Week 5 of the US Tour of blocks!

Around the Block - US Tour Week 5!

This weeks give-away winner is Donna M. from Massachusetts! 

Join the raffle below.

If you're new to the US Block Tour, here is a quick description!

Every Sunday you will find the link here to visit the current weeks designer, so you can get the block!

Each week a new block has been designed for a new State. Zip back and forth across the country on a unique virtual voyage, complete with complimentary 6.5″ blocks, state & designer trivia and stories,  giveaways and bonus blocks too!

Have you signed up to get your free patterns yet?

If not, visit the home page here!

Or subscribe to my blog to make sure you see reminders of when the next blocks are available!

Join us this week as we head around the block to the state of Florida with Julie Loma of Off the Wall Quilts

Where are we headed next?

Week 6  we head to Texas with Sarah Ruiz from Sarah Ruiz Quilts

And don't forget to enter to win some fun raffle prizes!

Participating Designers 

• Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
• Appliques Quilts and more
• KISSed Quilts
• Carolina Moore
• Off The Wall Quilt
• Sarah Ruiz Quilts
• Quilt Doodle Designs
• PhoebeMoon Designs
• Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio LLC
• Tamarinis
• Faith and Fabric
• Louanna Mary Quilt Design
• Slice of Pi Quilts
• Prairie Point Junction
• Tuning My Heart Quilts, LLC
• Your Sewing Friend
• Traditional Primitives
• Inquiring Quilter
• A Stitch in Time
• On Williams Street
• TextileTimeTravels
• Stitch Adventure
• Usquepaugh Baking Company
• The Quilting Room with Mel
• Orchid Owl Quilts
• Lizard Creek Quilting
• Seams To Be Sew
• Seams Like a Dream Quilts
• Pretty Piney Quilts
• QuiltFabrication
• One Quilting Circle
• Flying Parrot Quilts
• Stitched in Purple
• The Quilted Diary
• Katie Mae Quilts
• Wendt Quilting
• Calico Patch Designs
• Ladybug's Cabin

#quiltingaroundtheblock

Past Blocks:

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Saturday Share: August 29th

 This week's Saturday Share is one I often use as a prime example of why my tag line for Ladybug's Cabin is "Follow Your Art". 

So often we feel as if we have to have a project completely mapped out in our mind in order to achieve the end goal, when rather, it is the willingness to begin with an inspiration and an open mind to where that project might lead us, that creates the best magic. 

Forest Shadows

My journey for this piece began with a bit of marbled fabric. The earth tones and movement intrigued me and I thought it would be a fun fabric to create a background using Gloria Loughman's technique called Radiant Landscapes. I collected a variety of different fabrics in the colors found in my inspiration fabric and began playing with the placement of the colored tiles. 

As I worked, the base fabric started to 'talk'-- requesting that a portion of it remain uncovered. In doing so I started to notice the outline of a tree trunk became visible. Once the world of a shadowy forest came into play the piece then began to ask the question of what kind of animal might wander into the frame. Again, inspired by the earthy tones I thought this tree might be a good place for a bear to pause for a moments rest.

I got out some different colors of wool roving and began to create a needle-felted bear's head to add to the forest scene. 

I had as much fun discovering what the next step wanted to be, as I did in the creating each new element. Working collaboratively with my art, instead of as a dictator, brought this piece to life. 

Not every piece comes as quickly and smoothly in this style of working, but having experienced the joy of the journey, it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Sun Printing On Fabric Demo!

Around the Block Week 4

Around the Block - US Tour Week 4!

Have you signed up to get your free patterns yet?

If not, visit the home page here!

Or subscribe to my blog to make sure you see reminders of when the next blocks are available!

Join us this week as we head around the block to the state of California with Carolina Moore  www.AlwaysExpectMoore.com 

Where are we headed next?

Week 5  Florida with Julie Loma from Off the Wall Quilts

Week 6 Texas with Sarah Ruiz from Sarah Ruiz Quilts

And don't forget to enter to win some fun raffle prizes!

