Quilty Inspiration #11

When you're itching to start a new quilt how do you decide what quilt to make?  How do you decide on fabrics, block pattern, colors?

Maybe you're a person who, when partway finished with a quilt, already has an idea for the next quilt -- and starts it?  Or maybe you have a stockpile of ideas for quilts you want to create?  Did the idea for the next quilt evolve from the one you were working on?  Or maybe you saw a photo in a magazine, a book, a blog, or pinterest?

How did you decide the quilting pattern for your quilt?  Was it based on the pattern of the quilt -- in the ditch, outline, or something else?

Are you inspired to begin a quilt because of free patterns like Cheri's, Lori's, or Jeni's; or a link-up like Audrey's?  Or maybe you follow one of Barbara's blogs in which she offers year-long suggestions?  Maybe you love vintage and/or antique quilts and they inspire you.  Or modern quilts.  For any of those you choose your own fabrics, colors, and make decisions along the way because of what I think of as inspiration.

There are probably as many ways to be inspired while we're quilting as there are quilters.  I hope you'll link your post that mentions your decisions as you begin and continue to work on a quilt.

My inspiration for the week comes from a stack of yellow fabric (because I must get it out of my house - least favorite color!) and this quilt (love those red and white stripes), which was inspired by this quilt.  I'm looking forward to seeing how (and when) it progresses.

Now it's your turn to share your quilty inspiration.

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #10

Several kind and generous followers of this link-up (thank you for your support!) have encouraged me to keep Quilty Inspiration going a little longer, so we're back again this week.

If you have any interest at all in sharing the inspiration for the quilts you make, either before you choose and cut fabric or during the process of creating the quilt, or if you are interested in reading about the quilty inspiration of others, please leave a comment.  Better yet, please write a post and link up.  Those of us who are interested will thank you.  (And please help spread the word!)

My inspiration to share this week comes from the book, Small Quilts with Vintage Charm:  8 Project to Decorate Your Home, by Jo Morton, which I looked at several years ago.  I don't remember any of the quilts in the book (I'm sorry to admit) so it was much less the patterns than the color palette she used that caught and held my attention. 

I pulled out and matched paint chips (instead of pulling out fabric because I knew I wouldn't be working on a quilt with those fabrics for quite a while).  The chips don't match exactly, but I knew fabric wouldn't match exactly, either. 

A few weeks ago I pulled a few pieces of fabric (without looking at the photo above) to use on scrappy backgrounds that I posted about in Quilty Inspiration #7 and Quilty Inspiration #9.

I like these fabrics together but I may not use all or them and I've already added several more.  I never feel the need to have the exact fabrics that inspire me.

That's the great thing about inspiration:  if we keep working/playing, it keeps coming and someone else's idea alters to become our own work.

What's your quilty inspiration this week?  Please share and invite your blogging friends to share, too.

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #9

A few months ago I fell in love with Linda's daisy blocks (here and here) at koka quilts.  Go look -- you'll need to scroll down a few images -- and then come back.  Aren't those blocks to make your heart sing?

I kept thinking about them but didn't have the templates, didn't want to buy them, and didn't want to stitch them.  How to make that shape some other way?  Why not make a template and cut from a single piece of fabric?  So I began.

I stitched the shapes onto the scrappy backgrounds I've been putting together.  (I don't love applique but it perfect when one doesn't have the energy to do more than sit.)

I think of these as flowers.  I have only nine so far and haven't stitched anything onto the centers.  I'm just playing....  (Heck, I think of most of my quilting efforts as play!)

It's amazing to me how ideas settle in my mind, change, evolve over time, and become similar to the original but with a twist.  Inspiration sometimes works that way for me.  How about you?  What've you been up to this week?  Link up and share your inspiration!

(I'm linking this post to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

An InLinkz Link-up

P.S.  This may be the last Quilty Inspiration link-up.  The number of people reading the Quilty Inspiration posts here is declining by the week.  Fewer and fewer readers are clicking to look at the posts others have linked, and even fewer bloggers have linked their posts.  (Thank you to those who have:  Ann Marie, Allison, Linda, Linda, Lori, Claire, Audrey, Sandra, and Karin!  I appreciate the support.)  I understand that quilters may not think about or share their inspiration in their posts, and most of those who do haven't linked their posts.  If I discontinue now perhaps I'll pick it up again sometime in the future.  Maybe I need more readers/followers....

