April Full Moon Dreaming

April's Full Pink Moon 

Jamie Ridler's prompt:

"What Dreams is it time to tend?"

I was ready for this month. Excited even! When I read the prompt at the new moon I was nervous and then I tried to focus on being ready.

This all may seem like 'woo woo' to some of you - others will find it an even more sacred ritual than I do. I'm sharing this on my blog because being creative isn't always an outside job. {I mistyped an outside 'joy'!}

Doubt creeps in to any process - to most lives. What should I do with my life? What quilt should I make next? Should I tell her I'm sorry?

Creating sustains me. I have been awed by what this commitment to creating a dreamboard each month has done for me. Firstly, it's given me a monthly timeline for reflecting and refocusing my energy on moving forward, expanding as an individual - which delightfully comes out in my quilting! It's also brought me back in touch with the natural, organic rhythm of life and intuition.

I'm going to add comments on my Dreamboard page to highlight what things came out of each dreamboard. At least the things that I could connect to each one! The practice builds on itself and I can only imagine with joy what my April Dreamboard will encompass next year!

Back to this month's board. . .

I struggled a bit to choose what should be on it. Nothing new here. After sitting with it for a bit I realized it needed more words - words to be the guidance. Usually I evoke meaning from the images.

The center has my curiosity aroused - one of what?

My sense of playfulness with words is reappearing. 

The stack of fabrics in the bottom leftt is connected to the phrase 'Healthy Diet' - a diet of fresh fabrics sounds yummy!

The red phone and the phrase "It's not complicated" remind me of the one free call for help contestants could receive on the millionaire show with Regis Philbin. 

It's not complicated - I can ask for help.

The word "create" and the clocks go together. I was introduced to this event through an email newsletter and having these images show up in my dreamboard reaffirms my initial sense that this event would have some meaning for me.

The yellow backdropped dollar sign and the phrase "Believe You can find sanctuary in the sky" go together. Not sure if these means picking winning lottery numbers out of thin air, but I might try!

These are just my beginning thoughts after connecting with this board. I love the surprise of the frame matching and highlighting the stamps in this photo. The colors for the frame were the defaults when I selected it in iPiccy.com.

Lots of fun waiting for me under the Pink Full Moon.

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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Five 15s

My Easter tabletopper is ready and waiting. . . and waiting to be quilted. 

I am home from work today and no excuses. 

Just need to go and buy milk.

Write a cheque.

Mail the cheque.

Decide on Easter dinner.

Sweep kitchen floor.

Okay, okay, you get the idea! I can get THIS close to finishing and stop in my tracks.

My solution this time around?

Five 15s.

Five segments of 15 minutes at the machine.

I figure if I can trick my mind into five 15s, I just might keep going!

Wish me luck!

Tell me how do you get projects completed?

 Just in case my latest attempt fails

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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Making from Stash in March

My design wall has been full for a week. Time to blog about it and take it all down!

 

I gave in to the *S* blocks! They are now my leaders and enders project. So far I've only been sewing together leftover hsts. I can't wait to start some new projects and play with some new scraps!

 

This is the only BOM that I started this year - and I'm almost done! It's a mini quilt from Temecula Quilts and there's only one more block. I should be finished this one pretty soon. No leftover hsts here though - the squares are 1 7/8 inches then cut in half. That's getting way too tiny for me to reuse!

I also took some time recently to play with my Eat with Joy placemat pattern. All of the pieces of the blocks are made out of 5 inch charms. I used some long loved fabric from my stash. These were the colors and types of fabrics I bought when I first started quilting. It could have something to do with the infamous blue and yellow star quilt made by Alex Anderson.

Then I played with some Christmas charms and made another placemat. This time even the borders are made from charm squares. I think this design would work better with a charm pack where all the prints coordinate. Or using multiple charms of a couple of fabrics. i do like how the Santa prints sit in the design.


Now my wall is empty again as I start to work on finishing some small projects.


With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Design of the Joy Quilt

This is the second design process post for the Joy Quilt. The first post is here.

This is the theme fabric for the quilt.
I'm using it for color cues as well inspiration for the design.

This is what I've come up with for the design of the quilt. 

The middle will be a panel made up of two trees that echo the design of the ones on the theme fabric. I'm thinking about using a solid burgundy fabric to make a bias applique edge around the trees to highlight them like on the theme fabric. {I'm a little nervous about this idea!}
 The panel will be bordered on all sides by my Joy Framed block, some with an appliqued daisy and the remaining blocks with the theme fabric fussy cut in the centers.

My idea for the background of the panel  has already changed - twice!

Idea #1
First I was thinking to make the whole quilt have a background. I was going to use this Denyse Schmidt dot fabric as the panel background and behind the applique daisies.
I was really trying to think of a modern, stream-lined look for the quilt. Not too many fabrics, large scale geometrics and solids.
I thought about using the fat quarters we already have in the corners of the Joy Framed blocks and the Denyse Schmidt dots as the background.

Idea #2
Then I thought the dots might look too busy behind the trees - take away from them as the middle of the panel. I did a little bit of number scribbling and figured out I could use 7 fat quarters to make enough 6 inch squares to build the background of the panel. Then I would use the dot fabric in the background of the Joy Framed blocks - basically switch the design around. 

Then I asked my daughter what she wanted.

A traditional quilt.
What does she mean by traditional? Scrappy!
 Lots of different fabrics.
Blocks made up of lots of pieces.


The Current Idea!
Buy more fat quarters!  LOL!

The plan now is to make the background AND the corner squares out of fat quarters.
I'm planning to make the stars of the Joy Framed blocks all in solid colors - and that might change to just one or two colors.


My daughter also wants LOTS of the lime green. I think the quilt is starting to look like a pink quilt. Not a bad thing, but - it's definitely different from a lime green quilt. I'm trying to remedy this situation by using some lime green prints on the back. And the applique daisy block centers will probably be lime green too - Kona Solid Zucchini green to be exact!

Oh, and the large rectangle beneath the trees on the panel will be the Amy Butler lime green print. The little triangles are for Prairie Points to make the grass look 3D - another request from my daughter.

One other thing that I'm thinking about changing is having all of the applique daisy blocks at the bottom of the quilt - so the flowers look like they are in the grass instead of scattered around the quilt.

That might change again too!

There are two more things I want to add from a design perspective:

• more blue

• an applique butterfly on the panel similar to the ones in the theme fabric

Next time I'll show you some more of the fat quarters that I've been buying for this quilt.

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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