Around the world Blog Hop – a game of Blog Tag!!

Hi everyone,

yes, I have been a bit too quiet lately and as always, I will try to NOT be in the future! The end of summer somehow just sneaked-up on me with so much to do around the house, family and yes – even quilting and sewing! Just not having time to write about it…or, honestly – just not as good in FINDING time to write about it, right?

So – what better inspiration and “push” to get back into it and be better than a show of support and love from fellow quilter, blogger, amazing young artist and my dear, dear friend Maer of Hard Rock Quilter ! Visit and follow her blog for some amazing inspirations and creative adventures she shares!

Maer invited me to participate in this really fun and inspiring game of BLOG TAG among bloggers – a phenomenal way of connecting and getting to know so many amazing creatives who also share their journey through blogging – I just LOVE it!!

So it is my turn to tag more bloggers and my tag is Pam Wilde, of Sewing Wilde ! Pam is a friend and fellow Western NY MQG member and an amazingly creative quilter – visit and follow Pam’s blog to enjoy lots of inspiration!
Pam’s turn to answer few fun questions will be next Monday, October 6th and here are mine:

1.  What are you working on?

Oh, that is my favorite question! 😉 
Even though summer always gets in the way of many sewing hours, with its garden and outdoor stuff and house projects, I squeezed in some fun! Couple of weeks ago I took an amazing class from world famous Quiltaholic – really an excellent teacher, traveler and quilter, Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.com  . Oh my goodness – that was just so much fun!! If you looked around my blog, you might have noticed that I an not much of a scrap-quilter…But I do truly, truly LOVE them and admire them!! It seems that I just can’t do them??
Well, if I love anything – it is to try something new, to challenge myself and LEARN something new! All accomplished in this fun class, thanks to my friend Robi (a phenomenal scrap quilter who even cut a whole bag full of squares and strips for me, to add to variety) and an amazing inspiration of Bonnie’s quilts. 
We were working on Blue Ridge Beauty quilt:

Yeah, pretty spectacular, right?
Here is my start – yes, me the passionate strip-piecer actually made four-patches from squares!! For maximum variety, you know… Not to mention that all the hard work of cutting all these was done by Robi! (did I mention she is a good friend?)

Pairs sewn, seams to the blue, pairs joined with that nested seam…and voila!! Piles of four-patches!!

And an excellent, EXCELLENT tip from Bonnie about “spinning those seams” – a much better way to press the seams in a four-patch block, to have it lay flat and – even more importantly for this pattern – have all the seams NEST later! Did I mention EXCELLENT tip??

Now isn’t this a lovely, SCRAPPY sight:

Then I tried even more new things – making HSTs from strips, by using the Easy Angle ruler! I have to say – I do LIKE it!! It works from strips of a “regular” size (much like my beloved Thangles) and it is easy to use!

Two pairs of neutral-blue strips are on this pile and then you cut and flip, and cut and flip…

Take the pairs and line ’em up to chain-piece… Yes, you are sewing on the bias and if you are just a bit careful, it’s OK! I have to say – having the Dual-feed on my PFAFF is what I really, really LOVE in this case

 Pile-o-HSTs!

And ready for some block assembly:

These blocks are simple and easy, but they do give so many layout possibilities! And…AHEM…how did I do as a scrap quilter? What do you think?? 🙂

Now for some REAL scrap magic! Towards the end of the class, Bonnie wanted us to talk about block layouts, so she asked for everyone’s finished blocks to have plenty – regardless that they were made in all different colors and styles of fabric (from Kaffe Fasset to Civil War – I kid you not!) – and look at this scrappy magic!!

YEAH!! Don’t you just love it?? I DO !!
There might be a closet scrap-quilter somewhere inside me… 🙂

OK, OK…not so fast! I also did do some “more familiar” for me stuff too! He…he…
Played a bit with my beloved “ombre” or color gradation fabrics, trying to develop some new fun ways to use it.
So I started by just doing some free-form curvy cutting and piecing (you know, one I love to do, blogged about “HOW-TO” of that for the border of the Migration table runner, HERE – scroll all the way to the end!)

Then layered two strip-sets with opposing colors and cut some squares, then cut them diagonaly, then sew…

And here is the result of play!

I kinda like this!! What do you think?
The curvy checkerboard stuff on the right is another attempt at play…we’ll see how that will go, not so sure now… 🙂
That is the latest from my sewing room, so lets get back to the BLOG TAG and questions – next one is:

2.  How does my work differ from others?

Hmm… that is a tough one. I am not even sure that is does? And I am not sure that I can actually answer this? Isn’t it maybe more for others to say that? What do you think?
One thing I can say is this: I love to play and experiment. I try to use traditional patchwork and piecing to “paint” a picture of something (like flowers, or landscape…), to bring the feeling of it, rather than to actually represent it literally (like with applique or actual landscape quilts). 
Something like Hungry Caterpillar made out of Snowball blocks: (blogged about this one HERE)

Or some flowers made from HSTs and QSTs: (blogged about the design process for this one HERE )

So…is that different than others? Not so sure and maybe it’s not even important? What is important is to have fun in creating what you love. My passion is to encourage anyone who will listen to try it and do it. 
Next question:

3. Why do I do what I do?

Hmm…how much time do you have? Ha ha!! Yeah, I could talk about this for a long time, but really the short answer is – I just LOVE it. It makes me happy, it fulfills my desire to create and play, it gives me such happiness to give what I make to my loved ones. The added bonus – as I teach others to quilt I take such pleasure and gratitude to inspire others to be creative. I take this as a gift and privilege that should never be taken for granted.

4. How does my creative process work?

I doddle a lot, I always have. Since I don’t carry a small purse but rather large one, a good size notebook (with square grid) is always with me and it has so many scribbles in it… Inspired by nature, by some gorgeous fabric, by some lines and shapes I saw. Not everything becomes something, but even just that doodling it a fun thing to do, right? If some do go from a doodle to a quilt, it usually goes from a doodle into my EQ7 first and then into fabric. Actually, the two last links above, for the blog posts about those two quilts – they have just that, a process that got me to making them, so take a look if you like! 🙂

Well, this was fun! It is a good thing to answer some of these basic questions from time to time – it makes you think and reminisce! 
I would LOVE to know what you think, what is your creative process and why YOU do it – let me know! Continue with this fun by checking out Maer’s blog (and ones that came before her) and then next week, Pam’s blog!

Thank you for spending time with me and have a wonderful week ahead,

Marija