This week Project Quilting Season 14 (2023) has as their very last challenge: Conquer Your Fear They say in their post, “if you only do what’s safe and comfy, you’ll stagnate and grow soft.” I agree. You need to push your boundaries from time to time … and get out of your comfort zone. As you probably know, the challenge is to make a quilted object (any size) from start to finish in one week using the challenge title as your inspiration. And post a photo at their website before the deadline. So, after pondering all the fears that I might want to conquer, I thought about my journey with quilti ..read more

The Project Quilting challenge for this week (Season 14, #3) is “54/40 or Fight”. It’s the name for a traditional quilt block. If you’re interested to find out more about the block, it’s history, or the Project Quilting challenge, click here: Project Quilting The challenge has to be done from beginning to end in one week. I was thinking about using the 54/40 or fight block as the center of a square table topper, making pieces wonky to make it more modern. But my heart wasn’t in it. Nothing seemed to come together. I had just gotten out my set of Derwent Inktense pencils to play with a few days ..read more

So I haven’t painted or drawn on fabric for quite awhile now. And with the snow falling outside, I declare an official “Snow Day” … a day to relax, stay cozy indoors, and “play”. I’ve got my Derwent Inktense 24 box of pencils, a few stiff brushes, some plain white fabric (PTD prepared for dying), freezer paper, and water/aloe vera gel/textile medium and I’m ready to play. For those of you not familiar with these color pencils, once they’re activated with liquid and dry they become permanent. Unlike watercolor or regular color pencils, these pencils have actual ink in them that bonds with the ..read more

When you have an idea in mind for your art quilt, often combining techniques you’ve learned along the way and a little experimentation will help you reach your goal. My goal for this small landscape art quilt was to recreate a scene of our Capitol shown in the distance through the autumn leaves. The fall season is my favorite, and so beautiful at the UW-Madison with the variety of trees and colors. Having worked in the heart of this beautiful campus for many years, I’ve had many opportunities to view it. So how do I begin to reach this goal…where do I start? I cut a base of scrim and a thin wo ..read more

The challenge for this week’s Project Quilting Season 13.2 inspired me: “In Silhouette”. Participants have only a week to begin and finish a quilted item for the challenge, and it took me a few days just to come up with the idea. But once I did get the idea, I was off and running or should I say off and sewing)! I found the perfect fabric for the background from my stash of hand dyed and painted fabric. It reminded me of a sunset. I free motion quilted the background first using a variety of variegated threads. Next I fused Steam-a-Seam 2 onto my black fabric and cut out the shapes and fused ..read more

Ever since I first saw her art work on Quilting Arts TV, and her articles in Quilting Arts Magazine, I’ve dreamed of taking a workshop from Ann Loveless. Well last Saturday that dream came true — thanks to a workshop given by our very own Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Art. So Off I went on a road-trip to historic Cedarburg WI. We were also treated to view the museum’s current exhibition of quilts by artist Victoria Findlay Wolfe The workshop was given in their historic barn. A beautiful space below the museum and gift shop with the original beams exposed, but well lit, cozy, with wonde ..read more

We’ve got mounds of snow outside, temps below zero, and covid all keeping us at home. So when Project Quilting announced it’s challenge theme of Virtual Vacation, I was on board! It was so nice to dream of a vacation while thinking about a quilt to make for the contest. You’d think I’d be dreaming up a vacation to Florida, sunny Hawaii, or some other place warm. But I happened to see a photo on Pinterest of the Bayfield Wisconsin area in our beautiful northern Wisconsin winter, and it reminded me how much I miss our trips up to Lake Superior, and I wished we were there again. Of course I’d wan ..read more

So as you’ve heard me talk about before, Project Quilting is similar to Project Runway–you’re given a challenge & a limited period of time to make it, start to finish…but no one is voted off! It’s the creation of Kim Lapicek with her friend, Trish (AKA Quilt Chicken), and helps take the “cabin fever” out of the middle of winter here…although they have quilters from all over the world entering! This is Season 11, Challenge 2: And the phrase is “Team Colors”. Well, I’m from Wisconsin, so of course (being football season) it’s either the Green Bay Packers or UW Badgers. I happened to have gre ..read more

This week Trish (our challenge designer for Project Quilting) chose PIXEL PLAY for our 10.4 challenge. This week, I’d like you to be inspired by these particles, whether you pixelize a picture, make use of low resolution like 8-bit graphics, or are merely inspired by these hard-working colored boxes. Since I love to work with mosaics, the thought of working with pixels was inspiring. So I’m definitely IN this week. Thanks Trish! I found a website (Pixel Stitch) that will convert a photo to an embroidery pattern made up of squares. Although it’s made for embroidery, it creates a grid of the p ..read more

This is the third challenge in Season 10 of Project Quilting, and the only rule is that it’s “Bigger than a breadbox” … Wikipedia says they’re usually 16″ x 8″ or so, and that’s the MINIMUM size for the completed piece to meet this week’s challenge” … OK, I can do that. I’ve been wanting to challenge myself by: Using a small French linen printed panel I bought at the Madison Quilt Expo Improving my piecing ability Designing it completely on EQ8 (Electric Quilt software) First I got out every red & beige fabric I could find from my stash. I love the fat quarter pack I recently found at th ..read more