HMQG Giveaway - Anna Maria Horner

We are honored and ecstatic to announce our next giveaway featuring the fabric of Anna Maria Horner! Anna Maria is generously giving away a fat quarter bundle of her latest, and my personal (Becca) favorite, collection Field Study. Bold, rich, flavorful, saturated, and meaningful are words that come to mind when describing Anna Maria Horner's fabrics. And Field Study definitely captures that spirit. Take a look at each stunning color way: 

Image courtesy of Anna Maria Horner

Image courtesy of Anna Maria Horner

Image courtesy by Anna Maria Horner 

At QuiltCon, I had the honor of attending Anna Maria's lecture "Making Me" during which she explained how she came to be a fabric designer and what inspires her designs. Two themes were plainly clear. First, Anna Maria values a hand made object. She values the time and effort one undertakes when making a quilt, a dress, a painting, etc. And though at one time she created other surface designs for things such as party napkins,  Anna Maria seemed honored that her designs were being used to make objects meant to be treasured heirlooms. 

Second, family is important to Anna Maria and largely inspires her work.  Growing up Anna Maria's family immersed their children in a creative ventures. He father filled their home with his paintings, her mother was a expert sewist, beds were draped with hand-loomed blankets made by their Yiayia in Greece. These were meaningful craftings in that the act of making fulfilled both the need to create and the need to nurture and love those cherished most.  Her parents had the foresight to teach their children their crafts and Anna Maria continues their rich tradition of making.  

A picture of Anna Maria's Yiayia's loomed blanket
Image courtesy of Anna Maria Horner

Coupled with the making is the designing. Anna Maria continues to incorporate inspiration from her family and everyday life into her designs and in her own quilts.  The buck which features prominently in a print from her "Little Folks" collection came directly from her Yiayia's hand loomed blanket. In her quilt designs, Anna Maria, a mom to six with a sweet baby girl on the way, incorporates the character and personality of the recipient. Recently on her blog, Anna Maria has shared a few quilts she composed (she also a talented painter) for some of her children and how she designed each quilt to suit the child. Also, Anna Maria loves to hand quilt her quilts because it allows her to quilt alongside her family. So, many of her quilts are beautifully hand quilted. (Find her tutorial for how to hand quilt here.) 

In Anna Maria's latest book, Anna Maria's Needlework Notebook, she writes more extensively about her experiences growing up in a family of creative types. Besides being a good read, this book is filled with a yummy variety needlework-type designs and patterns. I made this clutch from the pattern "Star Crossed Love Clutch" featured in her book. 

Star Crossed Love Clutch, pattern from AMH's latest book,
Anna Maria's Needleworks Notebook

I loved making this clutch! The needlework was completed while I visited with family or snuggled on the couch with a treat after a long day (It would be much more sophisticated if I liked tea....).  I can still hear the sound of the needle drawing the thread through the cloth. While I used the same colors as Anna Maria used in her project, I customized the back and insides how I wanted. The clutch is now my favorite date-night purse. 

Here I am with AMH, Christa, and Deirdre (and the pouch too). 

Becca, AMH, Christa, and Deirdre

I think, as a busy mom myself, Anna Maria's work feels special in large part because Anna Maria meaningfully connects her work to her life and family. She encourages the maker to create something meaningful. And in fact, I feel encouraged to dig out my treasured heirlooms made by my grandmother and see what inspiration I find. 

What about you? Has Anna Maria's work challenged you? Comment here to be entered to win a Fat Quarter Bundle of Field Study by March 25!

QuiltCon Dance Party!

Becca, Anna and Deirdre

Modern Quilt Guild has just updated their site with photos from the 80s dance party.  I thought you needed to see them and get a good laugh!  They have also posted some photos from the workshops - take a look!

HMQG Giveaway - Heather Ross

Sandwiching Heather

One of the reasons I went to QuiltCon was to attend lectures.  I really wanted to hear more from my favorite designers.  I love knowing what motivates them and how they fuel their creative process. I spoke with and begged swag from a few of my favorite designers, quilters and other general modern movement gurus that were at QuiltCon and am happy to announce the HMQG After QuiltCon Giveaway!  Heather Ross will be the first inspiration for this new series because she has offered signed & doodled copies of both of her books for us!  We will be giving away one copy each of Weekend Sewing and her new book Prints.  (this one was sold out at QuiltCon before she even got to her Stitch Lab book signing so I can't wait to see it - here are cute candid shots of Heather graciously running out of books )

I really like Heather Ross's sweet & quirky designs so her lecture entitled "My Fabric Design Process,  From Inspiration to Finished Photoshop Files" appealed to me.  I am familiar with Photoshop and thought this was going to be a technical talk.  Heather surprised me when she began her lecture at QuiltCon with an essay about her background and naturalist point of view.  She had an extraordinary childhood roaming around the backwoods of Vermont.  Ross shared themes of families, sense of place and her love of nature.  Then she intertwined these elements into her design process and demonstrated them with samples from her work in Photoshop. She also debuted her new line Briar Rose which will be released April 1st.

