Hooray! Blogger’s Quilt Festival is here! I had grand plans of sewing a new quilt just for this festival, but it was not to be. May is just the craziest month, and it seems like more stuff gets piled into it every year. After sulking for awhile, I remembered that one of the best parts about this festival is that it’s the stories behind the quilts that are the best part. So I thought I’d share an oldie but goodie with you!

Believe it or not, I really used to enjoy paper piecing. I LOVE the work of Judy Mathieson, most especially her Mariner’s Compass quilts. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent just poring over her Mariner’s Compass book! This quilt was one of the first quilts I made with my own hand dyed fabric, using a Mariner’s Compass pattern that I drafted myself!

I made it back in 2001 (thank goodness I quilted a date in the corner!) I still love it, it hangs in my “music room” (aka the dining room where my husband and sons practice with the table pushed off to the side).

Back in my early dyeing days, I loved combining bright colors with black, it makes them all pop. One large stumbling block I had in working with my own hand dyes was figuring out what other kinds of fabric to combine them with. The flat black is beautiful, but very severe. After making this (and a couple other similar quilts) I realized that I had to learn how to dye tertiary colors, to get more subtlety in my colors. I also ended up deciding that I didn’t LIKE combining hand dyed fabrics with any other kind of fabric, I just had to dye more so I could use my hand dyes exclusively! You know, there is a couple of years of study summarized in those 2 sentences! Seriously, how is it that something so simple took me so long to figure out?the truly

I know that I had already taken my free motion machine quilting class with Melody Johnson, in fact this is probably the first quilt I quilted after that class, as this is the earliest quilt I have with this unmarked, totally improvised quilting patterns.

To all the new visitors to my blog – thanks for stopping by.  Make sure to go visit more of the quilts in the festival!

Have you heard about Blogger’s Quilt Festival? It’s a virtual quilt show that coincides with the Spring and Fall Quilt Markets. It’s the brainchild of Amy Ellis, of Amy’s Creative Side, (I interviewed her here) and she’s getting ready for the 5th one, that will run from May 13-20, click the button for more info.

But the gist is people post a quilt and talk about the story behind it. There’s a big link party, and prizes for anyone who adds their  from the sponsors. Anyway, this year, I’m one of the sponsors! Do you remember the Fabric Dyeing Tutorial I wrote for Sew Mama Sew a couple of weeks ago? Well, I’ve decided that all that fabric I dyed needs to go to a new home, so that’ll be the prize I’m offering! Woot! 

What a year it’s been! I’ve been reading some fabulously gorgeous review posts, with lots of lovely collages lately. I’m afraid that this post won’t be one of them! Why? ‘Cause I got too much stuff to do. One lesson that I continue to learn over and over is that for me, a blog post can NOT be my creative output! Although I can certainly get sucked into that vortex, I know that it’s the not making my art that I’ll look back on with regret! So without further ado…release the navel gazing!

The very first day of this year, I so thoughtfully posted some long term goals and inclinations (I don’t like resolutions!), so I’m gonna just comment on all of them.

My Word for 2010

Simplify

This was a great word for me! I may not have always followed the intention behind it, when I found myself mired in “analysis, paralysis” it was often because I was trying to do something too complicated – at which point, I would remember my word, LISTEN to it, choose the simplest path and MOVE ON! Thank you “simplify“, you were a great help!

My Inclinations for 2010

Create more Art!

Communicate my Art!

Holy moly! If you could have told me how I was gonna be communicating my art this year last January, I would have told you that you had rocks in your head! Read on McDuff!

Long Term Artistic Goals

1. Work more in 3 dimensions. Yup, I’ve made a lot more of my mod houses, I dabbled a bit with trees. I’ve got even more ideas that will take me through 2011 and beyond!
2. Explore the shape/idea of house/home. Yup, still a LOT more exploring to do!
3. Continue to work with restricted color palettes. Again, Yup!  I love the freedom I get with this approach.
4. Improve the pictures I take of my art! Geesh, I certainly hope so. I’m thinking that I’ll never be completely satisfied with this. “Simplify” helped me through a few rough spots here, because photography for me can be a huge time suck.

Long Term Business Goals

1. Double my Stats. My stats today, in order of how I prioritize them are:
   1. I’m at about 10,000 hits/month right now: After a little more research, I realize that gross hits/month isn’t the best way to look at traffic, because a few more or less posts/month can really skew the numbers, and I don’t want to be driven to produce content solely for the sake of hit count! So, what I’ve been keeping an eye on is absolute unique visitors/month. This number has not doubled. In fact, it started the year at 2,900/month, it’s been as low as 2,000/month and this month it’s 3,300. I’m trying really hard NOT to obsess about the numbers here, and I realize that I don’t have the best understanding of how to look at my stats…however, over the year I’ve had 26,693 unique visitors – that’s kind of exciting!
   2. I’ve got 69 RSS subscribers: Now, it’s 133. I’ve also added the google follow widget to the sidebar, so I’ll add those 39 folks here!
   3. 170 folks subscribed to my newsletter: Now it’s 274. Not double, but not bad.
   4. 123 Facebook Fans: 360 people now “like” Candied Fabrics. I’ve not done much special stuff with the FB page yet, but I’ve grown to appreciate FB in general this year, and with the help of alamodeSTUFF Linda’s very helpful series, I’m gonna rock my fan page next year!
   5. 438 Twitter followers: Which has become 1061! Ah, I love twitter! The immediacy of it has kept me company, and I’ve made some awesome friendships this way!
2. Simplify my business data. This is a work in progress, but with the help of my word of the year, I’ve come to realize that the crazy-ass way I do things in excel is working fine for me. If i  could travel back in time and tell my former self to start with outright or quickbooks, I would. But because I can’t time travel, for now I’m sticking with  the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach!”
3. Meet or exceed my sales for this year: Yes, I totally did this! As our economy continues to stagnate, I realize how incredibly lucky I am that I can stay in the black with my little business. HOWEVER! There’s NO WAY I’m quitting my day job!

