Asymmetry

I like asymmetrical designs. I am very much attracted to designs that are not equal on both sides. But at the same time I am striving to create harmony within the design. Making anything be it a quilt, bag or table runner in this manner poses a challenge for me.

Reading Gwen Marston's book Liberated Quiltmaking has really been inspirational when it comes to creating my own designs.  If you can get your hands on a copy I highly recommend it.  I borrowed a copy from my library. 

Making this table runner is a good example of how I have been inspired by Gwen.  First I layed out a piece of linen 45 inches long.  Then I took the fabric with the white background and folded it into different sizes moving it around to different places until I settled on the place that was pleasing to me.  I did the same with the blue and red accent fabrics.  I then cut out the amount of linen from the main piece, adding seam allowances, and added in the fabrics.  I did the same with the smaller pieces. Moving things around until I felt it was just right.   I really love creating this way! "Creating as you sew"  try it out, see for yourself, it's quite enjoyable.

The fabric, by the way, is Anna Griffin, The Flora Collection.  I just love that red floral print,  it has such a peaceful quality to it.  I was very pleased with the balance of print fabric to the plain linen in this design.  This is not always the case with some of my projects.  But this is a journey and I am enjoying the process of coming up with my own style. 

For the quilting I knew I wanted to do something with a heavy quilted look.  I have been following Lauren's blog  My Aunt June for a while now and I love the way she quilts her quilts.  Check out this  beauty.  So, I had to give it a try and I came up with this wavy quilting.  I used a whole spool of brown thread quilting this.

Jumping in

That is what this feels like to me.  I'm just diving in.  I have been reading around blog land for a year and a half now.  It has been so inspirational to my sewing, quilting and knitting, but especially to quilting. 

I had never made a quilt and thanks to the wonderful blog Sew, Mama, Sew I made my first quilt (pictured above) using this tutorial from Helen at Quilts and ATC's.  Thanks Helen!  I've never met Helen but I am very thankful that she posted that great tutorial. So just like today, with blogging,  I just jumped into quilt making.  That is why the fabrics are kind of wonky in that quilt. But I did learn a lot with that first quilt.  One of which is a good border and binding fabric can bring it all together.

So here I am a year and a half later and I am jumping into the blogosphere. I know nothing about blogging..... I am learning as I go.  I will try to share some of what I learn about blogging as well as some fun sewing projects.  I would like to share some of my work and hopefully post a few tutorials. But for now let me introduce myself.

My name is Kathy and I live just out side Boston, Massachusetts.  I am a mom of two wonderful teenage girls ages 16 and 14 and the wife of a sweet and caring man.  I have been sewing most of my life but just started quilting back in Feb 2008. I have found so much inspiration on the blogs that I read, I just want to be part of that community of sharing so here goes.......Thanks for stopping by!