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It’s Thursday and it’s time to get your quilt on!
I’ve been battling a migraine all day, so please excuse the brevity of this post 
Please link your quilty process below and visit three other linkers – it’s always nicer to share the love <3
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It’s Thursday and it’s time to linky up your quilty process here at Pretty Bobbins! Sometimes I think too much, I always have. In fact one of my favourite things to do is quilt and think (I’m not one to watch TV and piece, I prefer the company of my own thoughts). This week I’ve been thinking a lot about being a professional quilter and blogger and what that means. But first up I want to feature the incredibly talented Jess of The Elven Garden.
Image used with permission from The Elven Garden
I remember first coming across Jess and being so incredibly impressed with her quilting. Seriously amazing stuff! She is now teaching and has been published in magazines and is generally a bit of a quilting superstar in my books I’m looking forward to meeting Jess in real life and sharing a room at QuiltCon next year!!
Image used with permission from The Elven Garden – saw this in person, it’s AMAZING!!
Yesterday Jess wrote a post about thinking and quilting. Now I’ll admit that I quilt and think, the two go hand in hand for me. Jess talked about how some of us are mindful quilters and some aren’t and how she’s realised that she is totally happy “just” making pretty things and being happy <3 Jess, I’ll be happy if you keep making pretty things! The world needs more quilt candy, be it mindfully made or thrown together with purpose rather than deep thought involved 
Image used with permission from The Elven Garden
Seriously, this kind of talent kills me! ABSOLUTELY stunning! If you haven’t already, please head over to The Elven Garden and say hi to Jess. Her work is all things wonderful <3
Quilting with my Miss
The only quilting I’ve been up to lately is a super simple quilt for Francois, my daughter’s class mascot. The children in her class laid out the charm squares and we made the quilt together at home. We added photographs to the Francois’ scrapbook and I have hung a few copies in my sewing room <3
Triangle quilt in progress
As usual I have been thinking a lot about my business and I’ve decided to aim to have a market stall. We all know that pricing is arguably the hardest part of quilting and I very much believe that we should charge what we’re worth. I have a super hard time following through with this and generally tend to sell myself short. I have decided that everything I make for market will be properly priced. I’ve been timing myself as I’m working and you may be interested to hear my progress.
Cutting: 50 minutes
Layout: 40 minutes
Piecing: 205 minutes
That’s almost 5 hours of work before basting, quilting and binding and this is only a cot sized quilt. Of course I will probably chicken out and charge far less than the finished quilt is actually worth, but at least by figuring out an accurate cost based on time, materials and skill I can educate myself. In this same vein I urge you to visit this post by Mandalei Quilts on working for free. It is definitely food for thought and fits with my own experience of realising that as much as I love to accept free fabric, the work that I put into my work is worth far more than the say $50 worth of free fabric. As a business I just don’t think I can afford to work for free anymore. I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this one
So that’s my thinky quilty Thursday Please link up your quilty process below <3
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It’s Thursday, yay! It’s almost the weekend 
I hope you’ve got your quilt on and you’re ready to link up to this week’s I Quilt party. This week I’m talking about how I quilt online. But before I get started I want to feature the amazingly talented Christa of Christa Quilts!
“Spiraling Out of Control” image used with permission by Christa Quilts
Christa has her own fabric shop so I’m terribly jealous from the outset She is also a talented and successful quilter and her blog is the place to go if you’re seeking inspiration, insights and how-tos. I’m sure you all know Christa, but if you don’t, please pop over and check out her work and say hi!
“Modern X” image used with permission by Christa Quilts
Last week Christa shared some binding tips (and y’all know how much I love that part of the process!). I love Christa’s modern Christmas trees series, you can find the main post here, but definitely check out the posts on the quilting, it’s super impressive!!
“Modern Trees“, image used with permission by Christa Quilts
I love the crisp, sharp lines that she tends to favour and I adore her quilting, especially as she is a real sharer of process, something that this linky party is ALL about!
This week I wanted to talk about being an online quilter. You may be aware of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival run by Amy of Amy’s Creative Side. If you haven’t participated before or you’re nervous about being “good enough” I strongly encourage you to throw caution to the wind and just jump in! I’ve found some of my favourite bloggers through the festival (I’m looking at you Susan of Canadian Abroad) and aside from anything else, it is such a visual feast!
You’d be surprised to hear that I don’t spend as much time online as I used to but I still LOVE all the fun, creative blogger things happening out there. This week I came across “me made May” on Instagram (check out #mmm14 and #memademay) which is all about wearing clothing in May that you’ve made yourself. Inspired to join in and make myself a fabulous outfit (I firmly believe that if you feel good in what you’re wearing and love how you look, you can conquer the world) I got busy last night and stitched up a tova tunic. I’ll post about it later in the week, but you can see a sneak peek
Pink and yellow giraffes! Love my new tova tunic!