Long Term Blogging Goals

1. Create a more meaningful blog. I think that I have. I’ve been happy with my Maker’s Must series, and I love the connections I make with both the Meetup goals posts and the One Moment meetups. I also realize that what I intended by this was me organizing the site so that people can find lots of info easily, which moving to Headway has helped and will continue to help me do.
2. Generate income from my blog, without being obnoxious about it. I did make a wee bit of affiliate money. My web design ventures have also added a slight bit to my balance sheet, and more importantly to me, allowed me to really understand the underpinning of WordPress based web design. I really enjoy the power of being able to say to an artistic friend “I can totally help you get online right now!” because I understand how overwhelming that is in the beginning.
3. Consolidate the tutorials I have and make more! This is a work in progress…the biggest increase here has been my monthly “Yes you CAN” tutorials over at Lillyella.
4. Increase my understanding of HTML and get my site looking even better. LOL! Um, yes, did that in spades! I now have a wee web design business, and a great partnership with a lovely lady who eats code for breakfast!

Pie in the Sky Goals

1. Get published in print! This, my friends is where I’ll crow a little! Seriously, I had no idea how much awesomeness was headed my way in this avenue!

Me and my studio in Cloth Paper Scissors Studio? Check!

My Mod Houses in Quilting Arts Gifts? Check!!

My Branch & Bird series in International Quilt Festival Quilt Scene? Check!!!

Me on Quilting Arts TV? Check!!!!

Seriously, I had no idea when I sent those proposals out this January that all of this would come to pass! I am so amazed at all the wonderfulness this year has brought, and i can’t thank you my blog-reading-FB-updating-tweeting pals all enough for the support that you’ve given me this year. (The comments on this post in particular were amazingly strength giving!)

I got the DVDs for this whole series in the mail on Christmas Eve! I super excited and honored to have my houses on the cover, right alongside some incredible work by Jean Wells.

Have I watched them yet? NO! But perhaps I’ll find the time and the courage this weekend! I don’t think that they’ve yet been scheduled to air, but I’m in Episodes 703 & 709. They have a station finder right here, where you type in your zip code and it gives you the upcoming schedule.

I’ve got big plans for next year, I can’t wait to put them into action! But for now, it’s New Year’s Eve morning, and my 3 guys, Stirling and I are headed up to a friend’s cabin in the Mammoth lakes region for a snowy and (hopefully) peaceful entry into the new year.

Happy New Year to you!

This is my entry into the Fall Blogger’s Quilt Festival, the genius idea from Amy of Amy’s Creative Side. It’s an online quilt show that runs at the same time as  the big Quilts, inc show runs. Lots of bloggy quilting friends are there in Houston, so this is a show for those of us who can’t go! Amy has a big linky where literally 100′s and 100′s of quilters sign in, and then we all try to visit as many as we can!

This quilt is quite old…I made it back in 2005.

We had moved to California in 2004, and my hubby had hooked up a sink up in the patio for me to be able to dye often. Because I had a great place to dye, I finally came to the realization that I needed to start using the special little bits of fabric I’d dyed back in my learning years in Ohio. I also had painted the bedroom an earthy green and wanted an earthier quilt to go with it.

So one of the reasons this quilt is special to me is that I had finally realized that I needed to use those fabulous bits of fabric…I could always dye more! (When you’re a beginning dyer, there’s lots of trial and error. But after spending 6 years honing my dyeing skills, by this point I realized that I could usually get the color and texture I was looking for.)

The other big leap I took here was the quilting. I had spent years learning how to free motion quilt, and because I could fill a quilt with intricate designs, I thought that mean’t that I always HAD to. Which really got in the way for me creating for awhile…because that free motion quilting, on my wonderful Bernina, that doesn’t have a lot of room under the arm, is very time intensive! But at some point, I got over myself, and gave myself permission to choose a simple, organic line quilting pattern, and a quilt as you go type of construction, so I could make it!

So, this quilt has covered my bed for 5 years now, and has held up pretty well. I took these pictures two days ago, and if I do say so myself, I think that it looks mighty fine! Realizing that just because I could do fancy quilting but that I didn’t have to – this is simple to say, but it really was an amazing step for me. Most of the art I now make uses the quilting line as just that, a line. I love to dye fabrics with texture, and allow that to shine through. When I look back at this quilt, I realize that this was a big breakthrough for me!

And if you’re wondering about the leaves hanging the bed, I wrote a tutorial on how to make them, its over at Lillyella. Thanks for stopping by – I look forward to visiting lots of other quilts in this festival!

I’ve got a new “ask Candy” over at Alamode Stuff – it’s about how to add one of those “grab my button” boxes to your sidebar!