Blogging

First, I would like to say thank you to Sharon at In A Minute Ago and Linda at Chloe's Place for their very lovely compliments on my work. It was afterall, Sharon's beautiful Unicorn block, which appeared on page 57 of the Winter 2002 issue of Quilting Arts magazine which inspired me to to try my hand at Crazy Quilting. And then it was Linda's blog and her incredible stitching which inspired me to start blogging.

My first crazy quilt project is far from what I do now. I didn't have any books on crazy quilting so I pretty much did my first project from a "blind" perspective.



Although my work has evolved greatly since I did this pillow 2 years ago, it's still very pretty and makes a lovely addition to my mother's sitting room.

I think what attracted to me to crazy quilting was that in some way, it reminded me of fractals, a computer generated version of chaos.

I discovered fractals years ago. I was digging around in the filters and special effects in my graphic program and I found that my software included a fractal generator. Combined with other special effects, I came up with some really beautiful abstract artwork!



From this design, I created this art quilt:



I printed my fractal design on printer fabric, did the crazy patch around the outside and then embellished it. I can't say I want to do a ton of these but this was a fun project. I finished this about a year ago.

So why crazy quilting and not cross stitch anymore? As I mentioned earlier, I've evolved dramatically over the past few years. I've moved beyond just wanting to copy patterns from paper to fabric. Cross stitch, although I still love to look at it and I enjoy designing it, it's become too flat and linear for me. It's the same stitch over and over. I found myself rushing through a project to get to the next and then rushing through that one to get to the next, never truly being able to enjoy what I was working on. There was really no longer any thought or challenge in it. It became very mechanical.

I've always been good with color and composition and I've always enjoyed a variety of needlework techniques. Crazy quilting is an outlet for my abilities.

Sharon mentioned in her post today, that she's wondering if blogging assists in my stitching output. To be honest, the answer is no. I've always stitched alot. I remember when I was little, my maternal grandmother would tell me that "idle hands are the devil's workshop". Ha, ha, ha! I think after hearing that for the first 12 years of my life, it embedded itself into my subconscious mind and I now feel that my hands must always be doing something productive to keep me out of trouble!

So why do I blog? When I started blogging, I was hoping to show my cross stitch followers that cross stitch is only one needlework technique and that there is a whole world of wonderful things that can be done with needle and thread. And I've only skimmed the surface! There are still a ton of techniques that I haven't tried yet. But they're on my list!

My blog intentions have since changed slightly. I blog now simply to share my work with my readers. Every morning, I get online and visit my favorite blogs while drinking my coffee, hoping for eye candy from Linda, Sharon, Gina and Vicki. From crazy quilting to outline embroidery, vintage linens and cozy, handmade crafts, these ladies never let me down. I hope my readers enjoy the eye candy here on my blog as much as I enjoy visits to my favorite blogs.

Today's offering is this fun little animated design from one of my vintage Vogart transfers. I stitched this up last night while watching television: