Blue Nickel Studios

admin July 4th, 2008

 Finally I get to posting more pictures from my guild’s (Busy Bee Quilters)  Quilt show Last weekend.  I helped set up the show, but I didn’t get the time to walk the show very thoroughly.  I mostly ran around before I had to leave snapping pictures of what “caught my eye”  I didn’t get names or anything.  So I have lot of pretty quilt pictures, but not much more…..but they are pretty….any Busy Bees reading this can feel free to comment and clear up who made what, okay?   

This first one I just loved because of the spikey bits…I have never done something like this, and I admire them so much.  

But what was funny was this one was also there in the same pattern but different colors, and it had such a different feeling to it!! 

And then this one is a different quilt, but still a blue-ish spikey piece which really gets my little art heart going! 

 Here is Blue again, but subdued way down with Chocolate!  I really don’t normally like  blue/brown combinations, but I found the modernity of this quilt intriguing.

        This is Hollow Cube (pattern by Sara Nephew) done all in chicken related fabrics.  Judy Irish started this quilt in my class that I taught up at Aunt Mary’s Quilt Shop back in March ‘07

And the last quilt for this post is here.  Floral and pretty, not overly complicated in design. What I liked most about this quilt was the Brown floral fabric in the sashing and border.                     

Isn’t it delicious!        I wonder what it would look like if the flying geese were all set in that luscious chocolate fabric?

That is it for now.  I have 16 ton of gravel in my driveway to start shoveling, shingles to nail on my house (the neverending story must have been originally about building your own house, I swear), and then some sewing before BBQing and fireworks!

Happy Indepedence Day everyone….hopefully we will be a great nation helping people again someday….presently I have my doubts about our place as a nation in the world.  Not that I want to live somewhere else, but this war is very draining on us and the world, don’t you think?  I do not want to get really political, it just seems that on this day of celebrating 232 years as a free nation, we should evaluate and not take advantage of our freedom. 

okay, putting soapbox aside to go do something around the grounds of Shiloah Cottage.

10 people in the Tootsis pop challenge….someone said that they would be finishing theirs up already!

• Home
• Comments(0)

admin July 3rd, 2008

Okay so here are the prizes for the Tootsie Pop Quilt Challenge.

First, there will be a 40 piece 5inch Charm Pack from the below fabrics and more:

Next will be a four pack Fat Quarter pack from the new line Nest coming out in August.

There is this panel from the line Recess coming out this fall too.  This panel is approximately 24” x 44” or so.

Then there is this small panel from the Recess line as well.

Lastly there will be a grab bag filled with a variety of scraps.  Very useful for small little quilts.

Hope you like the prizes, and I hope you all tell your artsy-fartsy friends about this little challenge.  Have a Fabtabulous day!

• Home
• Comments(0)

admin July 2nd, 2008

  Here is the long awaited Contest/Challenge——ta-da! the Tootsie Pop MIni Quilt Challenge!  This is just a sample of a fun little project I started one evening, and I decided that I wanted to involve others in this mixed media “quiltercize”  And how else to get people involved best?  Give away FREE stuff!!  So here is the dirt on this fun summer take-along project.

The rules: 

1. Your quilt maybe no larger than 4” by 4” square.  My sample is 3.33” by 4” just because that is how it came out. Yours may be smaller or larger up to 4” by 4”.   

2. You must use part or all of a Tootsie Pop wrapper in the design of your quilt.  It has to be recognizable as a Tootsie Pop wrapper.

3. It needs to be a quilt, i.e., layered with batting and quilted together somehow.

Those are the three main rules. Please sign up by emailing me at bluenickel5@earthlink.net so I can put you on the list. When you are finished with your work of art, email me a jpeg of your work, and I will post it with your name on my site.  These must be emailed to me by August 15th.  After they are all posted, then all who visit the page will vote by commenting on the site.  The mini quilts that get the most positive comments by September 1st will win some great prizes from me, Scott at Blue Nickel Studios.  My wife said that I need to post pictures of the prizes, but I am exhausted tonight and have to get up early tomorrow for work, so I am hoping that you will come back in a day or two to look at the sample prizes.  There will be more than one prize, so don’t think only one lucky dog will get it.

