Hi everyone and happy September!
I just can't believe how quickly this summer has whizzed by.
I LOVE summer — mostly because i LOVE these:
and days like these:
and seeing these beauties again:
and did i mention these:
and this:
and these?
It sure has been a beautiful one here in Connecticut and i hope you've enjoyed it where you are as well.
I’m so happy to be kicking off the Moda LOVE Blog Tour with the LOVELY
and super talented
and
Don't forget to pop on by and visit their blogs today too.
Today we'll be answering some questions and chatting a bit about some of the things we LOVE. One that comes to mind is how much i LOVE working with Moda. Above all else, the people who work there are my favorite part. They sure know how to have fun and to keep quilters engaged, inspired and challenged to keep making new things.
When did you start quilting? Tell us about your first quilt.
I started quilting around the time that my first fabric collection,
Verna, was released 5 years ago. As a beginner quilter, i discovered precuts and fell in LOVE with them! I found
this pattern on the Moda Bake Shop and it looked fairly straightforward so i decided to give it a whirl.
It's so much fun looking back at my first quilt — remembering what it was like to make, and realizing how much i've learned since then. I still LOVE this quilt and use it often (in seasons other than summer, that is!).
What is your favorite Moda precut?
I'd have to say it's a tie between a jelly roll and layer cake.
What fuels you to create?
First, this:
And then maybe this:
But seriously, at the heart of pretty much everything i design is my
LOVE of drawing.
When i was a little girl, i carried a large hard-covered sketchbook with me everywhere. We kept our crayons and Cray-Pas (oil pastels) in a small woven basket — they were all loose and mixed up so my sister and i would have to dig around to find specific colors. I LOVED oil pastels— not because i knew what they were, but because i LOVED what they were able to do. The colors from these were much more intense and saturated than crayons and you could use your finger to smudge and blend them. I LOVED drawing with these because a sunset could never look as bright and beautiful no matter how hard you pressed with a crayon.
It's hard to express what fuels me to draw, though. I think part of it is in having a vivid imagination. Also, the process of looking carefully at something is a slow and careful activity that ignites my curiosity. It keeps my eye wandering around shapes and noticing relationships between light/shadow and positive/negative spaces that i might not have seen before. The activity of drawing captivates me with alluring turns and puzzles, and challenges how i see with each blank piece of paper. I LOVE a creative challenge,
and always have.
So i think my need to draw started way back, while digging into that crayon basket and finding the freedom to explore with my hands and imagination. As I’ve grown up, it has become a life commitment, a happy and humbling adventure and a vast, ever-blooming LOVE.
I also LOVE to garden. And, it turns out, these two LOVES create so much inspiration....
... that it pours into my work with Moda. Designing fabrics has been such a joy i could not have foreseen. It’s also helped me to realize that LOVING what you do and connecting with others who share similar LOVES can make our lives more fulfilling.
I LOVED making the
Moda Love Quilt for this blog hop. You can
download the free pattern and make it using a layer cake, charm pack or mini charm pack. I used a layer cake of my newest fabric collection,
Horizon.
And i LOVED how easy it was to piece the squares and over-sized half-square triangles. The quilt top went together in less than a day.
The color palette for Horizon was inspired by luminous shards of sea glass i've collected over the years, and once i had finished this quilt top, i had the brilliant idea to go to the shore close to our house to take pictures. There's a bench on the beach just for taking quilt photos!
BUT, it was really breezy...
...and the quilt top just wanted to fly away like a kite..
...no matter how high or low i held it.
Pete and i found some rocks to anchor the corners...and it ballooned out like a sail.
So i decided to finish the quilt, hoping the extra weight would keep it from blowing around. We went back a couple days later and sure enough, it worked!
I LOVE this next photo of the backing because you can see through to my quilt-holding-helper. It was about 90 degrees and 95% humidity and i LOVE him for bearing with me while i took these photos, even when the camera battery died and we had to start all over and retake them.
Here's another photo, indoors, so you can see the gradient of colors a little better.
I guess you can tell, i LOVE the color blue!
There's just one thing ... i need your help. I always get to this point and have such a hard time figuring out what to do for the binding. It seems like such a small decision, but it frames a quilt in such a way that it can either detract from what's already going on, or enhance it. What would you do for this one?
Please leave me a comment below to let me know. Oh, and please also let me know what your favorite precut is: layer cake, jelly roll, charm pack, mini charm pack or fat eighth. You might just win one of Horizon! Some lucky names will be randomly selected and i'll post the winners on September 13th. Good luck and thank you for your help!
Don't forget to visit these LOVELY designers as the Moda Love Tour continues!
SEPTEMBER 3, 2014
SEPTEMBER 4, 2014
SEPTEMBER 5, 2014
SEPTEMBER 8, 2014
SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
SEPTEMBER 10, 2014
SEPTEMBER 11, 2014
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014
SEPTEMBER 13, 2014
Winners Announced on ALL Designer Blogs listed above
Thank you so much for stopping by!
LOVE,
kate
PS: A few more things i LOVE? These three!
