An Introduction to Waterfront Park

Waterfront Park is my most recent collection for Michael Miller Fabrics. Although Waterfront Park is highly inspired by Portland's Tom McCall Waterfront Park, it is also inspired by all the beautiful bridges and city parks I have had the pleasure of visiting across the country. In my eclectic compilation style Waterfront Park combines abstract monochromatic prints of birds in FLIGHT, hexagon shaped REFLECTION of light on the water, architectural line sketches in BRIDGETOWN and floating petals in BREEZE.

Waterfront Park was released in June 2013 and is available for wholesale order directly from Michael Miller Fabrics.

To find Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon visit your local sewing shops Modern Domestic, Bolt, Cool Cottons, Pine Needle or Fabric Depot. (hopefully I haven't missed anyone!!)

Here is the promotional brochure for Waterfront Park featuring some of my inspiration photos and all 35 of the prints.

Cheers! xoxo,
Violet

QuiltCon... it's never too late to blog!

This week my wonderful friend Katie of Sew Katie Did was in town to lecture for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild and to teach a class over at Modern Domestic. Katie has a prolific collection of amazing quilt work and I loved seeing many of her quilts and hearing her story. I of course, did not take a single photo so you'll have to pop over to her blog to see her work.

While she was here, she mentioned my blog is a little (ahem) outdated. I have been neglecting you, my dear readers. It is true. It did light a fire under my behind and here I am. Where I hope to be regularly. I've been Instagramming in the mean time and I'd love it if you wanted to see what I'm up to over there!

So, let's get caught up, shall we?

I went to QuiltCon! QuiltCon was held in Austin, TX in February of this year. I went FOR FUN. Yep. There was a little tiny bit of work involved as the Madrona Road Challenge winners chosen by Michael Miller Fabrics had their projects showcased in the Michael Miller booth, but that was all their amazing work, not mine. I loved seeing them in person and meeting some of the quilters. If you want to check out some of the lectures, you can watch them here on Craftsy. 

I had the pleasure of taking two classes, one from the extremely entertaining Jay McCarroll. You may know Jay as the winner of the very first season of Project Runway or as the designer behind some really great fabric collections. I particularly love Habitat and Center City. I made this awesome Kitchen Sink Patchwork Skirt in his class... that still needs a hem and the lining sewn in. Procrastination is my middle name.

I also took a quick little class with Lotta Jansdotter. Lotta is also a designer of some gorgeous modern minimalist prints.

On my last day at QuiltCon I was a full day class volunteer for my amazingly talented friend, Lizzy House. I had no idea going into my day who I would be volunteering for, but let me tell you... I hit the jackpot. Lizzy is an amazing teacher. From the thoughtfulness of her curriculum at the very beginning of her class, the thoroughness which she knows her craft inside and out presented throughout the day, to the final retrospection of work at the end of the course, I was in awe of Miss Lizzy. If you ever have the chance, take her classes. You will learn something.

Now, have I mentioned I was there for FUN? I had the most amazing opportunity to travel with some of my closest friends... and not have to WORK during it!!! Yeah, yeah, I was a super volunteer which meant that I volunteered like 16 hours or something like that, but it didn't feel like work. It felt like I was helping out my friends with their big project... and I was SO proud of what the MQG put together, it really felt like an honor to volunteer there and be a part of it. Some of these ladies I get to travel with for Quilt Market or other fabric/quilting/sewing shows, etc, but this trip we got to let loose and well... get tattoos. I think we counted fourteen women who went and got themselves mostly-crafty tattoos during the course of the week. Here is mine:

I also got to meet up with one of my dearest childhood friends, Mandy. When we were very young, we played school and tried to beat up the neighborhood boys, including her two brothers. Her mom made the best homemade caramel I've ever had in my life. We shared a love of Nintendo for hours after school and on weekends in their basement. My second oldest scar above my eye comes from a Nintendo Duck Hunt gun accident on their couch. We were amazing at pulling skateboards with rope behind bicycles or Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels RULED our cul-de-sac well into years that we were MUCH too old to still be riding them... and their wheels, which were mostly shreds of plastic by then, showed it. We built ramps and forts and ran up and down and around the block. It was the best. I only have one blurry photo, but I REALLY hope we get to spend more time in 2015 when I go back to Austin for the next round of QuiltCon!

We are standing in the Michael Miller booth in front of one of the great challenge quilts. You can see all of the challenge winners here. 

xoxo,

Violet

Favorites from the Madrona Road Challenge!

