Creative Life Sampler

Last week I was inspired by the annual Road to California quilt show and what today's quilters are doing to elevate this art form and expand on what has come before them. So, this week I thought I'd go back in time to share a family heirloom.   The crazy quilt style became popular in the Victorian era of the mid to late 1800's. An appraiser placed the date of this quilt top at the end of this era. Adhering to the crazy quilt tradition, it is sewn in velvets, brocades, silks, etc., not cotton. Though some of the colors have bled or faded, there are hints that it was a vibrant piece. It was created by my great grandmother, Vienna, but as you can see from the edges, she never finished it off.  Quilt detail Been there, done that, Vienna! I don't know any quilter who doesn't have a one or two, or more, WIPs (Work In Progress.)  I do wonder why she lost interest in it. Perhaps the trends were already shifting to the next big thing. I get that. Sometimes we see examples of...

Convention Center's eatery area has a great view of palm trees  with white  capped mountains in the distance,- classic Southern CA Road to California takes over the entire Ontario Convention Center. The first large convention hall contained the bulk of the quilt show which spilled over to the second hall with more exhibits, including the highest award winners, and vendors. Lectures and workshops were conducted in various conference rooms, making the center a hive of activity. Vendors' section The Social Justice Sewing Academy was given several rows to display their moving, thought provoking, Remembrance Project. (Check here for more details on this important project:  https://www.sjsacademy.org/remembrance-project-in-depth  ) There were several galleries of "challenge" collections, where quilters were given the opportunity to create pieces with a specific theme. For instance, Hoffman Fabrics challenged quilters to use 6 of their digital fabrics for the "Garden St...

California's Ontario Convention Center- lots of space to view all the quilts! My post for this week is a bit late to give me the chance to share pictures and observations from my trip yesterday to the annual quilt show, Road to California. It's good to see quilts in person again! Many quilt shows went virtual in the course of the pandemic. And thank goodness for the technology which made it possible to stay connected to the quilting community at large. But it didn't compare to being there in person. Of course a few things have changed. I would definitely say the crowd was smaller. In pre-pandemic years, parking was hard to find. This year we arrived half an hour after doors opened and got a space in the lot closest to the building with plenty more still available. Another sign of the times was that attendees had to present photo identification and vaccine/testing status upon entry and be masked throughout the venue. But we didn't let that detract from enjoying the exper...

New Year, New Projects? So here we are, in the second week of January, and I haven't created anything since mid December.  My hands are itching to get back to work, but I've been having a hard time focusing to start a new project. No problem with planning new projects. I've made a couple of trips to the quilt shop for some fun colors, and even thought of titles for each project, (LOL). And it's not like I don't already have quilts in various stages of completion that could be finished up. I just need to get past that first hesitancy, the commitment to start.    In searching for a way to describe this state of mind, the term "activation barrier" came to thought. I want to be accurate, . . . and I was kind of curious about where it came from, . . . plus it would help me procrastinate on this issue.  Yep, a Google search was in order. It turns out this is a term used in chemistry. As defined by  https://chem.libretexts.org .: " An  activation barrier ...

QuiltCon 2022 In November, I got the exciting news that one of my quilts had been juried into the Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon 2022!  I finished "Scrambled Q's" just before the October 31st deadline and decided at the last minute to include it in my entries. One of five quilts I submitted for consideration, it was admitted in the Appliqué category.      These four quilts didn't make the cut: Left: Not Your Grandma's Flower Garden ,    Right: How Does Your Garden Grow Left: Tangled ,    Right: Raspberry Peach Experiment The first time I got up the courage to enter a show was in 2017 for the 2018 Road to California. I naively filled out the forms, submitted the quilts and got their assigned numbers,- 13,626 and 13,627,- and that was well before the deadline. No surprise at getting email rejections with that kind of competition. (If you're interested in my insights at the time, check out posts under the "Quilt Shows" label of this blog.)...