Post Turkey Thanksgiving UrbanAmishThoughts

It's been a wonderful year. What's made it so particularly wonderful is that I find myself in contact with so many alive, creative folks. People willing to take my fabrics and run with them. Or people with whom I can share a common goal and encourage me to give it my graphic best.

They share my passion for creativity and collaborate with me generously and joyously. Some are nearby, some I've never met but have become friends through the magic of the web. One even shares my home!

This is my tribute to them and the power of collaborative friendship.

They appear in the opening image clockwise starting at 7 o'clock. Dustin Farrell, Kristine Poor, Joan Hawley, Pamela Zave, Deborah Vollbracht, Barbara Campbell, Mario Picayo, Marta McDowell, and Diana Mancini. I've introduced them below and their names connect to their web sites or blogs where you can find out more about them.

Dusty (Dustin Farrell)

Dusty is art longarm quilter.  Dusty has been drawing and painting from ever since he can remember and he continues to let it all flow magically out of his hands through his longarm quilting. I have had the pleasure of seeing his stitching artistry on three of my quilts so far: Dream Garden, Twinkling Star (Both patterns available on my web page.), and Jake's Escalator (which will be published in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Fon's & Porter's Easy Quilts).

Here they are for your viewing pleasure (Click on the pictures to see bigger so you can see the quilting details a bit better.)

This is the Twinkling Star made up from my Sketchbook Fabrics.

This is a close-up. Love the variation on the traditional feather. And it's all freehand 'longarming.'

 

This is my Dream Garden quilt which is made from the fabric collection by the same name.

This is a detail.

This is the quilt,  Jake's Escalator, just the corner that fits... too big to photograph the whole thing but you'll be able to see it in the magazine. This is made from Garden Party, the navy-wasabi colorway and my latest line with Blank Quilting.

And a close-up of the quilting detail. Remember! Click on photos, any photo to see BIGGER!

And for the curious: this is why it's called Jake's Escalator.

Kristine Poor (Poorhouse Quilting)

I first met Kristine through her samples of the bags for a Leisure Arts book called Sew & Go Totes at Houston Quilt Market 2008.

Pamela, my partner, was with me at market and spotted all these sample bags in the Leisure Arts booth made up with an old fabric line of mine, Software. We walked in and asked why they were there and they handed me a dummied version of a book soon to be released. We were dumbfounded because practically every projects used my fabric line. So I left a business card and gave it to the Leisure Arts person in the hopes we could make contact and I could thank her personally.

The way she had used the fabrics it was obvious we were on the same design wavelength.

The rest is history. We have been collaborating happily every since.

This year, for Spring Quilt Market she remade some of the projects in the first book with my Sketchbook line.

The Duffel Bag

The Bongo Bag and the Craft Tote

And the backpack.

And here's her toy tote which uses my Garden Party line and will be on the cover of her next book! And a picture of the banner ad for it at Houston Fall Market 2009. The book is called: Ready, Set, Go: Baby Necessities to Sew. At market this year, I also had the added pleasure of meeting her mom. What a team they make.

Check out Kristine's site and also see what fabric kits are available with her designs.

Joan Hawley (Lazy Girl Designs)

Joan Hawley is my role model. Joan does everything she does well. Her patterns are exquisitely written and therefore very easy to follow. Her tutorials illuminating. Her fabric choices inspired. I was overjoyed when I found out a few years ago that she was reissuing the cover of her Runaround Bag pattern with my A la Mode fabric.

Since that wonderful day she continues to promote my fabrics generously on her blog and at Market.

Here's a sampling:

Her Miranda pattern dressed in Sketchbook fabrics at the Salt Lake City Airport

Sassy dressed in Garden Party before her flight to Houston for Fall Quilt Market 2009.

The Claires dressed in two coloways of Sketchbook fabrics. The pictures show front and back of the same bag. Clever, no?

 

And the latest cuties, the Maggies, presents from Joan to go with my Sassy and my Miranda.

Maggie is Joan's newest release AND the larger Maggie fit's my iPhone oh so comfortably. Now I can always find it fast because of the clip and it's cozy new home.

