Blue Nickel Studios

admin December 11th, 2013

Finally the big day is here! The first of 12 Days of Color! I have been thinking and trying to plan this event since early November I think.  I hope you enjoy the “tour” of sorts.

To begin with, I thought how fun would it be to just talk and share a little bit about color, and even though I am not a “solids” kinda quilter, I thought it would be fun to feature the newest Kona solids as they are known for their vast selection of solids already(271 to date).....and they added 28 MORE this fall!! So I thought I would make up a different block from a mix of the New Kona solids and offer prizes at the end of the event.

But you know how hard just plain solids are for me, right? (if you didn’t know that, then well…they are)  And I also discovered at Quilt Market that Free Spirit has a new program called True Colors where their designers build and create “blenders”  to work with all of their lines as well as many other lines. And since I am so close to so many of these dear people at Free Spirit, I just felt I had to include them in the event as well.  (and I have to say that these new blender fabrics by the designers are way better than the previous “generic” blenders the company carried in the past!)

And THEN, I just really was drawn to Sarah Jane’s  uber-saturated line Wee Wander at Fall Market as well, so I went traipsing over to the Michael Miller site and found two other lines of theirs that I thought had intriguing color stories, and I felt compelled to add them as well, even thought they aren’t even close to solids.  (and in hindsight, I could have picked Michael Miller DOTS because they have, oh, I don’t know 145,342,515 of them or so…..or their many other wonderful blender type lines, but what’s done is done)

But Wait, there’s more!  And then towards the end of my planning and all, I realized that even though they are not “new” I had  forgotten one of my all-time favorite modern blender fabric lines, Grunge, by Moda.  So I contacted the incredible Lissa at Moda, and got that to share with you too.

I was exhausted already thinking about writing up patterns for 12 different blocks for each day….then I remembered the 2013 Designer of the Month blocks from Aurifil.  Since I am part of next year’s group and I didn’t have time to write all of those blocks up, I would just use this year’s blocks. I told Kim and Pat about my idea, and their enthusiasm garnered YOU some free Aurifil prizes as well!!

So without further ado. Here are the blocks for Day One:

January Block by Erin Russek

Done in Kona—Wasabi, Pesto, and Punch:

Done in some of  Heather Bailey’s True Colors:

Done in some of  Wee Wander (truly that horse is irresistable isn’t it?):

Done in four Grunge colors (no, I didn’t get the individual color names for the Grunges….sorry!)

I also thought I would picture two of the beautiful spools of Aurifil floating around my studio each day of the event. These are from my own stash, the ones you win daily are bigger, though slightly less colorful.

Today’s featured Aurifil colors:

 So here’s how it works from the prize angle….Comment on each day of the event. Comments can be on the lines, the blocks, color in general…...Every day someone will win a big spool of Aurifil thread, and a couple random Fat Quarter-ish hunks of fabric from one or two of the four companies.

Then at the end of the event, I will draw randomly from each days comments and put those names in the hat for the grand prizes of BIG stacks of fabric as well as this 12 Pack of more colorful Aurifil thread collection set curated by Mark Lipinski:

I will have more pictures of the fabric prize packs down the road, and I am trying to get a “grab my badge” button for you to help me share the news about this wonderful trip down the colored fabric road.  Hopefully those will be up here in a couple days. Until then, if you want you can share the old fashioned way by posting a link! I would love it if you would do that.

Hope you enjoyed Day #1 of the 12 Days of Color!

(what do you think of my logo for the event? I had a blast making that up!!)

So Comment away to win! (and remember…comments have to be approved to prevent spam, so there is a delay on that sometimes.)

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admin December 10th, 2013

Hey peeps….I know I said I was going to start the Fabulous 12 Days of Color today. But I need one more day…..one of the fabric company’s fabrics didn’t get here until yesterday while I was at my day job, and I have to go to the day job again today….and I really would like to feature all four of the main fabric companies in this event side by side,  so I need tomorrow morning to get that done. Besides the fact that I am WAY behind on some copy due to Generation Q as well…

So I am taking today to get the 12th block in Aurifil’s Designer of the Month 2013 series up to you.

Today’s block is by the incredible Pat Sloan who has become such a dynamo in the Quilting world! Since Pat has been the hostess of the Designer of the Month program this year, she had readers write in questions for her interview. Here is that interview. Fun reading because Pat is just a darling lady and people asked all sorts of interesting questions!

And here is her block  Good Vibrations with the PDF pattern here.

Pat also gave a layout option for you too and that is available here.

So that’s a wrap for 2013 Designer of the Month blocks for Aurifil.  I will actually be revisiting them all starting tomorrow during the 12 Days of Color remaking most of them in the lines waiting to be talked about then.

Don’t forget that you can win a free thread kit from Aurifil, just by making up the block of the month and posting your version of it here.

Now back to that copy for GenQ and the final prep on the 12 Days….oh, and that pesky DayJob that I do love, but not as much as this!

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admin December 8th, 2013

And so today I bring you Maple Leaf Blocks which feature fabrics from two of my many dear friends at Westminster/Free Spirit. These prints came out in Late Summer of this year I believe. Hand Drawn Garden with is a revisit of two lines that Anna Maria Horner did many seasons back. And the other prints are from Jennifer Paganelli’s Circa line.

