Spin Drift: 6

Mixed Media Fantasy

Have you noticed how many more digital prints your local quilt stores are carrying this year? They're everywhere now. I stood in a shop yesterday watching people's reactions as they walked by a long rack of them. Several quilters paused longer to look at them, but none reached out to touch them. Interesting, I thought, but why? 

Spin Drift: 5

How Tweet It Is!

We feed the birds throughout the fall, winter, and spring. Sure, on the edge of a large woods they can forage for food, and especially during such a mild winter as we're having, but we feed to draw them in. We want to see the red cardinals, graphic woodpeckers, little gray juncos and titmice, yellow-green false canaries, brown sparrows and wrens, and even those nasty blue jays color our world when most things are gray. It's been a green winter here, but still the birds add so much color.

Spin Drift: 4

Memories of My Garden

My garden is not particularly planned. It's more of a jumble of plants I've bought or been given. Many have to be heeled in quickly, and quite often I have to move one after the fact. It might not like the sun or wind in that spot, or maybe it spreads enough to block another favorite. It may appear messy to some, but most often there is a sense of order in my mind. It's controlled chaos at best.

Spin Drift:3

Oh, the Romance of Rome!

As they say, "All roads lead to Rome", but have you ever been to Rome? It was many moons past for me, but it is a city still etched in my memory. Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and a shabby pensione that overlooked a courtyard fountain. I was 16, and backpacking across Europe--yes, I had a young, daring spirit even then, not to mention trusting parents, and Rome was--hot. Don't laugh, but that was absolutely one of my most vivid memories. There was a heat wave, and I was carrying an overloaded pack. See how I can bring a romantic travel experience down to a base level?

Spin Drift: 2

Dresden Block #2

I decided to show you the blocks in the order I made them. It's interesting how we intuitively change our fabric choices as we progress with a pattern. If one block is high drama, the next might be toned down, and so on. While we can only have one princess at a party, quilts can handle more than one, but not all. 

Spin Drift: It Begins

Spin Drift

Pattern by Michelle McKillop 
for Jen Kingwell Designs

Are you ready for a few weeks full of quilter's eye candy? Then stayed tuned each day as I roll through all the blocks I've completed for this quilt. They are gorgeous because the pattern was made for the fabric! "What?!" you say. Well, this pattern was made especially to use those large scale prints we all love, and have to buy a little of, but struggle to use in our quilts. I was dying to get mine into a quilt so this was a heavenly match. It was like having the Oreo cookies, and finding cream filling! 

Vintage Drunkard's Path

Vintage Indigo Drunkard's Path

It's kind of funny. I often get requests for business cards, but stall to print any as I ruminate over what to put on them. Julie Stocker: Quilt Hunter, Quilt Detective, Quilt Rescue Society, etc. (And seriously I know I need to break down, and just get something printed, but I'm obsessive about this kind of thing.) For those of you who know me only as a quilter, I also love to discover old quilts and the stories behind them.

Quilt for a Hard Rocker

2020 Quilts for Family

I get requests for quilts fairly often, and I used to spend a lot of time asking what colors people liked, if they saw something on Pinterest, etc. It's led me down a few roads I'd rather not travel anymore. I've gotten smarter. If someone asks for a quilt, I get to pick it. That's it. My choice. 

Scrappy Trips Around the World Quilt with Borders

Scrappy Trips Around the World with Borders

It's time to pick up where I left off so here I am. I will tell you I sit down with the intention to write a beautiful post, and after taking care of other humdrum computer business I think, "Oh, it will wait until tomorrow." Well, it's tomorrow. 

Domestic & Long Arm Collaborative Quilting Process

Inspirational Embroidery

A very good friend of mine showed me this project in its earliest stages. She'd found this center block, a beautiful piece of vintage embroidery, from over the pond. She was working on a way to incorporate it into a quilt using some Blocks of the Month, and her batik stash. 

Digital Quilting Design #2: Ogee Bulb

Oh, Gee, Ogees!

Take 2 on my digital quilting design work. I think this new pattern was a great way to elevate a one patch quilt design to a fun, new level. It gave it great texture while still keep it soft and cozy, and added a lot of visual interest, too.