The Dome

When she was very young, her parents built a geodome on the top of a mountain where the family lived until deeming the structure a failure.  "The Dome" as it was called was only their home for about a year but it defined her as well as gave her a sense of security and ownership. It was their Dome.  She isn't sure if there was a small fire, structural failure or if they just gave up - but they moved out of the geodome knowing they had tried something special and were brave because of that.  Years later when she went back to the site she was only able to find a monstrous double sink that was too heavy to drag away.  Later, in cool twist she ended up asking the man who bought the old homestead if she could come back and get the sink because she couldn’t forget about it.  She wanted to build her kitchen around it. 

She discussed her time with her extended family.  Her immediate family lived close by her other relatives but they seemed a tiny bit ostracized perhaps because of their geodome.  She described how the other kids had moms in shiny station wagons and dads with well-paying jobs; revealing how she felt a bit different from her cousins.  She came from The Dome – land of unplanned kittens and head lice instead of ballet lessons and excellent public schools.  But she was also clear that it was okay to be different.  Maybe even great.  Maybe even brave!  I grew up with a family that was also a little off and I have grown to embrace those differences so I completely relate to her point of view.

New Home

Heather loves making tents in her bean plants and she talked about different homes and how their sense of place creates security.  The different homes she talked about were very interesting.  There was a neighbor when she was growing up squatting in a tin & plastic shanty and she mentions how his home was built to withstand the elements perhaps better than her uncles’ stone homes that were slowly eroding   There were also lots of interesting photos of the abandoned Catskill home that she and her husband recently purchased to remodel from the ground up.  This is the house that will get the old-worldly sink.

Owl and Pussycat

Next she spoke about her design process. She showed several slides of her fabric and gave examples of how she sometimes takes several designs that she isn’t happy with and mashes them together to make one good one.  She used several examples of her Owl and Pussycat fabric line showing how it evolved over time and edits.  Heather also explains why she has a fondness for these two fairy tale characters - she really likes that the only basis for their friendship is that they like the same food. This makes sense to her and she realizes her own relationship is based on similar characteristics. 

Unicorn Wallpaper

Heather's new book Prints  comes with a DVD of reproducible artwork for more than 50 of her most popular prints. She provides step-by-step instructions for 20 craft projects using the prints—everything from sea turtle stationery to a shower curtain covered with swirling mermaids.  She showed us this cool unicorn wallpaper idea and has more info about it on her blog.  She often mentioned Spoonflower and encouraged her audience to take our ideas, use her as inspiration and just go for it -- print, sew, wallpaper, whatever. 

We also got a sneak peek at her new fabric line - Briar Rose with Windham Fabrics.  It was full of her usual whimsy, charm and fresh spring colors. Heather has generously offered to donate some of her fabric to us for a Giveaway when Briar Rose ships.  

The lecture was incredibly insightful.  It is rare to hear someone speaking so clearly from their heart.  I left the lecture hall feeling really blessed to have been there and brave, like her!

Please comment here for a chance to win either Weekend Sewing  or Prints.   I will pick a random winner for each book on March 17th.  Make sure to follow our blog because there will be 5 more HMQG giveaways coming up. 

Briar Rose

 

Is it Over??? I have the QuiltCon Blues!

QuiltCon was so amazing, it is hard to believe it is over.   But really, it will live in our hearts forever! It was so nice to be surrounded by so much beauty, skill, kindness and fun.  And that was just because I was rooming with Becca!!!  I have asked the group of us that went to all blog-in and give their reports of what they learned, were inspired by, and purchased!  Please check back over the next few weeks while we relive the madness that was QuiltCon. 

I am so glad I got there to participate in the inaugural event. Everyone I spoke with had a feeling we were doing something awesome and were lucky to be there.  I guess I should feel that way about my life but it takes something like a modern quilting conference to spark my gratitude! 

In case anyone hasn't logged on to the mothership site in a while, they have updated their look and added some new content on the Modern Quilt Guild.  Especially of interest is the list of show winners on their blog.