Quilty Inspiration #8

Doesn't this speak to you of a quilt? 

Quilt blocks in concentric squares are common but I don't believe I've seen one with squares inside rectangles. 

I'm not keen on all the colors but some of the color combinations are calling to me.

What's your quilty inspiration these days?  I hope you'll tell your readers and link your post.

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #7

I had (and still have most of) this pile of light scraps.  I knew I had to either pitch them or use them.

Images of quilts from these two books came to mind.

Some of the blocks use several different background fabrics.  Hmmm. 

And then these came about.  I determined not to cut the scraps any smaller than necessary to include them in a block.  I will use them as close to the size they are as I can.

These collaged sheets of fabric will become background squares for applique (which I haven't yet started stitching so I won't show you).

It's interesting to me how our minds gather ideas from various sources (sometimes while we are unaware) then put them together to create something completely different or, sometimes, something similar but different.  Maybe that's part of what creative inspiration is.

Now it's your turn to share some bit of quilty inspiration.  I hope you will!  (This link-up is open until Thursday evening.)

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #6 - A Recent Quilt

What was your inspiration for the last quilt you made or the quilt you're working on now?

I will soon be able to put a binding on a quilt I call "Dark Strings."

My inspiration for the quilt was a basket of strings sitting by my sewing machine and the quilt "Snowball Strip" in 101 Fabulous Rotary-Cut Quilts by Judy Hopkins and Nancy J. Martin.

Since I didn't want a light quilt and since didn't have the fabric to make one exactly like this one, I chose the colors, the size of the blocks, and the corner triangles based on the the fabric I had available.

If you're feeling uninspired you might like to read Diane's post, Quilter's Blocks:  the do's and don'ts, at Butterfly Threads.  Be sure to read the comments, too.

I hope you'll share a post about the inspiration for a recent quilt.

An InLinkz Link-up
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--Nancy.
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Quilty Inspiration #5 - From Many Sources

What inspires you when you quilt?  This week I'm highlighting quilty inspiration others have shared over the past few weeks (without copying their images so as not to violate copyright).

• Lori created a delightful small quilt-along and shared the inspiration quilt that started it.
• Ann Marie made a beautiful quilt inspired by a rug.  In another post she showed a piece of fabric that inspired a delightful baby quilt.  And in a third post she discussed how the lack of enough fabric can be inspiration.
• For Linda the process of creating and auditioning quilt blocks inspired changes along the way.
• The colors in Claire's sunset photograph have inspired her to pull out some fabrics she's set aside for a quilt.  I hope she continues to link so we can see the quilt in progress and finished.
• Audrey's amazing quilt was inspired by a traumatic personal experience.
• Allison's inspiration (and perhaps ours, too) is a story about a donation quilt, given during a time of need and still cherished these many years later.

As for me?  Paintings inspire in the use of some colors together, or some colors now (instead of later or never).

Won't you join us and share your quilty inspiration?  The link-up is open until 10:00 p.m., Thursday, October 29.

A Few Rules for Quilty Inspiration

• Link a blog post (not your homepage) in which you've shared either a source of inspiration to begin a quilt, during the process, and/or the results of some inspiration and a bit about your creative process.  (I'm sorry but Instagram photos just don't offer enough substance for this link-up.)
• Link the url for the post, not the url for your blog.
• Please mention and link back to this post in your own blog post.  You can use the button below (copy the code) or use a text link.
• Visit at least several other participants and leave comments on their posts.