Participating Designers 

• Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
• Appliques Quilts and more
• KISSed Quilts
• Carolina Moore
• Off The Wall Quilt
• Sarah Ruiz Quilts
• Quilt Doodle Designs
• PhoebeMoon Designs
• Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio LLC
• Tamarinis
• Faith and Fabric
• Louanna Mary Quilt Design
• Slice of Pi Quilts
• Prairie Point Junction
• Tuning My Heart Quilts, LLC
• Your Sewing Friend
• Traditional Primitives
• Inquiring Quilter
• A Stitch in Time
• On Williams Street
• TextileTimeTravels
• Stitch Adventure
• Usquepaugh Baking Company
• The Quilting Room with Mel
• Orchid Owl Quilts
• Lizard Creek Quilting
• Seams To Be Sew
• Seams Like a Dream Quilts
• Pretty Piney Quilts
• QuiltFabrication
• One Quilting Circle
• Flying Parrot Quilts
• Stitched in Purple
• The Quilted Diary
• Katie Mae Quilts
• Wendt Quilting
• Calico Patch Designs
• Ladybug's Cabin

#quiltingaroundtheblock

Past Blocks:

Saturday Share

 I've done a couple of rounds of being nominated by friends on facebook to post photos of past projects. And while I've been enjoying sharing on that format, one of my friends made the (fairly obvious now that I think about it) comment that I should be writing down my stories and sharing them on my blog.  

So here we go!

Each week I'll post a photo of a project that I've created and talk a little about the technique, inspiration or life of the piece. 

Wide Open Spaces (Homestead on the Hi-Line)  

by Monique Kleinhans

Montana is known for beautiful mountain scenery, clear lakes and streams and for stunning 'big skies'. But on the wide-open spaces and fields you'll find old homesteads still standing as sentinels of the past. Their strength and longevity are a testimony to the fortitude of those settlers 

who once occupied their walls. 

I love creating old homesteads out of a variety of fibers and textiles. The combination of layers of thread, fabrics, felt and roving represent the many layers of time and uses these old buildings have seen.

This homestead was created entirely of layers of thread and placed 

on a felted and thread painted field under a hand painted sky. 

My favorite story of this piece however, came from when I was showing it at an art festival in Northwest Montana. A young woman was passing and stopped to have a closer look at the piece, remarking that she was always drawn to old buildings. She started to reminisce about her family's homestead up on the Hi-line that had unfortunately burned to the ground. As she started to describe the area where the builds once stood, I realized that the photos that I taken on a long drive home from the Hi-line following a family member's memorial service a couple years prior would have come from that exact area. We compared notes, and sure enough, this piece was based on a photo I took of her family's old homestead. I was never happier to have one of my art 'kids' be adopted! 

Around the Block - US Tour Week 3

 

Around the Block - US Tour Week 3

How are you enjoying your travels? Don't want to miss out an any block tour adventures? visit the home page here!

Or subscribe to my blog to make sure you see reminders of when the next blocks are available!

This week we take a delicious bite into a tasty apple as we head around the block to the state of Washington with KISSed Quilts www.kissedquilts.com .

Where are we headed next?

Week 4 (8/23) - California with Carolina Moore www.AlwaysExpectMoore.com 

Week 5 (8/20)- Florida with Julie Luoma www.offthewallquilt.com

Participating Designers 

• Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
• Appliques Quilts and more
• KISSed Quilts
• Carolina Moore
• Off The Wall Quilt
• Sarah Ruiz Quilts
• Quilt Doodle Designs
• PhoebeMoon Designs
• Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio LLC
• Tamarinis
• Faith and Fabric
• Louanna Mary Quilt Design
• Slice of Pi Quilts
• Prairie Point Junction
• Tuning My Heart Quilts, LLC
• Your Sewing Friend
• Traditional Primitives
• Inquiring Quilter
• A Stitch in Time
• On Williams Street
• TextileTimeTravels
• Stitch Adventure
• Usquepaugh Baking Company
• The Quilting Room with Mel
• Orchid Owl Quilts
• Lizard Creek Quilting
• Seams To Be Sew
• Seams Like a Dream Quilts
• Pretty Piney Quilts
• QuiltFabrication
• One Quilting Circle
• Flying Parrot Quilts
• Stitched in Purple
• The Quilted Diary
• Katie Mae Quilts
• Wendt Quilting
• Calico Patch Designs
• Ladybug's Cabin

#quiltingaroundtheblock

Around the Block US State tours Week 2

Around the Block - US Tour Week 2!

Have you signed up to get your free patterns yet?

If not, visit the home page here!

Or subscribe to my blog to make sure you see reminders of when the next blocks are available!

