Let's Be Social: Socialize

Do you have a shelf full of quilty books and magazines with oodles of projects that you would love to try? I know I do. I also bounce from one idea to another recklessly. This is why I have abandoned my list of projects for the Finish Along over at The Littlest Thistle and have set my quilty bucket list on the back burner! 

The project was featured on the cover of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine July/August 2007. The magazine provides templates to paper piece the compass blocks of a much more complex pieced and appliqued quilt called Sunshine Rose Garden by Kathy Nakajima. 

I feel that I am on a path of quilting discovery. I enjoy paper piecing, I enjoy improvisational piecing, I like both modern and traditional designs. I guess I'm trying to find out how to best utilize these methods, practices and concepts to make what is my own. Adrianne at On The Windy Side posted a great interview fiber artist Chawne at completely cauchy. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I think I needed Chawne in my life. I happened upon her first today while perusing instagram and then as I opened up my blog dashboard, there she was again, the subject of Adrianne's interview! While all of this may be coincidental, I find most surprising that Chawne has perfectly created the quilt that I have been mentally designing for over a year and bravely started setting to paper earlier this morning, but she finished her's in 2012! Why today?

Have you ever had a moment where it feels like the universe is conspiring to lead you down a specific path?

Linking up with Let's Be Social at Sew Fresh Quilts and the lovely Lorna McMahon.

Under-Ruse

There comes a moment when you must take all of the inspiration that has been accumulating inside and putting it into something of your own. I have been learning and playing and having fun recently with all sorts of quilty ideas. I love inputting information and thinking about, but I've reached a breaking point and had to create something. Mostly I've recently been inspired by Carolyn Friedlander and her beautiful fabrics and paper pieced quilt patterns. I wanted to create my own paper pieced pattern so I could learn how it all works. I remember an art professor in college telling us that when we are lost on visual ideas we should draw the clothes on our bedroom floor. 

So I started with a couple of drawings. I scanned the top drawing to my computer and used Photoshop to clean up the drawing and alter some of the measurements. After a weekend of tweaking, testing, redrawing, enlarging, and tweaking some more I think I have finally made a pattern that works well.

I'm calling the pattern "Under-Ruse." It creates a block that is 9 1/2" square, or 9" with a 1/4" seam allowance all around. It includes four separate pieces on two pages that combine together to create the block pictured above.

 The file is in two parts. Follow the links to find both pages. Page 1 and Page 2.

I am happy to share this pattern with you. Please let me know if you find any mistakes or have suggestions. I look forward to seeing your creations! 

I'm linking up with the Paper Piecing Link Up at Quilt Art Designs!