Here we all are in a fresh New Year! I hope you had a lovely holiday. Mine was delightful, lots of family, and full of a lot of planning and thinking about where I want to go from here in my fabric arts, especially while the professional quilting organizations sort out the full impact of the pandemic. I have a lot of fun planned for the new year that I hope you will find interesting, encouraging, and even join me in some of them.
The new year arrives at an interesting point in my fabric arts. I have finished my ongoing show quilt (Out of Mom’s Workbasket), and haven’t started a new one. I am close to the end of producing my first three-video series for my refurbished YouTube channel.
Forks in the road
I have put together a plan for the year that includes small fabric art pieces using multiple interesting techniques. And I am working on some technique workbooks and patterns to sell on my newly updated website. The show quilt world may take years before it is fully back, and it may be different when it rebuilds, so I am going to focus mostly on small pieces of fabric art for a while to share in videos, books, workbooks, and patterns and possibly for sale. So here are the main topics for my 2021 focus:
- Working with wool (machine applique and embroidery primarily).
- Machine embroidery (free motion and in the hoop)
- Working with decorative threads, yarns and ribbons
- Small landscapes, space scapes, fantasy scapes
- Ancient illuminated manuscripts
- Heirloom sewing by machine for quilts
- Working with fun preprinted panels for fun and presents
- Whole cloth pieces (quilting techniques and pictographs)
Sew you can see my creative interests remain the same, it is just how I am hoping to share them that is a little different. By keeping the pieces small I may actually be able to cover all of the concepts I have for now and you may decide to do similar pieces of your own too. Smaller pieces are also more saleable I’m told.
Practice painting I did in Corel Painter
Sew happy everyone! Learn some new skills, refresh some old ones, teach someone to sew or quilt, make some fun projects, and love your studios in this fresh new year. Have fun in your studio (even if it is the top of your kitchen table)!