Join us this week as we head around the block to the state of Alaska with Appliques Quilts and More

Where are we headed next?

Week 3 (8/16) - Washington with KISSed Quilts www.kissedquilts.com 

Week 4 (8/23) - California with Carolina Moore www.AlwaysExpectMoore.com 

Participating Designers 

• Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
• Appliques Quilts and more
• KISSed Quilts
• Carolina Moore
• Off The Wall Quilt
• Sarah Ruiz Quilts
• Quilt Doodle Designs
• PhoebeMoon Designs
• Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio LLC
• Tamarinis
• Faith and Fabric
• Louanna Mary Quilt Design
• Slice of Pi Quilts
• Prairie Point Junction
• Tuning My Heart Quilts, LLC
• Your Sewing Friend
• Traditional Primitives
• Inquiring Quilter
• A Stitch in Time
• On Williams Street
• TextileTimeTravels
• Stitch Adventure
• Usquepaugh Baking Company
• The Quilting Room with Mel
• Orchid Owl Quilts
• Lizard Creek Quilting
• Seams To Be Sew
• Seams Like a Dream Quilts
• Pretty Piney Quilts
• QuiltFabrication
• One Quilting Circle
• Flying Parrot Quilts
• Stitched in Purple
• The Quilted Diary
• Katie Mae Quilts
• Wendt Quilting
• Calico Patch Designs
• Ladybug's Cabin

#quiltingaroundtheblock

Simple blessings

 After a few weeks of high and hot temps we were gifted with a lovely rain storm last night. This morning I woke to the wonderful smell of fresh damp earth and a lovely cool breeze. As it's not supposed to be as hot today I also decided to take advantage of the cooler weather to roast up some veggies and make up some enchiladas for meals the next few days. Bob is off picking huckleberries (his favorite morning task before work) and the bird traffic outside is so much fun to watch--as lot of baby birds start trying to figure out how to feed themselves instead of relying on their parents. 

I have a lovely choir mantra playing the background, and at the moment at least my little bit of the world feels soft, quiet, and calm.  

We need to find these moments in our lives right now--or perhaps we need to create these moments in our lives right now. 

Today promises some time to quilt and perhaps finish up on the current customer quilt I have on the frame, as well as work on some smaller projects to get them further along their path. 

But for now, I wanted to share a soft and quiet moment with you, and to encourage you to find a moment to pause and find a way to invite some calm and peace into your chaos. 

Peace.

If you want to check out the choir mantra, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0j4yTY_eGI

Find the JOY in learning Free-motion Quilting

Around the Block - US Tour First stop? Massachusetts!

Around the Block - US Tour Starts today! Have you signed up to get your free patterns yet?

If not, visit the home page here!

Or subscribe to my blog to make sure you see reminders of when the next blocks are available!

Join us this week as we head around the block to the state of Massachusetts with Kathryn LeBlanc of Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio.

Where are we headed next?
Week 2 (8/9) - Alaska with Appliques Quilts and More www.appliquesquiltsandmore.com 

Week 3 (8/16) - Washington with KISSed Quilts www.kissedquilts.com 

Week 4 (8/23) - California with Carolina Moore www.AlwaysExpectMoore.com 

Participating Designers

• Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio
• Appliques Quilts and more
• KISSed Quilts
• Carolina Moore
• Off The Wall Quilt
• Sarah Ruiz Quilts
• Quilt Doodle Designs
• PhoebeMoon Designs
• Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio LLC
• Tamarinis
• Faith and Fabric
• Louanna Mary Quilt Design
• Slice of Pi Quilts
• Prairie Point Junction
• Tuning My Heart Quilts, LLC
• Your Sewing Friend
• Traditional Primitives
• Inquiring Quilter
• A Stitch in Time
• On Williams Street
• TextileTimeTravels
• Stitch Adventure
• Usquepaugh Baking Company
• The Quilting Room with Mel
• Orchid Owl Quilts
• Lizard Creek Quilting
• Seams To Be Sew
• Seams Like a Dream Quilts
• Pretty Piney Quilts
• QuiltFabrication
• One Quilting Circle
• Flying Parrot Quilts
• Stitched in Purple
• The Quilted Diary
• Katie Mae Quilts
• Wendt Quilting
• Calico Patch Designs
• Ladybug's Cabin

#quiltingaroundtheblock