The backgrounds are from the Blue Nickel “Stash Palace” ( I just dubbed my stash with that monikor…. It seems apropos to me). The only source I know for sure is the blue background and that one is from Kaufman’s Botanics line by Carolyn Friedlander.

I messed with the lighting a bit too much on this last photo below….it is actually not quite this faded out!!

So that’s probably it for Maple Leaf Frenzy until after the 12 Days of Color, but there will be more after that!

Keep sewing!!

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admin December 4th, 2013

Busy Town…..that’s what it’s been here for sure…..

I have been wanting to share THESE prints with you for a LONG time…okay,  in the fabric world some of these could be artifacts even….but they came to the studio here in oh….uh…April I think of this year (or earlier! yikes!)...but you know I was busy with pre-Quilt Market stuff then, and they got shuffled off to the side, again and again over the course of the summer….and then there was fall Quilt Market…..

So, head hanging low, I am finally getting them here to show, and even though I am really not a fan of Novelty Fabrics that much, I have just one thing to say….

.....I freakin’ love these prints from Julia Rothman for Windham Fabrics! They are called Ride and Type and they just scream New York City to me for some reason…..

The typewriters? just Wow, that’s all…...

Now the above prints were for the leaf parts of today’s Maple Leaf  blocks and older prints ….but THESE below are brand-spanking new from Windham and gorgeous as well. They are from the line Palette by Marcia Derse….and yum, yummy…solid? kinda? hand-dyed? No, but they kinda-sorta look like it. They are just a beautiful blender-type solid that I love in every way!

And so here are the two Maple Leaf Blocks I did with these three lines…..

never mind the long shadows from the low in the sky December Sun…..

******************************************************************

And NOW for the official announcement of an exciting event I have been planning for quite some time now!  I have gathered up a bunch of prizes and fabric from various companies, and starting December 10th, I am “hosting” the first annual Blue Nickel Studios 12 Days of Color!  On each of the twelve days, I will be featuring the one of the 12 Designers of the Month Blocks from Aurifil this past year using solids, blenders, and prints from four different fabric companies (at least) and there will be GREAT prizes to be had! Something will be given away every day, and at the end there will be piles (literally) of stuff you’ll want…mostly fabric of course, but who knows what else might show up!

I was going to originally start this event on December 6th, coinciding with St. Nicholas Day…but…well…..I am just a little bit behind….and since this is MY baby anyway, I didn’t think anyone would really mind me changing the date to December 10th!! So there will be a few more Maple leaf posts coming and then the BIG event. I hope that you will help me finish off the year with a lot of internet chatter about this….and in advance, congrats to all of the winners coming up!

I’m off to do some more sewing Peeps!

Cheers,
Scott

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admin December 3rd, 2013

So the 12 Days of Color starts on December 6th, but I still have a ton of fabric from earlier in the year to jabber on about.  I was noticing a bunch of people doing “Modern Maple” quilts, and I didn’t want to do exactly the same thing, but it got me thinking about a different type setting for your basic Maple Leaf block (which isn’t really “new”, right?)  So I have decided that when I can, I am going to do two blocks in the lines that I feature around the 12 Days of Color and when I am done, I will have a mix of different leaves….all scrappy and the way I like it…

Here’s Dogma from In The Beginning. I love the retro feel of this line, and I also think it will go well with some of the Parson Gray leftovers I have all over the place.  There was a panel piece too with various dogs pictured, but they were big, and I am not really that into novelty prints anyway, especially large scale ones.

Here are my maple leaves from the line…..I paired the prints up with what I am pretty sure are two crosswoven solids from In The Beginning’s first wave of Modern Solids.

I ended up cutting extra triangles so that I could have more variety in each leaf.  Those extra triangles can mix with all of the other lines when I get all of these Maple Leaves done, to make the finished project down the road even scrappier!

Okay so tomorrow some more Maple Leaves and then Thursday as well…..and then Friday, we’ll start the 12 Days of Color! are you ready??

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admin December 2nd, 2013

So when I heard that I was getting the opportunity to design the Free Spirit free pattern for my friend Dave Butler’s new line Vagabond, I was pumped. I got a brief synopsis of his “story” behind the line, and the one word that stuck with me, was Sherpa....which I only knew of as a lining for jackets, So I did a little cruising around the internet and ultimately landed on this hat….

.... which is actually from South America,  and not Nepal, and I am not even sure where I got the Sherpa thing now because the color story on his site doesn’t mention Sherpa… Anyhooooo…...back to the hat!  I loved the graphic on the hat of a Griffin like creature and I thought it suited the line.  As much as I loved the blacks and blues of this line, I really wanted to show the warmer tones, so I chose the browns and greens to feature.

So I came up with this border, which I think nailed it and brought the oomph the whole thing needed to succeed!  I am pretty pleased with it now with its border….(with one caveat….read on until the end…..)