Some of my other favourite online quilting activities are Work in Progress Wednesday, Fresh Sewing Day and TGIFF. Please, please, please add your favourite online quilty/creative/stitchy link ups/activities below. If a hashtag inspired me to sew a fabulous dress then I think we need to share more of them!
Now let’s get linky! Share your quilting process and don’t forget to visit three other linkers, we all love comments!!
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It’s Thursday, yay! That means I get to quilt all day tomorrow and read your linkys <3 Firstly, thank you so much for all your comments last week!! You’ve really made me think about what it is that I want, how we’re all going through a similar journey and how much I have to be grateful for. Thank you!! Following on from the theme of last week; (re)defining success, I want to talk about pride. A few times recently I have almost said, “I’m a quilter” but have ended up saying something like, “I’m a textile artist/designer”. Today I’m going to shout it out; I’m proud to be a quilter! Don’t forget to link up your quilt process and feel free to share your thoughts about being a quilter. Quilters rock!
This week I’m featuring the hugely talented Midge of Ms Midge. Midge and I have never met but are very close online friends. I’m not sure how that all started, but it did and now we chat online most days and help each other out, sharing advice and lending an ear when needed. Midge has been quilting for 2.5 years (and is super organised and has all of her quilts in two pages on her blog 2013 and 2014) and holy heck, she is good! With four kids, a successful handmade business and a job outside the home, I don’t know where she finds the time to quilt! I suspect she has a clone or robot or something, because the rate at which she pumps out her amazing projects is truly astounding!!
Image used with permission from Ms Midge
Ages ago Midge wrote a thinky post (she’s good at them, you should follow her blog) and among other things she wrote that I was the first person to call her a quilter. I’m pretty sure that was around the time that I also called her crazy for taking on a quarter square triangle quilt as (I think) her second ever quilt The point is, I was so touched and so proud that my encouragement meant so much to her. She is awesome, she doesn’t need me to tell her that, and yet I’m compelled to do so. We NEED to encourage each other, it feels good to make others feel good and we can take pride in being not only awesome quilters, but a community that encourages, shares and connects at a meaningful level.
Image used with permission from Ms Midge
In keeping with the theme I asked Midge to share three quilts that she is most proud of. She selected the above two and the following quilt. Midge is most proud of her triangle quilt below because the quilting looks perfect from the back. Only a quilter would get that, the pleasure at not only having a beautiful quilt from the front, but knowing that you’ve done a damn good job and the back is worthy of being put on show. You should be proud Midge, all three quilts are beautiful and a testament to your drive, determination, skill and good taste!!
Image used with permission from Ms Midge
I don’t know if I can choose one quilt that I am most proud of. I guess it was probably mean of me to ask Midge to select only three! Every quilt is special, a learning experience, a meaningful gift, a profitable sale. There is pride to be found in each quilt and we should be proud of what we do.
My son’s Rainbow I Spy quilt is probably one that I can pick out as being super proud of. It’s not my favourite quilt of all time (although I’m pretty sure it was at the time), but I was/am proud of myself for working out the layout. It is pieced and was made by fussy cutting every novelty print I had in my stash at that time, placing them in a rainbow gradient and then working out how to piece them. I learnt a heap from that project and gained a lot of confidence. Plus my son loves it and sleeps under it every night <3
Rainbow I Spy quilt on bed
So next time I find myself talking to someone outside the quiltosphere about my passion I’m going to tell them that I’m a quilter and not feel the need to hide behind a cool title, explain that it really is for awesome peeps or talk it down as just a hobby. Maybe I’ll get it printed on a t-shirt….
Now it’s time to link up your quilty process <3 Big love to all the quilters out there xxx
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If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen a few photos on the weekend of the Modern Quilt Show in Berry, New South Wales (check out #modernquiltshowau) It was an amazing day out!! Prepare yourself for gushiness
My quilt, “Hues of the South Pacific” hanging at the Modern Quilt Show in Berry.
This is only the second time I have had my work on display and was the first time that this show had run. It was AMAZING to see so many beautiful, modern quilts all together in one place. The place was buzzing, or at least I was (car sickness induced!) and I nearly peed my pants when I turned around and nearly ran into MolliSparkles (who won best in show) and the lovely Mr Sparkles.
Me and Molli
Penny Poppleton snuck around the corner a moment later and there I found myself with a bunch of amazing modern, Aussie quilters. Seriously, check out my hysterical grin, I was on cloud nine! Meeting Penny was surreal, finally she is a three dimensional person in my memory, rather than an online friend that I think I connect well with. I really wish we had days together rather than minutes, I look forward to meeting again, I’m keen to check out her frame and talk more about it and all things quilty!
L-R: MolliSparkles, Penny Poppleton, Procrasticraft, Me and Scrappy Quilts.
I was lucky enough to travel down to the show with a group of awesome Canberra quilters and spend the day with them. Our youngest road tripper won Best in Show in the Children’s category which was fantastic and possible made up for the constant talking from the old ladies in the car. (I did tell her that all quilters talk that much, not just us!)
Canberra Modern Quilters hit the road!