I'm very excited because over the holidays I'll be setting up a mini-Lazy Girl fabric and pattern store at urban-amish.com.

And the other thing about Joan that is really nice is that she shares pictures of Honey with me. She knows I have a thing about poodles and for the moment can't really have one. But here is a picture of Honey sent right after she got her hair done. How can you not love that sweet all-knowing little face? Whenever I get a picture of Honey snoring or a close-up of her cute fat toes, I feel like a proud aunt.

Pamela Zave (Pamela Zave's Color Quilts)

Okay, this is my honey. I know I can be accused of being prejudiced so just go to her website and judge for yourselves how good she is. She's a computer researcher and a fabulous art quilter. She was just made an AT&T fellow, a great honor, for decades of outstanding computer research. Here's her cake. She dived into it I'm told. She likes whipped cream. She and I are UrbanAmish development team. If the cake had been near me I would have joined her in the dive.

She's into color. Our breakfast conversation do tend to run into the esoteric areas of color and pattern and quilting design and fiber content (but that usually but not always concerns my latest cereal). We are happy this way. Currently we are transforming our little 1934 truck-delivered Sears Cape Cod into a personal size quilt and print museum that we get to sleep and eat and watch movies on AppleTV in.

We just got delivery of new hooks for the picture molding we had put in our living room and dining room so we can change the exhibition as much as we want without making holes all over the walls. And we actually transformed our home into a temporary Rubik's Cube by having the floors refinished to "museum" blond.

She is currently exploring green—it's yellower side in great detail—but more about it in a later post.

Here are some of my favorite of her color explorations:

This is the exploration of the bluer side of green in the quilt formerly known as Before Night Falls but now called Forest, Ivy, Emerald, Viridian.

The brighter side of the spectrum explored brilliantly in Sunlight, Citron, Saffron, Ochre. (Soon to be in a book: 500 Art Quilts by Lark Publications.)

And the introspective purples in Lavender, Heliotrope, Heliotrope, Iris. Or as I call it, being a Prince fan: Purple Rain.

And Pamela just hung up my gift quilt in my studio: Delphine in an English Garden, a bigger-than-life portrait of my favorite stuffed animal standing in the focus fabric field of one of the fabric lines I have most enjoyed designing, In an English Garden. The picture also give you what the cyber half of my design studio looks like. (That's the free download quilt for my soon-to- be-released fabric line from Blank, Twinkle, on the screen of my beloved Mac.)
Having this quilt right before me increases my happiness quotient exponentially. It's like having a door into a magic realm unexpectedly installed in your room.

Deborah Vollbracht (Creative Folk Quilting) 

Deborah found me through the Blank Quilting website. She politely asked if she could use some of my fabrics for a project she had in mind. When I started seeing her designs I was very taken with her style. I liked the simple elegance of her ideas. They were spare to a perfectly balanced point—no more and no less than was needed to make a visual statement.

She also impressed me that in about 6 months she willingly underwent a crash course in computer literacy while temporarily away from home and engaged in helping her sister out in a difficult time. Total grace under pressure.

I carry her pattern designs on my website for now until she can make her transition fully back to her beloved Colorado where she finally was able to return and take the next steps to getting herself a website.

For now we must make do with her blog to read her in her own voice and see snippets of her fabric play. Do visit it and you will see what I mean. (Link from her web name above.) I predict once things settle down for her she will be a creative force in the design world and I will be able to say I knew her when.

I have to thank Deborah for one of the most emotionally meaningful pieces of fabric art I now own.

Below is the Fab Frame that she made for me with a picture of my parents on their honeymoon in 1943 as a thank you for helping her out with the pattern for it.

My mother died this summer; my father died in 1994. It hangs in my studio where I see them everyday.

I also have to thank her for this great placemat set that graced my porch this summer.

the pattern is called Simple Elegance. My porch set is in Garden Party fabrics.

My friend Marta's set is in Dream Garden fabrics and that's her lovely kitchen dining area. Marta lives in another great old Sears home near me.

All of Deborah's patterns mentioned above are available through my website along with fabric kits if desired.