Amish Bright & A Gentle Shift

"Amish Bright"
26" x 26"

The New Year is knocking! Are you ready? Maybe you'll do the same thing I will, and greet 2020 with the first sunrise instead of the clock strike at midnight. Either way, Happy New Year to you, and a toast to our past, present, and future together! Julie Stocker Quilts at Pink Doxies is over 5 years old now, and ready for a shift. Notice I said shift and not change. Shift is my word for 2020. More about that to come. 

First Steps to Digitizing Long Arm Designs

Vinegar Fizz

A little restaurant at the Las Vegas Wynn, Parasol Up Parasol Down, has an intriguing draw. As you watch from the balcony, decorated parasols creep both up and down in rhythm while suspended from the ceiling. It's mesmerizing and calming--a change from the typical Vegas scene of lights and noise. I had the same sensation both designing this geometric pattern, and watching it stitch out. 

Digital design is a seductive blending of creativity, software design, and physical mechanics, and my tools to battle the dreaded meander. There are moments and quilts that a meander satisfies, but it takes such little extra effort to use a decorative edge-to-edge pattern. 

Long Arming Christmas Quilts

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

While most people spent the last months of 2019 thinking about how to decorate their homes for the holidays, my decorating thoughts have been all about how to finish my customers' holiday quilts! Stacks of quilts big and small passed through my studio these past 2 months. I felt like the Head Elf after so many marathon sessions, and all--but my own--were finished as promised. You know how the cobbler's children always go without shoes. Mine will get finished, but perhaps not in time for Christmas this year.

Would you like to see some of the Lovelies I've been working on?

Roll of Quilts & Shredding Thread

Fresh Off the Longarm

Things have really been moo-ving around here since I hung out my shingle as a longarm quilter. I'm learning there is a fine line between busy and swamped, and that can change in a breath if I'm not careful. With Christmas around the corner, I'm in the swamped camp with most other quilters. Time management is important, but I'm enjoying the pace. 

Blog posts have been few and far between, but I have dog sitting duty today, and thought I'd show you some of the fabulous quilts by customers brought to me for quilting. 

Update: 1930's Depression Era Quilting

 Quilting Revision

Imagine this: You're laying in bed in the middle of the night wondering if you should have added more quilting to a project. The batting package said, Quilt up to 8-10" apart. You wonder, "In every direction or does it count if there's 2" and then a channel?" The dog whines. You let the dog out, and you---dumb, dumb, dumb, you check your phone. And someone on your quilting list says, "I wonder if she put enough quilting around those plates?" That is cause for a hot flash, and you are wide awake, sister! Not to mention the quilt has already traveled half an hour back to the store for pick up for binding. Now aren't you glad this isn't you, but me?

Longarming a 1930's Dresden Plate Quilt

"Oh, What Shall I Quilt on Monday?"

Just a tiny tongue-in-cheek, but not really true in this case. I just actively began taking in outside quilting. Not enough to be bombarded, but figuring 15-20 hours a week would be a nice pace for me. It's been most enjoyable so far, and I've met some talented quilters. But the person who pieced this quilt top is gone, and she or he left behind a legacy for future generations. Lucky me, I was asked to finish it.

Fall Themed Charity Quilts

All the Colors of Fall Fabrics

The charity quilt tops I've pulled to quilt recently definitely have fall vibrations. I'm drawn to these earth tones! Rich burgundies, greens, and golds are mainstays of our fall palettes.

Machine Pieced Hexies Progress

The Final (Organic) Layout

In my free sewing time, I'm following along with Mary Huey's Scrappy Hexagon Quilt. Her method allows for chain piecing these bad boy angles, and makes it easy to whip up a crazy, difficult quilt in no time. (It's kind of like the magic of having an Instant Pot, ya know?) Last week's post had us laying out the sets we'd made. Groups of 4, 3's, and a few 2's. Then the border or edge pieces were cut, and the whole shebang laid out as one quilt. 

Hex, Hexe, Hexie: What's the Link?

Hex, Hexe, Hexie: What's the Link?

My brain always itches to know the whats and hows and whys when I see possible connections--especially in the quilt world. This one didn't fail me either. There is one. I'll get to that in a minute.