The Patchwork Pearl

I bet you non-quilters out there did not know that there is such a thing - yes, there is.  According to Pantone, the world leader in color matching systems - it’s Turquoise. Remember Turquoise- other wise known as my favorite color! It’ll still be my favorite next year, but in the meantime, I’ll be able to buy more shirts, necklaces - you name it. It’s even made it’s way tastfully into my screen porch, and other unusual places. 

It’s New England, and although my toes don’t usually see the light of day in February, it illustrates my point that a girls gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

I am taking a new class this weekend - one I’ve been looking forward to for several months, and that feeds into this in interesting ways.  My comfort zone for quilting tends to run to the warm tones - and I made a promise to myself that for this project I was going to step outside my comfort zone and work with colors are NOT warm tones.  The fabric pull started with this one…

and continued on from there - I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I frequently look at many sources of information in prepping this blog - I try to pull from the creative side of the business as well as the business side of creative, if that makes any sense.  As a micro business owner in this space, I’m trying to give you snippets of information that I believe will make your life easier, if not today - the someday.

I have come across a blog that I would like you to seriously take a look at  a blog by Coree Silvera, Market Like a Chick. She’s funny, she’s savvy - and she looks to be a great guide to the world of social media, which is becoming more important with each passing day. Her blog link is here (and added to the blog roll at the right). www.marketlikeachick.com.  It’s a catchy name - and one you’ll remember.

The recession may - or may not - be over, depending on who you speak with.  Quilters are still using their stashes up, and more and more patterns are being adapted to a scrappy look. The brick and mortar stores are having to compete even harder for their customer’s dollar. Why not enlist every possible advantage in the fight.

Do yourself a favor, pour a cup of coffee, and check this one out. You’ll most likely look at things diffently.

Til next time…

Linda

Every once in a while, I stumble across something in a magazine (or on the web) that just makes me realize how computer literate I’m not. For a micro-business owner, I do fairly well, but stretching outside my comfort zone is not for the faint of heart. Ask my webmistress! I have a cell phone, and it’s a nice one -but it’s not super high tech; I don’t email, twitter, text, record - it has a camera, somewhere. I talk - and it does the job. My carrier isn’t iphone compatable, so while I have a passing knowledge that ‘apps’ exist, I’m not familiar with them.

When I opened my new issue of “Quilt Retailed” yesterday, one little article caught my eye. C&T publishing has come out with a new app which will let you figure yardage for a quilt - I’m assuming in a shop. That intrigued me - so I went online to do a little research.

The iphone was introduced in mid-2008 (according to my research); at the present time, there are at least a dozen (or so) different apps targeted to quilters. The developers of those apps found a market - or created one -and found another way to leverage technology in a completely new application.  While this isn’t (yet) an innovation such as the rotary cutter, who knows where it’ll be in a year.

Speaking of technology, The Patchwork Pearl now has a page on Facebook. Become a fan of mine, and  tell me about your favorite apps.

(I’m still working on integrating the two - so please be patient with me).

Linda

Over the course of the fall, Mike and I (well, mostly Mike) moved the Patchwork Pearl  into the second bedroom at home - Andy still has a room here, but this is a better use of the space.  I thought I’d share some of the pictures I have.

Someday, I’ll figure out how to post the blog around the photos. Anyway, here’s the new office space - I joke that Mr. Craig - the one who owns the List - did the room over. And this wall color is definitely a happy, cheerful place. I really like it.

 See, the yellow almost acts like a neutral here. I never liked the Blooms as much as I do there.  The bulletin board - waay more work than it should have been…lesson learned.

Behind that curtain is most of my stash - and it’s one of the things I like the most about the room.  I can really see the colors - and how much you have!! And it turned out to be a great display place for the Featherweight.

Mike had been afraid that I wouldn’t find room for everything in the smaller closet.  Wrong…now to whittle down some of the stash and finish a UFO - or 6 along the way.  This feels like a very relaxing room to work in - and I’ve already been warned that this is the end of the line for my upsizing.

Like many of you, I love the beginning of the year - the chance to look out at the new, clean pages of a calendar  - there are no unfinished to-do lists, no “I shoulds”, just endless possibilities out there.  As sometimes happens, last year I took more than a few left turns on the road of life. As I was cleaning up the debris - which is exactly what it felt like! - I became more determined to claw my way back here.  And so we begin…

I can tell you that new beginnings, laid out so crisply either on a page (or heaven help me, a spreadsheet) are only the jumping off point. As entrepreneurs, we also often  called upon to evaluate new ideas and ventures before they are completely fleshed out.  If we were content to follow the status quo, we wouldn’t be business owners.  Taking risks - the road less traveled - is what gets us into the studio early in the mornings or late into the evening.

Check back here on Monday’s to read the One Quilting Circle entries, and on Thursdays, you can see my projects unfold. I’m hoping once again to spend the time completing some of the projects in my oh - so - organized new studio closet.  I’m thinking of giving you the tour on Thursday…

Off to work my one seam at a time magic!!

My younger son came home from college the other day to do laundry. He casually asked me if I could take a look at the quilt he brought home to see if I could fix it.

I should say a few things in my defense - it was made in ‘95, it’s been years since I saw it - college years, which is a little like dog years when you’re talking about a quilt - and he has a really nice, professionally quilted quilt on his bed here at home - I wanted that quilt to survive his college years. Now I know why.

I have wonderful memories of starting this quilt one snowy New Years Day, with my ’shadow’ attached to me at the hip. Back then, he  was almost literally attached. I remember getting all the star blocks finished, pinning them to my sheet/design wall, going down to make cocoa for us both, and then just sitting there watching him study the pattern. I think that if this one were in tatters,  I could never part with it - and now that the shadow is 21 and thinking ahead to graduation, I’m never going to live that down!!