Berry itself is a lovely town, but I didn’t get any pics of that! I can share with you some gorgeous fabric I bought though… I had a ball chatting to the lovely Kate of Kate Quilts, her fabric selection was divine and had Molli and I completely distracted from a very meaningful conversation. I’m not sure what happened but we went from, “must pursue happiness, quilting and greater meaning in life” to complete silence for at least five minutes whilst we put together our bundles. I’m thinking of making a triangle quilt with mine <3
From Kate Quilts
I also met the lovely Kim of Simpson and Scarlett (her website is under construction but she has a FB page here) who had a great selection of fabric and totally tempted me with her bundles of Modern Domestic. She saw me coming and offered to break her bundle which was very kind and I ended up with these pretties. I went for fat eights as I have lots of pinks, but seriously, her stall was wonderful!
From Simpson and Scarlett
The very funky and talented Kathy of Material Obsession gave away a number of her books as lucky door prizes and this little red hen scored some candy! To be honest I don’t buy quilting books anymore, I’m on too tight a budget and I don’t make quilts to a pattern, so it was WONDERFUL to be given a beautiful quilt book. I would love to paw over her earlier books and encourage you to check them out if you have a chance, she has a great eye for design and colour. She also has great hair! (One notices these things when one is desperate for a haircut…)
I’m so glad that I made it to the Modern Quilt Show and met so many inspiring people and kindred spirits! It has left me really excited about QuiltCon (yes, I’ll be there! I’ve booked my flights) and looking forward to the second Australian Modern Quilt Show.
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Happy Thursday and welcome to I Quilt! After getting up at 5am this morning to chat with the adorable Mark Lipinski, I am about to fall flat on my face at 5pm! You can listen to our discussion here (it’s the 30 April 2014 show if you’re reading this later), please be kind, it was early, I hit three coffees in rapid succession and started out pretty nervous! One thing that Mark asked me about is the process pledge which has left me thinking about my quilt process in the bigger picture. If you haven’t noticed, there is a lovely little button over there —> (unless you’re on a mobile device and then it might be down the bottom) If you don’t know about the process pledge, go read about it. It really resonates with me.
I LOVE the process pledge and it is an intrinsic aspect of the I Quilt linky party, but I find that as I get busier and busier with my business I have less time to share my process. I have no idea what the solution is. In actual fact I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what it is I want to do – run a business that contributes to our family income and grab any opportunity that comes my way, OR slowly build a business that is true to what I really love and want to do.
That might sound like a pretty easy decision. Even I know what it is I really want. I want to be true to my artistic inner soul, stuff the money and maintain complete creative control. But saying no to opportunities is hard. Super hard. I’ve done it twice recently and I couldn’t really believe that I was doing it. My husband tells me that I need to decide whether Pretty Bobbins is a hobby or a business. Being creative is such an integral part of who I am (believe me when I say that five years ago I would have claimed that I was not at all creative) that I find it hard to assess opportunities based on potential fiscal gain or business growth.
My all-time favourite quilts. When I think of the quilter I want to be, I think of these.
I think that being passionate, pouring yourself into your passion and being happy are key. Surely success cannot be had without these aspects. But I guess I really need to define success. I think I have been defining the success of Pretty Bobbins by whether or not it contributes to paying for our family needs. I have not contributed a single cent through Pretty Bobbins, in fact I’ve spent a bunch of our savings investing in the longarm and supplies, let along all the time invested. My day job is a much greater success at contributing to the mortgage, but it gives me no joy in my soul. So I think I’m going to redefine success and because I’m a social-media-holic and therefore a chronic over-sharer, I’m going to start by listing my quilting successes here. I’m not showing off, believe me. This is making me anxious in the pit of my stomach. So do me a favour and share your successes related to your passion in the comments or on your blog or even by email if you prefer (be it quilting, family, art, farming, car racing, whatever lights your fire!)
(the above are in no particular order, rather of equal importance, although seeing my children proud of me is the best achievement )
Me in my studio – not so warm now that we’re in Autumn!!
All those things, they are HEAPS more important to me than whether or not I contribute to our mortgage through quilting. But I guess the thing that I can’t list as a success yet, but I think is possibly the most important aspect of Pretty Bobbins, is maintaining artistic integrity. At this stage there is no sponsorship on my website. There is a Craftsy affiliate button in the sidebar and I do work with designers that I respect and admire, and I do promote products that I have purchased and believe in. This is something I need to think about some more. Do I want to remain a quilt artist who only promotes things they believe in and only makes the things I’m inspired to create, or do I want to grab every opportunity and turn my passion into a business and find myself making things for other people? (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing by the way!)
I would LOVE to hear your opinions on these issues!!! In this online, social media based, constantly shrinking world, how do you decide which path to traverse? I’m very conscious of my own mortality, there is only so much time and so many quilts to make. Should every single one count or can we all jump on the sponsorship/money chasing/making bandwagon? Does it impact our voice, our integrity? Does it even matter?
Share your thoughts people and link up your quilty process