And here is Westminster’s photo of the quilt for their media.  See how nicely the circles flow on the bottom border of the quilt?  That strip is pieced and though it is not perfect, I figured out how to make the seam create a fairly even flow of circles. You see the leaves in the top of their photo? THOSE leaves are there, I am certain, because I did the top border first, was in kind of a hurry and didn’t figure out that I could do it better and more seamless…..so there is a chopped up “half” circle behind the leaves….clever photography, huh? (I am still disappointed in myself that I wasn’t more patient to make that work right in the top!)

So you can get the pattern for this online for free here now! and feel free to make as many as you want…I seriously think this  a great “guy” quilt.  I keep thinking that I want to do the “Beast” just as multiple blocks in an Andy Warhol style…..but doubt I will ever get around to that!

Happy December 2nd! Stay Tuned for the 12 Days of Color coming on December 6th!  Color and Blocks and Prizes, Oh My!!

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admin November 30th, 2013

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admin November 16th, 2013

And here’s another book to look at today.  Non quilting…..But Extremely good for those creative brain cells! I present to you, Craft-a-Doodle – 75 Creative Exercises from 18 Artists  by Jenny Doh for Lark Crafts.

I have heard about Jenny Doh for a very long time. She has been in the creative publishing world much longer than I have been, mostly in mixed media I think. I know that my friend Bari is actually a friend of Jenny’s and my wife Linda has had some mixed media or doll projects at least pass over Jenny’s desk in the past I think.  So when Lark Crafts wanted me to review Jenny’s book, I said of course, because I wanted to see what she has been up to lately.

Some of the exercises are pretty basic and some get pretty complex for a “doodle” but they are all pretty rockin’ ….

I liked the Daily Doodles by Dawn DeVries Sokol

and since I wrote this review on vacation, I also got a chance to do some of this daily doodling as I went along.

And the faces by Cori Dantini and Teesha Moore

There was even a little embroidery doodling by Aimee Ray too!

If you like to draw or know someone who does, this book is terrific one!!   I think that might be the last “old” book I have to tell you about…I have at least three more…One of which comes which has a prize attached! woohoo!!

Until next time,

Piece out,

Scott

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admin November 14th, 2013

And here we have another book review in our November Catch-up-Along. (yup…I made up another word….don’t act so shocked now…”blog” wasn’t even a word back when I was growing up!)

This title is Sew a Backyard Adventure by Susan Maw and Sally Bell for C&T Publishing.

 I first met Susan and Sally years ago at Spring Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon, and just love the way they play with fabric. So when they asked me to review their latest book, I said sure! It took awhile for Sew a Backyard Adventure to get here, and then awhile for me to get this review done, but here you go! 

Backyard Adventure is full of fun projects mostly for kids and mostly NOT quilts, but a lot of fun, creative sewing projects for kids. And a few non-sewing projects that look fun too for a set of younger kids than we have here at the Blue Nickel these days.

They have a great little campy kid’s vest:

A kid’s sleeping bag:

And a teepee!

My favorite quilt in the book would likely be this one (even though, I would probably never get to appliqué bits):

In keeping with the “camping” theme of the projects in the book, Susan and Sally have a couple paper projects for the kids and two camping recipe “variations” that are kind of fun.

I think this is a particularly good book for those with younger kids or grandkids. I think I will be saving this book for grandkids down the road…I could easily have some around here in ten years for sure, although I am thinking that the kids’ teepee idea might be a fun prop for Linda’s bigger dolls for photo shoots sooner than that.

That’s it for today, peeps!

More stuff coming through the Catch-Up Tube, stay tuned!

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admin November 13th, 2013

Welcome to the Blue Nickel! If you have been following for awhile then you know I am in “catch-up” mode. So I am continuing on with the great November Blog Catch-up! Today’s title is 1-2-3 Quilt  by Ellen Luckett Baker for Chronicle Books.

This book seems pretty basic to me, because I have been sewing for so long, so I don’t know if it would be one that I would rush out and get, but I think it is a pretty good book for beginners. And there are some quilts in it that I would like to make…. just to make them up and giveaway down the road.  It is nice to not to have to think about a pattern when making a quilt to giveaway. I wish I had more time for those kind of projects too…there are so many good efforts to give them to. Here’s a list of place to donate quilts if you are thinking about it yourself!

Now back to the book.

I love this one that is inspired by Denyse Schmidt’s work:

And this one with its “random” order of rectangles:

And I like this triangle one too, but I am not sure I could ever keep it this “clean” looking. I would very likely use MANY prints in it and maybe only one or two solids.

I love this circle one too, but you KNOW I am probably never going to make this one because of the appliqué.

There is this little pouch that I think I will make because I would like to learn how to work with zippers and this one doesn’t seem too intimidating.

And I like this simple little runner too! 

I can see it using a Jelly Roll, can’t you?  That is if you can bear to open up that Jelly Roll…. they are so pretty just sitting there, aren’t they??

The directions seem very complete throughout the book with good illustrations, and I think that is what makes it good for a new sewist.  The book is put out by Chronicle Books, so you can probably find it just about anywhere. Their books are everywhere!

Until Next Time,

Keep Sewing…..Keep Happy!

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