<div class="Share-Your-Quilty-Inspiration" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="http://www.joyforgrace.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGWOu_1YW1OijA6Li_GCh1qq7EuVoGKBgCIJF2GFw1Pv-1m8DvOB3Rwnokb3Aip5MUgsLt4Qf1wHnh_7vCMWuUBHUymwp9-TvkpgcWHS8efQgMywXy_rPCvSlKxD5-1Zf3lCZVSDF7-k/s150-Ic42/QI-print1-%252520150%252520black%252520letters.jpg" alt="Share Your Quilty Inspiration" width="150" height="128" /> </a> </div>

An InLinkz Link-up

--Nancy.
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Quilty Inspiration #4

A few weeks ago my husband was sitting at the kitchen table reading The New York Times.  I walked into the kitchen from the other end and, though further away than this photo, this is what I saw.

The red strips that caught my eye.  My first thought was that one of the galleries in NYC had a quilt exhibit and was either advertising it or The Times was doing an article about a quilt exhibit.

I asked my husband, "Oh, is that a quilt?"
"Where?" he asked.
"On the page there in front of you, the photo with red stripes."
"No, it's an article...."  I immediately lost interest when I knew it wasn't a quilt.

Still, the image stuck with me.  In my memory, the red stripes and the darker stripes were equally wide.  In my mind I began to create a quilt with fabric scraps sewn into long strips alternating with red strips.  Maybe I will create a very scrappy strip quilt one of these days.

I don't know about you but I receive way more inspiration for quilts that I will ever have time to create.  Life's too short and I'm too slow.  Still, I make a note of the ideas that come along.

Do you have quilty inspiration to share?  An idea that came (maybe out of nowhere!), an image or quilt you saw, perhaps a quilt you're working on that "told" you to do something other than what you had originally planned?  If so, please link your post below.  Link any post with your ideas or experiences with inspiration for a quilt.  Through Thursday, October 22, 2015.

--Nancy.

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #3 - Butter & Geraniums

Just a Note:  Quilty Inspiration runs from Saturday evening around 10:00 p.m. until Thursday at 10:00 p.m.  If you don't have a post ready to link, please know that you have a few days to create one.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sometimes when I'm reading a book the words bring an image to mind.  It was so when I was reading Annie Dunne by Sebastian Berry.  Annie lives on a farm in Wicklow, Ireland, in the 1950s.  One morning as she is about her farm work she comments,

"From red geraniums to yellow butter I go."

Ah, red and yellow could be beautiful together.  And then I remembered seeing Mary Cowan's book Colorful Stash Busters not long ago with its red, white, and yellow quilt on the cover.

I have plenty of yellow and red scraps so I'm playing with little 2" squares.  Four-patches, nine-patches, or...?  I'll wait for more inspiration to decide what comes next.

The wonderful thing about creative inspiration is that we can act immediately noticing more inspiration as we work, or we can let it rest in the back of our minds for a while and see what other thoughts and ideas gather around it and then begin.

Now it's your turn!  I hope you'll join in and also let others know about this link-up.  Thanks.

--Nancy.

Just a Few Rules for Quilty Inspiration

• Link a blog post (not your homepage) in which you've shared either a source of inspiration to begin a quilt, during the process, and/or the results of some inspiration and a bit about your creative process.  (I'm sorry but Instagram photos just don't offer enough substance for this link-up.)
• Link the url for the post, not the url for your blog.
• Please mention and link back to this post in your own blog post.  You can use the button below (copy the code) or use a text link.
• Visit at least several other participants and leave comments on their posts.

<div class="Share-Your-Quilty-Inspiration" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="http://www.joyforgrace.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGWOu_1YW1OijA6Li_GCh1qq7EuVoGKBgCIJF2GFw1Pv-1m8DvOB3Rwnokb3Aip5MUgsLt4Qf1wHnh_7vCMWuUBHUymwp9-TvkpgcWHS8efQgMywXy_rPCvSlKxD5-1Zf3lCZVSDF7-k/s150-Ic42/QI-print1-%252520150%252520black%252520letters.jpg" alt="Share Your Quilty Inspiration" width="150" height="128" /> </a> </div>

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #2 - Circles on Earth

Welcome to Quilty Inspiration #2.  I hope you'll decide to link up.  Share some bit of inspiration you've received for either a quilt that may be, a quilt that's in progress, or a quilt you've already made.

