My daughter has become adept at taking interesting photos as inspiration for her quilting and fabric art.  Often these will be bits of bark, barn siding, flower segments, and other textural objects.
Then she incorporates them into many of her small quilts, utilizing a variety of techniques.
This photo of barn siding offers suggestions for textural ideas you may want to try.
Sometimes you might get ideas from a single photo.  Other times you can try combining a variety of close-ups.  Or you can vary the close photos with distant scenery to give you a fascinating combination.

Do you have a button collection for your youngsters to explore and show off their creativity?  This wouldn’t be your treasure of precious buttons or those you especially need for your own craft and fabric art projects.
The “Kids’ Stash” would be odds and ends of buttons you’ve collected, taken off old clothing, saved for mending and other utilitarian tasks.  These are great for youngsters to use for crafts and creativity(as long as they’re beyond the “putting everything into their mouth” stage of life).
My daughter became interested in buttons when I did dressmaking for a lady who was an avid button collector.  When Miss …read more

Collecting and using vintage fabrics for various projects fascinate many quilters and fabric artists, as well as multi-media artists.  By “vintage” fabrics, we mean those of more than 50 years ago.
Sometimes you find them simply as pieces of fabric.  More commonly, vintage fabric comes from clothing, coverlets, and even quilts.
According to Mary Engelbreit’s book, Winter, you’re most likely to find these vintage treasures in small pieces.  So…what kind of small projects would you use them for?
Mary Engelbreit suggests “Fancy Pockets” made into cases for eyeglasses, limpstick tubes or combs.  In the book, there are directions for these.
What about other vintage …read more

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com

With quilters and fabric artists concerned about others “borrowing” their designs and patterns, it’s nice to know that quilters’ etiquette exists…that some quilters ask permission to use photos and designs.
Some time ago, my daughter posted a photo of one of her original fabric art hangings on her blog with a description of how she created it.  Today she received an e-mail from a fabric artist who visited her blog, liked that particular work and wondered if Beth would give her permission to use the design as inspiration.  The other quilter wasn’t planning to copy Beth’s work, but wanted to make something …read more

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com
As much as we enjoy posting on our blogs, sometimes life interferes and we have to put this on hold temporarily.  I’ve often referred to my daughter’s Meandering Threads blog, showcasing her quilting and fabric art work.
If you visit Meandering Threads, you’ll notice that Beth hasn’t posted anything new lately.   She has had a health situation to deal with the past month, so has not been up to quilting, writing or taking photos of her work.
 I’ll let you know when Beth is back to blogging. You may want to visit and enjoy some of her previous posts though. 
(c)2008 Mary Emma …read more

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com
Quilters and fabric artists may like to join Katelyn at Stamping Mad by contributing their Alzheimer’s related art for a zine to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research.  She’s initiating this project, Giving Back – A Call for Alzheimer’s Related Art, at her blog.
I was thinking to do something a bit different [from last year]. I want to create a zine (a type of magazine) called “A Portrait of Alzheimer’s” and am looking for people to make art that fits this theme to include in the zine. Since you can just take a good, high resolution photo for me instead of …read more

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com
 Quilters find many sources of inspiration, and pictures of unusual buildings often play a role.  In this year’s round robin for my daughter’s quilt group, each quilter submits a photo and the others design small quilt hangings inspired by it.
A photo of an outhouse has yielded interesting results.
Check out Beth’s Meandering Threads blog, particularly the post, Quilt Group Pictures, and see two fiber artists’ variations on the outhouse theme.  The group meets again this week, so perhaps they’ll have more outhouse designs to display…along with those inspired by other photos. 
What unusual pictures or objects have you used as quilting or fabric …read more

QuiltingAndPatchwork.com 
 
Quilters and fabric artists, with their ingenuity, have come up with numerous types of projects in addition to the traditional bed quilt. I’m wondering how long the list could be.
I’ll start with ten.  Why don’t you add some more in the comments and I’ll include them in a future post?

 Fabric bowls
 Placemats
Table cloths
Inchies
Collages
Wall hangings
Fabric books
Clothing of many types
Potholders
Fabric postcards

How do you use your fabric?  What do you create?  Let us know and point us to your blogs or web sites where you have some of your projects displayed.
(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen