Goals

Quilting Among the Groves has been on my mind ever since my first post. I feel as if I have a strong connection to quilts, but what am I going to write about? I decided I would start out with a simple list of projects that I am working on, and make these my goals. I will update about how these projects are coming along and keep a record of the new projects that creep in before these get finished. 

Goal #1. There is this quilt top that I started over the summer. I followed along with some incredible and inspiring ladies; Faith at  Fresh Lemon Quilts, Katie at Swim, Bike, Quilt, and Lee at Freshly Pieced. Piecing the top was a fun adventure, and my gateway back into making quilts. I am currently hand quilting for the first time. I'm finding it to be very relaxing. While it does take time, I am not rushing through it because it is a peaceful process that will be completed in good time.  

This is a test that I made of my idea from some old shirt material.

Here are my pieces cut from freezer paper and ironed to the stripey fabric that I've had for so long.

Next, I stumbled across as group of male quilters called Men Who Quilt that I read about on Molli Sparkles blog. I've been reading tons of other blogs and have lots of inspiration, but it did feel nice to find that there is a group of other men who are making such wonderful things! This leads me to Goal #2. I have had this striped fabric for almost 10 years, but didn't know what to do with it. I have contemplated so many ideas but could never decide. After seeing all of the spectacular creations of the guys from the Men Who Quilt group I decided I too could create figure this fabric out, and just kind of play with the ideas in a more tangible form. 

My dog, Barni, would much rather I be playing ball.

I had to restart some of my seams because the stripes were not in the correct places.

A sneak-peak at my first block for WERQ Bee.

There were some members of the Men Who Quilt group who really wanted to participate in an online bee. (A really nice article about Quilting Bees can be found here.) This has become Goal #3. I joined the WERQ bee to learn some new skills, build some quilt blocks, meet some other quilters, and to just see how much I can learn and grow as a quilter. I will be making different blocks each month for this bee. The grey and turquoise block is a close-up sneak preview of the first block. We've agreed not to reveal the finished blocks until the leader bee has received them.

Finally for Goal #4 I want to continue to learn as a quilter while maintaining creative tenacity in my career as an elementary art teacher. An activity from Generation Q quilts was brought up in discussion at the Men Who Quilt forum to help create different ideas for quilt blocks. Essentially, you download a template that has an unfinished quilt block repeated six times on the page. The unfinished block is a square that has a few pre-drawn lines. You complete the blocks by adding any additional lines and then coloring them in. It's a great way to play with design ideas and to generate multiple ideas. Creating different solutions to the same design problem is one of the concepts that I am really trying to get my students to understand. I can't wait to take this template to school and let the kids play a little. 

My designs for the Generation Q Block Builder activity.

I hope I haven't bored anyone with my ramblings. I'm just trying to make sense of all the quilty things I'm jumping into and hope this list helps me stay focused.

-Jan-Michael