Barbara Campbell (Love in Stitches) 

Barbara and I met through our local Garden State Quilters guild. For two years we collaborated as a design team under the umbrella name of Love in Stitches. She sewed and designed quilts and I designed fabrics and virtual quilts. Together we co-authored two books: Holiday Quilts: 25 Designs for the Holidays and Everyday and Fuse It and Be Done both for Krause Publications. We traveled to quilt market together and back home we had a lot of fun brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other.

However we came to the sad realization that despite all the fun we were having our business model was not financially viable and that our design and work styles were fundamentally at odds. Independence with the occassional collaboration was the only way to go for each of us.

Today Barbara designs for many fabric manufacturers and continues publishing many beautiful quilts in the trade magazines. Barbara continues to be the source of many beautiful quilt designs using my fabrics even now and is concentrating on developing her wonderful ideas and getting them out to the world.

Here's one of her latest soon to be published with Quilter's Newsletter. It's a very clever rethinking of an old favorite, the basket quilt. (Rethinking the everyday in quilting is something Barbara is very good at. She's always trying to figure out a way to do things faster. She just doesn't like to do the same thing in the same way twice.)

Here's a close-up detail. Notice the fabric folding.

And here's one that she did with my Sketchbook line featured this fall in Fabric Trends. Note it was featured with Kristine Poor's bags from her Sew & Go Totes. 

Mario Picayo (Editorial Campana) 

Mario is the editor-in-chief of Editorial Campana and it's juvenile division, Campanita.

I design the books for Editorial Campana. Editorial Campana publishes literature written in English and Spanish by Latin@s who dare to challenge the literary canon, conventional social thinking, and who believe in culture as patrimony for everyone. Campana publishes works that contribute to the recovery of Latin@s personal and historic memory as well as those that will develop the pleasure of reading literature written by Latin@s.

I love this collaboration in particular because of it's cultural significance to me personally. Both Mario and I were born in Cuba. We both have lived also in Puerto Rico and New York City. Mario lives now in Upstate New York and I live in New Jersey. Campana offices are in New York City. So geographically and culturally we have led similar lives.

I enjoy working on all the books but I confess to have really gotten the most joy from working closely with him on illustrating his story A Very Smart Cat/Una gata muy inteligente, the second of the two bilingual Spanish/ English children's book I've illustrated for Campanita.

Readers will see some of my Dream Garden fabrics being used as home decor in Ms. Kitty's home. The book, published in September 2008 is now in it's second printing.

Here's two of my favorite scenes.

The first is one of the first scenes in the book when you know things are going to go bad.

This second scene is when things are almost past the point of no return (it's all still careening downhill —for the human's in the household— Kitty seems to be enjoying herself just fine.)

 

Marta McDowell (MartaMcDowell.com)

This is my buddy, Marta McDowell, in her Old McDowell Had a Farm outfit. Despite the informality of her dress, Marta looks really impressive on paper and is more so in everyday life. Marta teaches landscape history and preservation at the New York Botanical Garden and is the author Emily Dickinson's Garden (McGraw Hill). I met Marta at a mutual friends' home but I got to know her through reading her beautiful Emily book.
I've had the pleasure of collaborating with Marta on a joint book,  A Garden Alphabetized (for your viewing pleasure).
Now we have many projects up our joint sleeves, including Orchidaceous and possibly a book about a local historical garden jewel, Willowwood. Can't wait to see what the new year brings.
Below is Ladyslipper Chapel from the Orchidaceous book project.

Diana Mancini (BlankQuilting.com)
 

Diana is the creative director at Blank Quilting. It is no exaggeration to say that working with Diana is a dream come true for me. I've worked both in-house at design studios and as a free agent for many years now and always wished and hoped for a creative director with whom I could feel comfortable and whose vision I could respect and trust. I have finally found such a person in Diana Mancini.

Blank Quilting is fortunate to have her and so am I. I love textile design above all my activities because it's the one art form that is truly collaborative. After you are through designing the fabrics another person will come along and use it to create more art multiplying the joy and pleasure of the creative activity in an ever expanding chain.

Therefore, I'm so very thankful that I got to work with Diana and hope to do so for many years to come. She's made a huge difference in the quality of my life.

