I shared the first three weeks of my Hue Year’s Resolution Project a few weeks ago. The project encourages artists to start the new year by creating five small weekly projects focusing on a single color. This project is Instagram-based and involves all types of visual artists. I shared my red, orange, and yellow creations in the first post. Today, I am sharing my micro-mini quilts featuring green, blue, and purple. My Project Parameters I already have my 100-day project, so I wanted to be careful in managing my time and personal expectations for this project. In other words, keep it small, fun ..read more

The Columbus Museum of Art recently held a quilt-focused exhibit entitled Quilting a Future: Contemporary Quilts and American Tradition. Last week, I shared five quilts that stood out in a sea of fantastic textile art. Today, I’m sharing my thoughts on the overall exhibit. As always, everything in this post is my opinion, so take what you will from it. A wall of quilts from the Quilting a Future Exhibit at the Columbus Museum of ArtCreating a Space that Tells a Story When I walk into any museum exhibit, I expect guidance from the flow created by how the curator places the artwork and the story ..read more

Quilting a Future: Contemporary Quilts and American Tradition recently closed at the Columbus Museum of Art here in Central Ohio, and I was fortunate to visit the exhibit a couple of times during its run. I have lots of thoughts still running through my head about the exhibit as a whole, but today I would like to share with you five of my favorite quilts in the exhibition. It was hard to narrow down my choices, but here are the five quilts I don’t want you to miss! Nothin’ Simple by Mensie Lee Pettway What I like about the quilt: Fabric Texture: Velvet and corduroy for the win! The fabric tex ..read more

The beginning of the year brings calls to join many fun and inspiring challenges. Since I dive heavily into my 100-day project at the beginning of each January, I rarely participate in any other challenges. However, I was intrigued when I heard about Hue Year’s Resolution. I love color play, and this sounded like an excellent opportunity to do some low-stakes color exploration. The official goal is to use any medium to create five pieces of artwork a week for six weeks. Each week has a color theme, starting with red, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Each artist chooses what ..read more

Have you finished a quilt or project recently? We all want to see it! This week I am hosting TGIFF (Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday), and you can share your recent finish in the link up at the end of this post. My recent finish is a mini-quilt, Tipsy, that is inspired by the Pantone Color of the Year, Viva Magenta! You can read more about it, or keep scrolling to get to the awesome link up at the end of the post! Tipsy Mini Quilt: 18″ x 18″I do love a challenge! Inspiration for Tipsy The Pantone Quilt Challenge is back this year and is now hosted by Sarah Ruiz and Elizabeth Ray. I love a c ..read more

I am honored to be an Aurifil Artisan for the second year, and I am particularly excited to participate in a series of challenges that showcase the way their thread is used.  The first challenge is to use our welcome pack of thread to create something new.  (We were actually asked to try a different thread weight, but I have already used them all on previous projects!)  I decided to create a mini quilt that is mounted on an artist’s canvas.  I have been wanting to try something like this for awhile, and this was the perfect opportunity for some experimentation. My thread c ..read more

The Topiary Garden in Columbus, Ohio is situated behind the Main Library and provides a lovely outdoor counterpart to the building.  This month’s block highlights this unique park. Walking paths wind around the gardens with carefully sculpted plant structures.  This month’s block depicts a common topiary shape in a pottery planter. This garden is most known for the topiary depiction of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The figures are positioned looking over the pond, and allow you to see this recognizable image from many perspectives.  At the top of ..read more

This year’s block of the month is my best pattern yet- at least I think it is! This is my third year designing a block of the month for Dabble and Stitch in Columbus, Ohio, and the animal theme is proving to be a hit! UPDATE: The Zoo Family Portrait Quilt Pattern is now available exclusively as a PDF download. Purchase the Zoo Family Portrait pattern here! The quilt is designed using photographs I have taken at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium over the course of four years.  If I was lucky, each zoo visit would yield one or two good animal photos, and I ultimately ended up with about two do ..read more

2020 was the year that almost everything was canceled, but I did have one phenomenal experience that summer- An artist residency on Mackinac Island in Michigan. As part of the residency, each participant donates a piece of their Mackinac inspired work to the art museum on the island. Since this quilt is now at it’s forever home, it won’t be seen at any shows, so I am excited that I can now share the finished piece with you! Mackinac Island is situated in the Great Lakes between the Northern and Southern sections of Michigan. There are no cars permitted on the island, so you arrive by ferry an ..read more

Another ten days have passed, and ten more blocks of my 100 Hexagons are finished!  With this batch, I attempted to make a few blocks that are lower contrast and/or incorporate fewer pieces. This will hopefully provide some areas in the finished composition where the eye can rest. A major design component of these hexagons is the narrow pieced slivers of fabrics. Most of the hexagons in this project have incorporated at least one of these slivers, and many have more than one.  The sliver inserts finish at 1/8″ wide, and I thought that today I would show you how I add these design fe ..read more