New mini quilts

In my previous post, I mentioned our Valley Modern Quilt Guild challenge. We are supposed to make a piece inspired by water. The piece should reflect the modern aesthetic and may be any size. I had made 2 mini quilts using my Faux Rag technique.   Here are the pictures of the quilts.

   

                                  

You can read about these two quilts here.   Although I liked both of these minis, I think something is missing and they are not quite what the challenge is about.  I love the Faux Rag technique but I don't think it is right for the size that I decided to make.  I didn't have time to make a big quilt for this challenge and the Faux Rag technique is better for bigger size quilts.

So I decided to make another mini quilt with a different design and technique.  Here is the picture of the finished quilt.

This quilt conveys much better feelings and gives the modern aesthetic that they are asking for in the challenge.  I love the overall color and I can just feel the cold chill from the rain. 

Mini quilts are great.  They are fun and fast to make.  I'd love to hear what you think about these three mini quilts.  Do you feel the same way?  What process do you go through when you design a quilt? 

Have a blessed week!!

The 2016 Quilter's Planner is here

Today I would like to shout out for my friend Stephanie Palmer from the Late Night Quilter. Stephanie is an excellent professional long arm quilter, a great mom, a talented quilt designer and a prolific blogger.  Not only that she gets it all done, she's done it all very well.

Last August I had an opportunity to participate in a really fun blog hop called 'Fabri-Quilt New Block Blog Hop 2015'.  In that hop, I participated with over 60 other bloggers to create an original block design and post a tutorial on our blogs.  You can read about my block design here.  Then we could enter our block to be part of the 2016 Quilter's Planner, if we wanted to.  I entered my block, and it was chosen to be featured in one of the weekly calendars.  It is such an honor to be a part of this project along with other talented bloggers and designers whom I've come to know.  There will also be fantastic quilt patterns from top designers like Pat Sloan, Amy Garro, Yvonne Fuchs, Cheryl Brickey and Stephanie Palmer, just to name a few.

As I get more involved in many different activities like church, volunteering, quilter's guilds, blogging, publishing a book and the list goes on and on, I find it harder to keep track of everything through my phone or tablet.  I always have this fear that if I lose my phone or tablet, all my information will be all gone.  Having a backup is a good thing as I often tell myself.  I found it helps to jot down all the things I need to do.  This planner is really a cool thing not only for quilters, but for all of us. It has just about everything you'd need to inspire and help you to plan your days, weeks and months.  I also love the fact that it has a place for me to doodle some new ideas for my quilt designs.  Who knows? They might end up in my next book.  I can't list all the great things it contains, but if you go to the link here, you can read all about it and will have a chance to receive a free PDF of the Project Planning Page as well.  Click on the image below and order your copy today. I'll be getting one for myself.

Have a great week!

A New Modern Quilt Guild

We just got a brand new Modern Quilt Guild!!  It started off with a few quilter friends got together to sew and decided to form a Valley Modern Quilt Guild in the San Fernando Valley of the greater Los Angeles area.    Scott Griffin is the president of the guild.  You can read about this new exciting event in his blog here. 

These quilters are all seasoned and excellent quilters.  I'm honored to be included into this group and looking forward to contribute to the guild in any way I can.  I was asked to help with the monthly challenge which I'm happily accepted even though it means I have to step out of my comfort zone.  I'll do my best.  Our challenge for the October meeting is to make a piece inspired by water.  The piece should reflect the modern aesthetic and may be any size.  You can check out the Valley Modern Quilt Guild website here.

I decided to make a mini quilt, about 18"x20", for the challenge and I'm going to use the Faux Rag quilting technique.  What is Faux Rag Quilting technique?  For those of you who's reading my blog for the first time, it's a new twist on a traditional Rag quilt technique.  I came up with this idea a few years ago.  The AQS is publishing a book of this technique and it's scheduled to come out in March 2016.  I'll be talking more about it in the near future.  I'm planing a lot of fun things to do for the book release.  There will be prize giveaways and hopefully a blog hop for the book review.  I'm very excited about this book and I think quilters who love rag quilts will love this Faux Rag Quilting book.

When I thought about the design for the challenge, several thoughts came to mind about water.  Top of the list are rain and ocean.  I thought of rain because we are having a drought here in California.  Our water supply is at the critical level and it's more urgent than ever for us to conserve water.  We have many beautiful beaches here in California, thus came the ocean idea.

More rain, please mini quilt

After I finished the first quilt, I decided to made another quilt. 

Summer Waves mini quilt

I still have about 2 weeks before the meeting to work on these two ideas.  

What is your designing process?  Do you actually make a sample of your design?  

Have a great week!