Onwards by Casey York (Tied for Favorite)

Untitled by Iara Ferreira from Bragança, São Paulo, Brazil (Tied for Favorite)

Recently I had the most difficult task of picking my favorite project from The Modern Quilt Guild / Michael Miller Fabrics Madrona Road Challenge. There were hundreds upon hundreds of amazing entries and more are still pouring in even though the official deadline has passed. I am so thrilled that everyone is still finishing their projects and I plan to keep looking through all of them as they come in.

I honestly didn't know where to start and I wrote a little about my dilemma. Lindsay from ellesquare responded with her blog post Steal This Quilt. To quote her, "In short, I wish I'd made it and I want to steal it. I want it. I will take it and hide with it for years in an underground cave, and then after I lose it in a game of riddles, I will follow a pair of tricksy hobbitses through the gates of Mordor only to jump into the fire of Mount Doom to be with it forever. My precious." Thank you so much Lindsay!

So that is how I started to bring my numbers of favorites (hundreds) down to something I could work with (dozens). When I had a workable number of favorites I asked myself, would I jump into the fire with it? I'm a total geek, so you can see how this post really resonated with me. When I was all said and done, I had ten that I couldn't let go of... and I had two top pics that I completely could not separate. I loved them both for totally different reasons and I wanted to pick them both... and fortunately, The MQG allowed me to do just that.

Above are the two I could not separate from being my favorite. Below are in no particular order of awesomeness. Click on the photos to see their Flickr streams. Again, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who participated in the challenge.

Buckles and Belts by Linda (Flourishing Palms)


Madrona Road Scrappy Stars by Terry Aske


Untitled by mb slinko


Madrona Road Challenge Quilt by Irelle (Jibberish Designs)


Projective Plane of Order Four by moonbrightinjune


Untitled by Lindsay (ellesquare)


Madrona Road Challenge Quilt by Anne (anne @ play-crafts {asdesigned})


Sweet Dreams by Disentangled
Amazing, right? The Michael Miller QuiltCon booth choices are all posted on The Modern Quilt Guild blog - those were all high on my personal list as well! And with more entries still coming in, I foresee at least one more post soon :)

Hello. Love. Luck.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! 

I have a little tutorial over on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog today showing four different ways to finish a project with ruffles. I am a ruffle-aholic and have featured many a ruffled quilt over the years (Freshcut Quilt-uvet, Gypsy Caravan Quilt & Obsession on Point Flea Market Fancy Quilt), so head on over to my tutorial to find out more about my trials, errors and successes in ruffles!

In my tutorial I have created four little mini-quilts a.k.a. snack mats. Two of them use a thread painting technique. Over the holidays, my friend Ale was using a similar technique for some pillows. I modified it a bit and here are a few pictures to show you how I did it.


First off, cut your three layers: top, batting and backing. During this whole process I have the top and batting sandwiched together so that the bottom stitches of my thread painting will not show on the back of my project when I add the backing for finishing.

Using a water-soluble marking pen, draw an outline of the image you want to thread paint. I wrote the word "Luck" in cursive. The blue ink would NOT photograph to save my life, so I've enhanced it here :) And it's still hard to see.... sorry folks.

Using a free-motion foot and your feed dogs disengaged, carefully sew along the outline. This part can actually also be done using a regular foot with feed dogs engaged if you move very slowly and turn a lot. I find the free-motion foot to be an easier process, but grab a scrap piece of fabric and try out both ways to see which you are more comfortable with.

Increase the outline of your words with a second row of stitching. Sometimes I will draw this area in with my water-soluble pen for a guide.

Reattach a zigzag foot and reengage your feed dogs. Use an appropriately sized zigzag with a longer stitch length to fill in the center space of each letter. You can repeat this a few times to get a nice fill. Don't completely fill with zigzags, just enough to get a base.

With your free-motion foot and feed dogs disengaged fill in the area with smooth front to back lines as opposed to the side to side lines of the zigzag stitches. This will give a smoother surface to your thread painting.

Two examples of completed words:

Now - to see how I finished these with ruffles head over to Sew, Mama, Sew! for my Ruffle Binding Tutorial. 

Happy Love Day!

~ Violet

Broken Herringbone Quilt - The Pattern!

The Broken Herringbone Quilt was originally created from the Broken Herringbone fabric print in my Madrona Road fabric collection. It is still unclear though which came first... print or quilt pattern? I don't remember! The pattern is now available in my shop!

The quilt showcases fabrics in a bold manner, but in a fresh, modern, on-trend way. This is a perfect pattern for those fabrics you've been waiting to showcase!

The pattern also puts a unique twist on quilt construction. There are no traditional "blocks". Quilt is constructed entirely of full width of fabric strips. I think you will be surprised how simple it is to pop this quilt together.