Road to Houston • UrbanAmish Lesson 3, Part 1

This year is the 30th anniversary of International Quilt Market in Houston Texas.

Every year manufacturers from all over the world hitch up their team of oxen, fill their covered wagons to overload and head for for the George R. Brown Convention Center to ply their wares.

Since I was coming here to help present my new Garden Party line from Blank Quilting, it was only appropriate to mark this Market milestone with the first public introduction of UrbanAmish and to offer on the same day to subscribed UrbanAmishers Lesson 3 Part 1 of the block formerly known as Road to Oklahoma and now dubbed Road to Houston after going for a spin on the UrbanAmish wagon. I wanted to make the download available so we could all be here together at least in spirit.

Pamela Zave, my partner in this endeavor, became enamored of this block after working through the lesson with me and did 3 lovely variations on it. She used the UrbanAmish color formula #2 from the downloadable lesson to make these. Pamela is an art quilter. She does not naturally gravitate to traditional blocks but the scale and updated color formulas seem to attract her in a way that a more traditional approach does not. I'm always thrilled to see her enthusiasm for the new UrbanAmish lesson because she is not an easy woman to convince. (By the way, Pamela just received the great news that one of her quilts will be published in a new book by Lark called 500 Art Quilts due out Spring 2010.)

Here are her three Road to Houston test beauties.


A fresh red and green and soft yellows combination.


An apple green block.


And a yellow and blue texturally roiling sample.

But you know what? I'm going to make this blog post a short one.
In a few hours I need to be at the Blank booth to give my talk and I'm simply too excited to sit at my laptop typing. I want to go look at quilts and see my friends that I only get to see once a year here.

When I get back home I'll write more in depth when I post the second part of the Road to Houston lesson. The Road to Houston is long, twisty and very exciting and after writing 14 pages I realized it was going to have to be presented in two parts.

At the very end of this post you will see an image of the first page of the lesson. Click on the image to download lesson. And if you are curious about my new line for the wonderful people of Blank Quilting visit my web site: www.urban-amish.com

BUT! Just one more story to share before I close down my laptop.

Here is a picture of a wonderful surprise that arrived in the mail just before I left to come here. This little bag below is Sassy, by my friend, the wonderful Joan Hawley of Lazy Girl Designs fame.



Sassy's new dress is from my new Garden Party line in the Navy/Wasabi colorway.
She's trim and petite but she carries all you need without breaking her stride. And what a charmer out on the convention floor! People talk me just because she's so cute.

Take good care, UrbanAmishers!


Click here to download lesson.

Ellen Emeline Webster (1867-1950)

I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Pat Cummings, quilt historian, at the Machine Quilter's Expo in New Hampshire this past April where I was teaching two classes based on the book Fuse It and Be Done with my co-author Barbara Campbell. What stands out from that brief half hour that Pat, Barbara and I spent together is how much we laughed and her mention of Ellen Webster.

Upon my return home I quickly ordered the CD of the eBook that Pat and her husband, James have produced. What a delight it has been stealing chunks of the day here and there to slowly savor each of Ellen Webster's charts

I wish everyone else interested in quilt history to have the same chance at such pleasure so I have asked Pat to introduce the book to UrbanAmishers.

In Pat Cummings own words:

When I came to the realization that I wanted to know more about Mrs. Webster, who had made some wonderful quilt charts, thereby “saving” antique quilt designs, I looked online for more information. There, I began to discover some of her other interests, that of an avid bird watcher, and that she was a writer who heavily contributed to writing her own (Hardy) family's massive genealogy. As thread led on to thread, I purchased obscure research materials, bugged Interlibrary Loan at the local library to borrow materials, and contacted historical societies across the country. Some quilt historians from the American Quilt Study Group, supplied tidbits of information that helped me to piece together even more details. However, a major breakthrough came when Ellen's two great nephews visited me, bringing me two family, Victorian crazy quilts to photograph, and old family photos, as well as Ellen's diaries and letters. I felt I had hit the jackpot, not that all the rest of the already uncovered information wasn't fascinating. It was!