Here's my bit of inspiration for the week.  These are aerial photographs of earth from Earthview.  The arrangement of shapes make me think of quilts.  (You can click on any of the images to see them larger, then click again to see them even larger:  I'm not using Lightbox.)

I may never make a quilt based on any of these photographs but who knows what my brain will do with the images or how it will combine them with other ideas.  Circles have been on my mind for a while.  These images just add to my ideas.

Now it's your turn to share your inspiration.  Perhaps you were in the middle of a quilt and changed directions from how you thought it would be.  Share what happened.  Maybe you read some words that created an image of a quilt in your mind.  Or maybe you were sorting fabric and the colors inspired you.  Please share.

Just a Few Rules for Quilty Inspiration

• Link a blog post (not your homepage) in which you've shared either a source of inspiration and/or the results of some inspiration and a bit about your creative process.  (I'm sorry but Instagram photos just don't offer enough substance for this link-up.)
• Link the url for the post, not the url for your blog.
• Please link back to this post in your own blog post.  You can use the button below (copy the code) or use a text link.
• Visit other participants and leave a comment on their posts.

<div class="Share-Your-Quilty-Inspiration" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="http://www.joyforgrace.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGWOu_1YW1OijA6Li_GCh1qq7EuVoGKBgCIJF2GFw1Pv-1m8DvOB3Rwnokb3Aip5MUgsLt4Qf1wHnh_7vCMWuUBHUymwp9-TvkpgcWHS8efQgMywXy_rPCvSlKxD5-1Zf3lCZVSDF7-k/s150-Ic42/QI-print1-%252520150%252520black%252520letters.jpg" alt="Share Your Quilty Inspiration" width="150" height="128" /> </a> </div>

Link a post in which you've told something about some quilty inspiration you've received.  (And please spread the word.  The more who participate, the more interesting the link-up will be.)

--Nancy.

An InLinkz Link-up

Quilty Inspiration #1

Hosting a link-up is a first for me.  Let's see how it goes!  Next week I'll share an inspiration post but since this is the first week (and I'm feeling uncertain about the behind-the-scenes, technical aspects of this process) I'll just explain about the link-up. 

I hope Quilty Inspiration will become a place where we can share what inspired us in the creation of our quilts.  So, please link a post that tells about (or shows) your inspiration for a quilt you've made, are making, or hope to make.  What inspired you?  Tell us about the very beginnings, before you put scissors or cutter to fabric.  Did you see a painting that inspired the colors you chose?  Did you see a quilt that suggested the block pattern you used?  Did you remember a quilt you saw and loved?  Were you flipping pages in a book or magazine and something clicked?  Or perhaps fabric itself inspires you.  Tell us about or show us some creative inspiration that may lead to a quilt and/or share a quilt and then tell us about/show us the creative inspiration that started it. 

I've arranged for the link to open on Saturday evening and stay open until Thursday evening.  That should give all of us time to write an inspiration post if we haven't written one already. 

Just a Few Rules for Quilty Inspiration

• Link a blog post (not your homepage) in which you've shared either a source of inspiration and/or the results of some inspiration and a bit about your creative process.  (I'm sorry but Instagram photos just don't offer enough substance for this link-up.)
• Link the url for the post, not the url for your blog.
• Please link back to this post in your own blog post.  You can use the button below (copy the code) or use a text link.
• Visit at least several other participants and leave comments on their posts.

<div class="Share-Your-Quilty-Inspiration" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="http://www.joyforgrace.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGWOu_1YW1OijA6Li_GCh1qq7EuVoGKBgCIJF2GFw1Pv-1m8DvOB3Rwnokb3Aip5MUgsLt4Qf1wHnh_7vCMWuUBHUymwp9-TvkpgcWHS8efQgMywXy_rPCvSlKxD5-1Zf3lCZVSDF7-k/s150-Ic42/QI-print1-%252520150%252520black%252520letters.jpg" alt="Share Your Quilty Inspiration" width="150" height="128" /> </a> </div>

Let the inspiration flow!  (And spread the word.)

--Nancy.

An InLinkz Link-up

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