There is VERY minimal scrap production and the pattern includes diagrams for two examples of how to use all of the scraps in an interesting quilt back. Exact dimensions are not included for pieced backs.

You may recognize the truck in these photos from Madrona Road. My love affair with the trucks on Sauvie Island goes back to exploring the island alone when I first moved to the Pacific Northwest. At that time there was only one beautiful truck exploding with tulips. In 2005 I took my youngest daughter and a dear little friend there for a photo shoot for my handmade children's clothing line, KungFuBambini. Warning - cute baby overload!

I included my illustrations of the truck in the Madrona Road Farmstead print. Last year, when we returned to take the pictures of the quilts, there were two new beautiful additions, one of which is the blue truck above. You'll be seeing more of these trucks from me. It's a magical little place and I hope to return there for years to come and find them full of blooming flowers.

Happy tears.

Warning: there are no pictures in this post. Just words.

I am bawling right now. Absolutely crying. And every one of them is a happy, happy, happy, HAPPY tear. The Modern Quilt Guild Madrona Road Challenge has put me over the edge.

Last May I showed Madrona Road, my fabric collection for Michael Miller Fabrics, at Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City. I love this collection. I put my whole heart into designing it. Our family had been through a lot by that time last year. We were in the process of short-selling our home and changing everything we thought we believed about what we "needed" in life. I wrote Memoir of Madrona Road during that process. It is a very true story about a girl from Kansas making her way in this big world of ours and finding herself and the love of her life in Oregon. About 3/4 of the way through, the story goes on to describe a fictional place called Madrona Road.

At the time I designed Madrona Road, I think I thought that magical little road with the sweet little farm was really and truly what we were looking for. But since then, with ever more changes in our lives in the short span of a few more months, I've realized that the life I created in that little story will exist wherever our family lands. All that matters is that we are together and making the absolute best out of this life that we can WITH WHAT WE'VE GOT. Dreams are so important, but loving what you have right here and right now is so much more important. Making do.

It seems like that's exactly what all of you have been doing. The Modern Quilt Guild Madrona Road challenge deadline was last night and I have been watching the progress daily on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter and blogs and it's been so exciting and fun. Then today, seeing 262 entries in the finished Flickr pool and 473 photos in the progress Flickr pool, well, it just did me in. I've been looking through them and bawling ever since... I am supposed to pick one favorite. I don't think I know how to do that. I love every single one of them. Just thinking of the energy of all of those sewers all stitching, well, it just makes me cry harder if you must know.

Please, oh please... if you are on Instagram, tag me!!! I am @violetcraft and I check the #madronaroad and #madronaroadchallenge tags daily also.

#peacocklanefabric gets used occasionally which makes me smile a little secret smile - and just as a tiny happy teaser, get ready for #waterfrontpark in a few months. Yes, I now openly speak in hash tag language. I'm okay with that.

xoxo,  violet

Let's Craft! Felt Matching Game

Recently we took a little road trip up to Gig Harbor to see my bestie and my most awesomest nephew. Since I normally talk her into painting a bedroom or tearing out her bathroom while I'm there (seriously - this happened) this time we wanted to keep it low key but we HAD to at least fit a craft project or four in to the trip.



This little guy saw some really cute matching blocks on Pinterest via The Purl Bee and told me he just had to have them. The first thing I thought when I saw them was that would be a great project for the Go! Baby... so I brought it along with the scrap bins and 1/2 yard of charcoal gray felt.

First off we dug through the scrap bins and found 18 bright, simple prints that were large enough to cut two circles from. I think we used every color of Falling Flowers from Peacock Lane, because that print's awesome. Just sayin'. Next, we used the Go! Baby to cut 72 of the medium size felt circles and the 36 print circles. Cutting multiple layers at once really made this job a lot faster.

The next step was a tad trickier. To cut the center ring without cutting off part of our original circle we had to fold each circle in half and then half it again. Then, lining up the point with the center of the circle on the die, we ran it through again and it cut the ring right out of it. Repeat 35 more times.



Yeah, that part was boring... but this guy helped entertain me through it!



Next, we stacked the layers: felt circle on bottom, fabric circle in center and donut ring on top. Then, using a zigzag stitch we stitched both the outside and the inside of the donut ring.



And that's that. A super simple project - and so far Mason says they taste great. Yeah, he's a little young for them right now, but we're ahead of the game over here :) His momma saved a wipes container to store them in too. Mmmm. Hmmmm. She's a thinker, that one.



Then, when no one was looking, I used the larger size circle to make myself a set of coasters that we actually use every single day. I love these things!




Happy Craft-ing!

xoxo ~ Violet