Everything I learned about Ellen lent testimony to her loving soul. She cared a lot about people. She passionately gave quilt lectures, as well as talks about birds, and Bible studies. She was a model citizen, generous with her talents and time to her family and community. She was a pianist and organist, as well. Immediately, I felt such a connection with Mrs. Webster. She grew up on a farm, she was an educator who had taught school, including at the college level, and she loved quilts and the history of them, so she and I had all of those things in common, and more! I, too, love music and birds.



Her quilt charts could not have been done by just anyone. As a trained teacher of Mathematics, she brought special skills to the task. She made the charts to use as teaching tools in order to preserve the designs of antique quilts that she viewed in the 1930s. She was fully cognizant of the work of quilt designers and other quilt historians of her time, both emerging fields for women. She mentions them on the paper board charts, inscribing their names in pencilled notations. Each chart in the e-book is full-page size. The discovery of her total life, not just her quilt documentation work, was a joy. Her writings provide insight into the times in which she lived. The reader will gain insight into New Hampshire life when every family had a horse, and a sleigh to get around in winter, and a carriage to travel in summer. In the twentieth century, Mrs. Webster never drove a car, relying on public transportation, usually the train, to get to Massachusetts where she earned two college degrees.


The beauty with which Ellen Webster surrounded herself seemed to be in spite of her circumstances. She seems to have done most of her work as a quilt historian and educator, after her husband passed on, and also after, achieving a master's degree from Boston University in 1926. While Mrs. Webster may be remembered for the time-consuming, precisely-made, quilt charts she created, her physical beauty is memorable, as is her inner strength. She served as a role model for women then, and her life, as any life well-lived, is worthy of our attention, now. What an inspiring individual!

So! If you are as curious as I was here is how to get it:

Ellen Emeline Hardy Webster (1867-1950), Her Amazing Quilt Charts, Her Writings, and Her Life
by Patricia Lynne Grace Cummings, quilt historian and James Cummings, photographer

An e-book on CD: 355 pages, with 340 photos - plays on any computer.

Available at: http://www.quiltersmuse.com/products-available.htm

PS. Patricia Cummings writes a quilt history column regularly feautured in The Quilter Magazine.

Another PS. While nosing around the Quilter's Muse website I came upon Pat's tribute to Jose Martí. As a Cuban-American I was touched deeply by Pat's heartfelt tribute to my country's leading poet and visionary.


Detail of Pat's crazy quilt dedicated to Martí.

Therefore if you are curious about that, go to this page too: http://www.quiltersmuse.com/Jose_Marti.htm

UrbanAmish Lesson 2 • Roman Broad Stripe or Rome Can Be Built in a Day

Photo of centurion courtesy Luc Viatour via Wikipedia Commons.

The Romans were no slouches at decorative touches as you can see by this photograph of a Roman Centurion at a historical reenactment in Boulogne, France.
I've paired him with one of Pamela's Roman Broad Stripe blocks that looked particularly good with his outfit.

In this lesson we are going to explore an UrbanAmish variations on the Roman Stripe. I've based the Roman Broad Stripe on the traditional Roman Stripe Amish block, a block often seen presented in the configuration shown to the right.



This has always been a very appealing block for me specially in the Lightning configuration. While the small band of stripes in the traditional block is quite appealing for colorwork . . .


Red and green play with my Holiday Splendor Christmas line in a traditional Roman Stripe.


. . . I found myself wanting the bold lightning effect AND the visual impact of larger scale graphics while putting a new line idea through it's paces in a virtual quilt design. I tinkered with stripe proportions and came up with an UrbanAmish variation. Here's the virtual quilt that gave birth to the proportions and dimensions of UrbanAmish Roman Broad Stripe.


Quilt design by Yolanda Fundora: Roman Landscape

An aside: For the life of me I cannot find why the traditional block is called Roman Stripe. (Any quilt historians out there please chime in through a comment if you know the answer so the unenlightened may be illuminated.)

To have an UrbanAmish Roman Broad Stripe adventure you must download the following:

UrbanAmish Lesson #2: Roman Broad Stripe

To download, click here.

UrbanAmish Lesson #2 Templates for Roman Broad Stripe.