If you want a special starter kit for this project please email me at the above address, and I will send you a kit for $2 (this includes a Tootsie Pop (flavorful surprise), 4” square batting, bits and trims, buttons, fabric scraps, postage and handling, etc.)  But you do not need to buy one to get started.   Email me if you have any questions at all.   Further announcements will be forthcoming.

• Home
• Comments(9)

admin July 1st, 2008

Here are a few more quilts from the Busy Bee Quilt Show and another teaser about the Blue Nickel contest.

Here is a close up of the poppy quilt from the last post:       

Now here is another quilt from the show.  This one is not as colorful as I would like, but very traditional which is nice.  What I liked about it was the small detail and great variety of all the blocks.

  and here is a closeup…          sorry for the lack of crispness in the closeup.  Linda and I are planning on getting a new camera for our anniversary that will “solve” that problem?

So tonight when I get home from my day job, I will announce the Blue Nickel Challenge.  I have to finish my sample for it, and put together one of the prizes.   I will give you a hint.  The project is a take-along project and involves more than just fabric.  The contestants will make this item and then send me pictures, which I will post on my website.  All contestants (and any of their friends, relatives, etc) will come to the site to look at the pictures and then vote on their favorites.  The winning entries will get a gift pack from Blue Nickel Studios.   Sample gift pack and project will be posted tonight.   I am looking forward to being able to share a fun project with a bunch of creative people and to make new “blog-buddies” as Melissa at Yummy Goods calls ‘em.

So for now I am off to the showers, and then the road, and then to a quick little 9-10 hour day of work, back home to get the trees and lawn watered, and give you the rest of the details on the challenge/contest.   Yeah, it will be late coming, so if you are an early to bed type, you can check it out Wednesday morning, and tell all your friends! 

• Home
• Comments(0)

admin June 30th, 2008

 Summer has come to our area, and it has been too hot for much of anything.  At least for me.  Some people love this heat, but I prefer it down in the 70’s, and it has been high 80’s and into the 90’s.  So for a quick post, I am simply showing 2 quilts from my guild’s show that I helped set up last Thursday.  More will come maybe tonight.    Unfortunately, I was in a slammin’ hurry to snap these photos, so I didn’t get names or anything on them.  If I find out that info, I will add it later.    Here is the first one that I really liked:       

And here is another:

    This has a closeup shot that I will have to add this evening, I have to get going to work, and I am pushing it now.  

The last part of this post’s title….the Teaser….here it is….tomorrow I will announce a challenge in which you can create some thing small, fun, and creative, and by sending me a photo of it, you could win Fabulous prized from Blue Nickel Studios.  But you have to come back tomorrow to find out….and some of you east coasters may have to wait until Wednesday morning, as it may be late posting on this coast.

• Home
• Comments(0)

admin June 27th, 2008

     Arghh….I had a whole post here last night, and this morning, I went back to correct a few things….got distracted and now everything got deleted!!   

I really wanted to state that I do NOT condone any racist labels and I don’t normally speak with such “colorful” language as some of the words in my last couple of posts might offend people.  And my original statement was so much more eloquent than this….

and I lost this picture     and I had some things to say about all of these pictures…but now I have to get going to work….  Technology love it and loathe it all at once…

• Home
• Comments Off

admin June 26th, 2008

        

admin June 26th, 2008

Yes, I capitalized Artist.  And don’t think that was a nonchalant thing for me to do.  I have been coming to terms with the fact that I really think an Artist is what God has made me.  And yes, I put God in there with a capital too.  I feel quite in a quandry at times,  cause I am too fucked up for some people and too “religious” for some people…..oh and I wrote the F word too.  Sorry sometimes it just comes out.  I don’t like to use that word often, but sometimes it is just good for the shock value of it.  So there, are you shocked?  I was such a “good” boy on the outside growing up, and sometimes at 44 I just get tired of it, you know.

Anyway, if I offended you I am sorry.   But the “Confessions” part of the title pulled you in, so you expected at least something Juicy!!  That may be all the Juice…I don’t intend on confessing EVERYTHING here on such a public forum.   I think the main thing to Confess is that I really am an Artist.  I think about Color and Quilting and Design all the time…..more than my ”work” ....and as a guy…our “work” is “supposed” to be our ”being”.....Linda my lovely bride of 18+ years says that my current “job” does not have to define me, and she is technically right, but I don’t know, I think somehow genetically men are programmed to Live Their Work….And I really don’t want to do “traditional” men’s business work…I want to “work” with Fabric!  Ah, Enough about the wild meanderings of my mind-games!  On to the ARTsy stuff!

