Modern Quilting

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There’s been a lot of inspiring talk about modern quilting going on lately! I’m longing for a copy of The Modern Quilt Workshop: Patterns, Techniques, and Designs From the FunQuilts Studio by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle. It just seems that with this book and the soon to be released book by Denyse Schmidt, that there will finally be some better reference for people who are interested in more than just traditional quilt design.
I’m so inspired by many of these contemporary quilters. Of course I love to look at Denyse Schmidt’s and the Fun Quilt’s designs for possible new ideas. I also love the simplicity of Lori Mason’s quilts, and the idea of using textiles like linen and wool to replace ordinary cotton.
Lori Mason’s–Signal, linen

Signal, by Lori Mason

I also recently discovered BeBeBold Quilts, based in Australia. They do a little more traditional design, but varied with modern elements. Some look like they could have been made in 1900, or last week–awsome.

Wool Is Wonderful

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Despite being a perfect weather week to work on quilting, I’ve done nothing but knit since Monday. I finshed my felted bag (not really mine, it’s actually a belated birthday gift for my friend, Kate) in less than five days, since it was pretty much the only thing I did this week. It turned out great though!

Birthday Bag

(See my pretty lilies in the back? I did gardening this week too!)
I bought enough black wool to make one for myself too–mine will have pink stripes instead though. I need to have a knitting break for a few days first.
To anyone concerned that I’ve gone over to the knitting darkside for good though: it’s just easier to tote a knitting project to my work this summer (I have a lot of downtime there) instead of the queen sized quilt in progress. Sometimes (and I’m sure there are a lot of quilters who agree with me) I just have to take a break from my big projects, since they do consume so much of my time. I don’t have to have the wedding quilt finished until October 8th (and then you both are getting MARRIED, Laura and Steve!!!) and I just don’t feel like I should burn myself out on it!
No way will I ever give up the quilting.

New Poncho

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Since it’s been 85 degrees and over for what feels like forever, I’ve been knitting instead of quilting lately. The nice thing about knitting is that unlike quilting, I can have a major project finished in a couple of weeks if I put my mind to it. It’s just impossible to do that with quilting. To keep myself busy, I made this poncho:

Knit Poncho

While I was working on it, Ben asked why I would ever want to work on a sweater on a 90 degree day in June. At the time, my answer was that it was too hot to sew, and that I was making it to wear in the fall. Unfortunatly, I want to wear it now, despite being so hot that I would die while wearing it.
And until the heat breaks a little more, I’m going to be doing more knitting. My friend gave me a pattern for a bag that she’s already made, and I’m going to make one for myself and one for a friend’s birthday. For Kate’s I’m using a dark gray and bright blue wool.
Felted Bag Yarn

I’m excited to get the first one started, but I really do want to get back to my quilting too (the hot weather is supposed to get better by Wednesday–yay!). But, being that this is primarly a quilting blog (and since I like to write about quilting and not other random things) I’ve been slow on the news this last month. I’d rather have quality things to say about my blog’s topic, rather than blathering junk. Some people may have more interesting lives, or have the ablity to make their lives seem that way, but I’m just not about that here. So please don’t give up on my blog, friends, I just haven’t had anything too interesting to say lately! 🙂