To download, click here.

As you already know if you have read previous posts: UrbanAmish lessons are fully tested on a laboratory volunteer.
Pamela is never harmed in the process but I was a bit afraid she might hurt herself in her enthusiastic response to this lesson.

She produced 4 individual Roman Broad Stripe Blocks.

These two configurations take the 2-unit block for a spin:



These are one-unit lightning configurations. (To be further illuminated you must read the lesson.):



And while her brain munched on those she came up with a design that incorporates her two favorite Roman Broad Stripe configurations:
Lightning and Double"K". She calls this "Urban Baby Quilt," saying, "Urban babies wear black and go to art museums."



Pamela adds:

I made my four sample blocks from an early version of the lesson. In this version, fabric B was supposed to contrast to A in value, hue, and texture, and fabric C was supposed to be similar to B in value and hue, while similar to A in texture. For instance, in my blue block, all the fabrics are turquoise and cobalt blue. A and C have curly lines, while B has straight lines, making the two groups contrast in texture. B and C have more cobalt (and black) than turquoise, while A has more turquoise than cobalt, making these two groups contrast in value and hue.

The earlier version of the lesson was fun and rewarding, but it was HARD to find fabrics that went together in exactly the right way. The new version is much easier to follow, and will give you blocks that look just as good.

Urban Baby Quilt is not quite legitimate because there is too much contrast between B and C. I don't care! I loved these fabrics too much.

I am fortunate to have most of Yolanda's fabrics in my stash. My green block uses the Holiday Splendor focus fabric from her current Christmas line with Blank Quilting, and shows that it doesn't have to look like Christmas. The palm trees in my yellow block come from Yolanda's older "Playa Sur" line. And the red fabric in the baby quilt comes from Yolanda's older "Textura Graphica" line.

Our shared quilt studio in the midst of a Roman Broad Stripe lightning brainstorm. That's Pamela's current color wheel quilt design on the back flannel wall and part of her lovingly organized fabric stash.

Premio Dardos

Two days ago I received an email from Vicki Lane telling me she had awarded me the Premio Dardos. I really had no idea what the Premio Dardos was but it did mean a lot that it came from her. My spirits were lifted quite high and I thank her for that.

Make sure you follow the link to go to her hub website specially if you are a mystery fan. There you can find links to her newsletter and blogs. Definitely worth the visit.

So what is the Premio Dardos Award?

"The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.”
Dardos winners must do the following: 1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person who has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2) Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award."

I did not want to pass on the award frivolously so I really thought long and hard about what pleases me in a blog. I came to the realization that a spirit of generosity and joie de vivre were the important factors for me.

So my Premio Dardos nominees are:

In Wales:
An Artist's Garden

In Sweden:
RosesansStuff

In California:
tulipsinthewoods.com

And in my own Garden State of New Jersey:
will work for fabrics
&
my dearest friend, Marta's gardening blogs.
Two addresses for this one because of a recent spring-induced migration. I do not want you to miss access to the older posts. Marta McDowell & Chickweeds

As a web experiment I took the liberty of updating the Premio Dardos image. I searched for the highest resolution file on the web, did a bit of modification most important of which was to add the current year and to change the typeface of the title which had become quite deteriorated by the time I received it. It will be fun to open up the possibility of seeing this particular mutation show up unexpectedly someday.

My Travels with Miranda

A fortnight ago I had the pleasure of making a business trip cross-country with a new acquaintance. By the end of the 6-hour plane ride, I knew we were going to be fast friends.
The next couple of days at the presentation and during the trade show we were on our way to a life-long friendship.

A lot of you know Joan Hawley, of Lazy Girls Design. I have long admired her bag designs visually and follow her very informative blog every Monday morning. However I had never had my hands on one of her designs to use.

I'm by nature an impatient and demanding bag user. I want a bag to have everything I need, whenever I need it with a minimum of rooting around. I want it to be able to carry all my reading and writing materials, my iPhone, second pair of glasses, wallet, passport case, camera... the list is infinite. When I want anything I want it fast. I want to be able to put down the bag and have her stand up by herself. And above all I don't want the shape of the bag to distribute the weight so badly that my arm is sheared off at the shoulder when carrying it. Miranda by far exceeded all my demands and even anticipated a few I didn't realize I had.


