Quilts, is back in stock! The price is $29.95 plus shipping. For a signed copy click the button below. Note: If you want a inscribed copy (as in “To Jane”) I have to be home to do it, so you may want to check my teaching schedule. Otherwise your order may be delayed.
It was an absolute pleasure meeting you in person. I look forward to seeing you again next November! â¤ï¸
A few years back our local quilt shop held a quilt contest with the theme Alice In Wonderland. I decided to compete and I had three months until the deadline. Knowing that there were so many excellent quilters in our community I knew I had to step up my game. What came to my mind with the theme Alice in Wonderland? I figured the easy way was to a quilt hearts for the queen of hearts or use Disney pictures of Alice in Wonderland, but this was a contest and if I wanted to compete I would have to step outside of my comfort/easy zone. I’ve always loved the song “White Rabbit” by Grace Slick so that became my inspiration. I printed out the lyrics and on a legal pad I sketched out pieces to the song as a collage. I never did a fabric collage before and had no idea where to go from my sketch. I went to the quilt shop and asked for some ideas of how to get this sketch into fabric. The clerk lead me to the book rack and handed me your book” Serendipity”. I purchased the book, brought it home and became excited knowing a process to proceed forward. I needed this quilt to be large enough to fit all the pieces from the lyrics so I went with the max size the contest would allow – 70 by 42 inches. Your book was wonderful and easy to follow. Although I did not work from a photo, I did draw my creation full size on paper and transferred it to fabric. I picked a pretty ambitious design for my first collage, it could have been at least six individual quilts. With fabric scraps consuming my dining room table and floor for a couple months I became overwhelmed at times. When I would get discouraged my son would cheer me on that I couldn’t quit. As the deadline came near I had to start compromising to reach the finish line. At one time I wanted all the lyrics to the song included, but that became too busy – so my last addition was to put the words “Go Ask Alice”, which became the name of the quilt. I submitted my entry feeling I could have done better/more but time was up. A few weeks went by and the quilt shop had a Mad Hatters tea party to announce the winner. To my surprise I won first place – $500. Thanks for sharing your technique – I couldn’t have done it without you. I have since retired from my full time job and will be making more fabric collage quilts of some of my other favorite rock n roll songs/artists. I now have the process under my belt and I know that the best is yet to come. I just recently found your blog and am inspired to get out my pad of paper and start sketching my next collage. Your collages are fantastic. Thank you
Linda, Thank you so much for your story. Please please please send a picture of your quilt! You can use the “Contact” page on my website if the image is smaller than 2 megabytes.