Spring is here!

Well the spring issue of several magazines anyway. The spring issue of Quilter's Connection arrived in my mailbox on Friday.

In November, Editor/Publisher, Heather McArthur asked readers to share tips on "going green" in the sewing room for an article she was preparing.
I sent a couple of tips along and to my delight, not only were they used in the article but they are accompanied by a couple of photos as well.

Doesn't this rubber-stamped/beaded inchie look terrific adorning the corner of the page? There is a photo showing a leaf I created using painted dryer sheets as well as a collection of inchies at the bottom of the page.

It is such an enormous kick to see a photo of something you have created in print, especially in one of these slick, glossy magazines.

I gathered up the publications that have shown my work.........since the summer 2008, something of mine has appeared in each of these.
I can hardly believe it!
So don't be afraid to put your work "out there" you just never know where it may end up.

Postcards

Recently, I wanted to send a Birthday card off to a creative friend and thought why not do a postcard with some of my "Inchies"
I began by choosing a beautiful fabric, practiced a free motion stitch and added a few favourite inchies.............I just hope I got it into the mail on time.

What do you do with greeting cards you receive? Really.........is it possible to keep them all? I decided that I will start to"re-purpose" some.
This year, I received a Christmas card with 9 of these cute little snowmen on it. I simply cut them out, placed them on a wintry looking fabric and covered it with a layer of tulle. I first stitched closely around all of the snowmen and then did some simple stitching. Added a couple of silver snowflakes and I have a card ready for my guild's postcard exchange tomorrow evening.

A Journal Cover and Yes....... more doodles

I was inspired by Exuberant Color's blog where she has been making many journal covers, you can find them here, scroll down and you will find her excellent tutorial.
I thought this would be a good way to use some of the things I have been playing with lately.In addition to using a couple of my doodles, I have added several of those inchies I made a while back, see that leaf?......it is a real leaf that has been preserved and then thread painted (it was a "test' leaf for my piece called Reality Show)...............and of course there are the selvages, gotta love those selvage edges.



I used some of my hand painted fabrics, practiced some machine quilting and even that fun little hand stitch......that one is addictive.
I have also put some vinyl pockets on the inside flaps to hold cards from my favourite quilt shops. I plan to keep my wish list in this book along with quilt ideas so I will be all set the next time I go quilt shop hopping.

The most recent CPP word # 30, is Points.................so I sharpened my pencil to a fine point and drew this Mariner's Compass.

Inchies

I am exploring all sorts of new things this year and these Inchies have to be one of the most fun projects so far. I became interested a while back when I had read an article by Normajean Brevik in Quilting Arts magazine and then came the new, hot off the press, book by Nadine Ruggles titled Inchie Quilts.................so okay, I just had to give em a go.
I started with a few scraps, layered with batting and backing and by gathering up a bunch of supplies for I already had on hand to use as embellishment. Now even though it seems that this would be just an oh so simple a project to tackle, I have to say that it can actually be kind of intimidating to try to make something interesting out of one inch of real estate. But once you get going they are really quite addictive and the ideas are now flowing. I rubber stamped, painted, foiled, used bits of old jewelry and even some postage stamps.
What will I do with these? Well possibly a large quilt sometime in the future using many, many inchies or perhaps some fellow guild members would be interested in an inchie exchange.......who knows, but I must make more of them......lots and lots more.
Click on the images if you'd like a close up look at these, now you may say to yourself, hey what gives, these are not all one inch in size................well yes some are one inch and some are what Normajean Brevik calls Plus size inchies while others are Super sized ;-) and yes there are some selvage inchies in there as well.