Stuffed!: iPhone, wallet, glass case, my idea corral (see "Stripes Rule!" post), quilting magazines , two books, travel pillow, passport case, and a Runaround bag you can't see because of the angle.

Joan had made me a Miranda Day Bag using the sienna & black colorway of my Sketchbook fabric line that debuts at the coming Spring Quilt Market. We were doing this with the idea of co-promotion at the trade show I was traveling to.

I was carefully wrapping up Miranda into my suitcase when I took a closer look at her and realized that she looked perfect for that long plane ride. So I unstuffed my usual bag and arranged everything into Miranda. Already I could tell Miranda was not just another pretty face. Here was a bag that knew what it took to go the distance.

As it turned out we had an extremely productive and satisfying trip. Miranda garnered compliments all the days we were there and has continued to do so back on the home turf accompanying me on my shopping expeditions. She can even carry my 12" Macbook!


Back at home at the studio meditating upon a successful trip.

And Miranda also loves her little sister Runaround which she carried lovingly and safely all the way across the USA and back. Check out the zipper and thread tutorials Joan has posted starring Runaround also in Sketchbook fabrics on Joan's Lazy Girls Design blog.

And for the readers among you:

You can see this is one of the books that I carried on the plane with me.
Mauve: How one man invented a color that changed the world by Simon Garfield.
Check out the review on Amazon for details. It's a real page-turner for anyone concerned with color. I whipped right through and so has Pamela, my dedicated UrbanAmish pupil. (And she doesn't even get extra credit for it.)

As background for the book shot I used Pamela's current Color Wheel quilt project.
Visit her website if you haven't yet. She has some very exciting color ideas too. (See sidebar for link.)

Don't Drink and Drive! ...or is it Don't Quilt and Drive? ... definitely Don't Drink and Quilt.

The following UrbanAmish cautionary tale is brought to you by Barbie Vanderfleet-Martin, good friend and quiltaholic. I met Barbie through my local quilting guild: Garden State Quilters. The guild is composed of roughly 200 or so of the finest quilting addicts in the middle northern area of New Jersey. Barbie is a very accomplished and out-of-the-box thinking quilter. She owns a longarm which she wields with dextery and finesse. She, along with her good friend Alicia Bell, are the women that keep the guild members supplied with fine quilting-related classes and lectures year round.

UrbanAmish Legend #3 reporting in:

The Amish quilting imperfections are due to their belief that only God is perfect. I believe that too. Although my reasons are very different. I began my first lesson with the intention of beating all by making a quilt in an evening. With my Fabric all selected and cut I was off to the races. I had 16 Indian Hatchet block to put together. Being the advanced quilter ( huh ) I chose to do this without the templates in a flip and sew method.
This would leave me with a number of half square triangles for border option. Thinking ahead I am. Here is the result. Two perfect blocks. We thought only God could do that.


HUH! We thought Barbie could as well. Somehow things got turned around at about the same time My Dear Husband called 'Cocktail Hour'. I now have TWO perfect blocks and 14 to unsew. And how did this happen?

(Editorial comment: Besides saying Huh! a lot Barbie also says Eh? quite frequently. Guess where she's originally from.)


God and the Amish do not drink. I believe this is what makes their designs so perfect. I however do so love a refreshing Caesar and hours of some very interesting sewing. I am not perfect but know how to have a good time.


At about this time I switched to red wine. The quilt was left until the morning after........

Caesar recipe:
Rim glass with celery salt.

• 1oz vodka
• a bunch of ice
• top up with Clamato juice
• a shake of tobasco
• a stir stick of celery stalk and a twist of lemon

A clear-headed but unrepentant Barbie did manage to turn it all around to face the right way the next day. Here's her India Hatchet top. I must say I was very pleased to see an older fabric design of mine used for the focus fabric. And I love the fabrics that she chose as complements. She created a very exciting multidirectional flow with her fabric choices.

The red focus fabric Barbie used is from my Chelsea Morning Collection: Crimson colorway.