The background was made from his naptime pillowcase at daycare- their mats were plastic, and the daycare asked us for pillowcases to cover them with at naptime. I made Andy’s - and used it later in the quilt.

Enough nostalgia - there’s a cold winter coming here in NH, and he’s going to need something to keep him warm. So what to do? I’ve decided that the easiest way  - at least for me in the shortterm, is to make a duvet cover for it. I’ll put the worn part down at the bottom, and then tie the layers together.

The batting is still in relatively good shape, and we’ll see how it goes…

Hopefully, I’ve spent the time away from here wisely - revamping the formats here and there, and getting re-energized. I am happy to say that Summer finally arrived last week in New England. We won’t go into the fact that it was several weeks behind schedule - I’m just glad it showed up. One Quilting Circle will now appear on Monday nights; it seems to make more sense that way.  My other blog posts - which will be a little more random - will appear through the week. Let me know if this new format is something that you find helpful.

I had the chance to attend a networking event 10 days ago, which was hosted by our local chapter of EWomennetwork.com. It was my first opportunity to attend one of their events, and the speaker for the evening was Sandra Yancey, the founder and CEO who flew into Mass for this event.  If you’re  looking to be inspired as to what it means to be a woman entrepreneur in business today,  I’ve got two google searches for you - ‘Glow Project’ and ‘Diva Toolbox’.  It’ll be an interesting hour, I promise you.

To answer your question, no I didn’t make any immediate contacts. Mention quilting in a room of business people, and they generally don’t know what to make of you. But, if you just put that aside, and aren’t intimidated by the rapid fire networking of something like this - you can learn a lot about how to make your business grow.

To my right at the dinner was a woman who runs a small business center; and we were talking about the toll that stress is taking on women in this new economic paradigm; a lot of women who didn’t set out to be the breadwinners are finding themselves in that role, and there is a lot of stress out there.  Well, there’s always been a lot of stress, but the current environment has taken that to a new level. She made the point that quilting is a great way to combat stress.

Which made me start to think about all kinds of new marketing angles to this - targeting small, easy to complete projects (Bags, anyone??) as a way to get away from the cares of the world for a few hours. A little like a mini-vacation, just without the palm trees and umbrella drinks.  Bags, placemats/runners, vests all are easy introductions to quilting…and you get the two-fer that you can make it again (and again and again) as  gifts.  Have you - whether you’re a shop owner, designer, quilter, ever thought of doing a small presentaton/table at an event like this - but emphasizing the creative and de-stressing aspects of the process? It’s not always about the five year long project.  Offer a free class - or better yet, a fat quarter or two as a raffle or door prize.

It’s another way to step out side your comfot zone.

Summer time happened, at least on the calendar this year. In New England, not too much with the weather.  I’ve made a decision - employing a tactic used often on my sons; when you have a very large task ahead, start with a single step; once that’s done, then you worry about another.

The task, my friends, is regaining my balance with The Patchwork Pearl. There’s lots of fun on the boards (and in the planning stages) - some would say almost too much, and I have found myself stuck - the paralysis of waay too much to do.  I have taken a breath, made a list, revamped it several times, and started learning to say no. I’m confident that I’ll be dug out by the next Presidential election.

But dug out or not, there’s been tons doing. I have almost finished the retreat quilt - the one that’s made an annual appearance at the farm for 3 years running.

It came back from the longarmer last weekend, and there’s just the finish work left. This one is for our family room, and wound up with the unlikely title “Colors of my Sunset”.  (I was filling out the form for our annual guild show, and I had to call it something).

I’ve been pondering what to work on next - never mind the tons of UFOs I have left in the closet. I think that the next project will include my favorite fabric, picked up on one of my last trips to Las Vegas…it is, of course, tourquoise.

That’s a pair of jeans that I have to patch for a friend; I think she ripped them just to get me to add this fabric to her jeans.

More coming soon - One Quilting Circle will now appear on Monday mornings/Sunday nights…

What have you been up to? 

Well, this has been an extended LOA, for which I apologize. The blogs will be back in a revamped style beginning in June. Don’t eat too many hamburgers!

Well, we’re back from another long weekend at the guild’s annual spring retreat, and I’ve almost caught up on sleep - and detoxed from the chocolate bar. I went up on Thursday afternoon, so I got another whole day out of it.

This is my answer to the guild’s latest challenge - the Crayon Challenge. One of my firends has another name for it, but we’ll go into that later.  This quilt - small as it is - is for me an illustration as to why I love the retreats so much.  Although it’s small is scale, it’s represents a major milestone for me in free motion - and it’s something that I never would have attempted without the support of the other quilters.

Before Friday, I’d never even considered doing bobbin work. However, given the strict construction of the challenge rules, the only thread that I had with me that fit the color was Ricky Tims Razzle Dazzle.  I’m still  not sure why I had that in my thread case, but we don’t know where Jimmy Hoffa wound up either.

I wasn’t even deterred when one of my quilting buddies - a far more proficient quilter than I - asked doubtfully “are you sure you want to do this?”… My logic is that if I was ever going to try this, this was the time and the place. Left alone at home, this would have been roadkill an hour into this.

Four plus hours later - which is partially me, partially the thread - we had the quilt you see above.  It dawned on me shortly into this that with this thread, you were definitely going to notice the quilting - so I had to beware of my amoeba-itis tendency.

My firends now know most of my vocabulary of off -color words, and I know that if you stick with something, and you’re encouraged, you can do almost anything.

Does anybody want a used spool of Razzle Dazzle?