 I took stuff out of the kitchen cupboard and put them on the porch to take pictures of.  I just love Oven Serve and Fiesta pottery.  The colors are so vibrant and cheery.  The Oven Ware custard cups remind me so much of my Grandma Alice.  We always had ice cream in them at her house.  About 3-4 of these are from her, the rest Linda picked up at garage sales since she loves this era as well.   Check out the brown plain ones in the back…I don’t think they are Oven Serve, but they are cool and proof that aqua and chocolate are not a new color scheme.

   I am particularly fond of this pink one and the yellow one.  They seem to be an unusual color to me.

   This last weekend I stayed up late working on project for a magazine pattern, and I took a break from it to make this little quilty project from charm square that I picked up at Market from Bunny’s Designs.  I started this for a new friend who has a birthday coming up.  Let’s see if I can get beyond starting it and finishing it.   I still owe my friend Kevin at Mr. Feed Dog an ATC which I promised him in exchange for some cool fabric.

      This was a project I also started at about midnight this last Saturday nite.  And I think it is going to be the beginning of my blog commenting/marketing/publicty contest game for Fabulous prizes right here at the Blue Nickel!!  The Tootsie Pop quilt Challenge.  I am working out the details, but think about stepping outside the box, and keep checking back.

  I saw this hanging on the wall by my iron, and I had to post it….(I don’t think it is already in here, but you never know)  My wife Linda made this for me, and I just LOVE it.  She is so talented with beads, and she really finds it “relaxing”... I sometimes struggle just with getting a bead to lie straight!  I just wanted to share it with you.

A couple of housekeeping bloggin’ comments from me.   The Three6five.0 project I started on here….I became so bored with taking my own picture everyday and stressed out about getting it on the page…as well as thinking how fucking narcisstic is that kind of thing anyway….There I used the F word twice now.  Man, I can’t believe I did that, I really am a nice boy!!   Anyway….since no one ever really commented on it, and I am bored with it, I am just leaving it as is….and you can look at how far I got, and think….”Dang, I’m bored too” and move on to the better stuff!!

• Home
• Comments(1)

admin June 21st, 2008

Just a brief thought tonight.  I was looking through the latest issue of House Beautiful and came across this wonderful quote by Clare Donohue from Brooklyn, NY.  She was talking about living in small places, and had this tidbit to say.  “Live only with what you love and use daily.  Think of it as a different kind of abundance.” 

I just love that!!  I know that I gather a LOT of stuff, and I don’t need it all.  I would like to pare things down a bit, but I do find it hard.   And when I think we have so “little” (which isn’t really true)  I will remember that whatever we have really IS an abundance….especially compared to the rest of the world.  I am off to sew tonight….may not be able to post pictures of the actual project, cause I think tonight’s projects will be sent off to magazines for submissions, but I hope to show you some photos of some of the fabrics that I have deliciously picked up this week!  I may have extras too, and will try to “pay it forward” with a drawing.   The drawing will have something to do with multiple comments on here….so if you are reading, start commenting and get your foot in the door.     (is that what “pay it forward” means, I really have no idea what that means, but I have been hearing it a lot…I think it applies here.)

Off to the studio….finally…

• Home
• Comments(1)

admin June 17th, 2008

           This the collection of cool stuff my family picked up for me for Father’s Day.  The skull t-shirt is designed out of music-related images, pretty cool stuff for such a “stuffy” old man like me!!   Next pictured are “martini” animals…..I have no idea how they really work, but they will likely get used in art quilts, and that is why I got them…...Next….remember I like musicals, and I have to say that Hairspray is a great one.  I am a little young to have really ever heard too much about the original movie/play.    But I really like this one.  John Travolta plays a very convincing Mrs. Turnblad.   And the last picture shows the beads that each kid and LInda picked out.   They are very cool beads, not sure what I will use them for but they are so cool.

Last picture for the night, the ducks were released out the poultry yard for the day.   Here they are relaxing  in the shade. 

• Home
• Comments(0)