Joen explained how she chose colors from her photos for her quilts and quilt hangings.  These weren’t landscape replicas as I had expected.  She chose the colors from her photos that inspired her and incorporated them into her work.

In fact, Joen said she matched her photos to her fabric stash and selected colors for her work that way.  She also mentioned staying three hours in one place to get the photos that inspired her.

After watching this show, I find a whole new way of looking at nature and color.

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Quilting with Joen Wolfrom

*You can find relaxation as you watch birds at a feeder from your window, in your garden, or during walks. 

*The birds around you may inspire your quilting designs.  The pioneer quiltmakers often named designs from the birds and animals in their lives.

*This is an enjoyable family activity that can create memories, as it has done for my family.

As I began to look at quilt designs and books, I discovered that many quilters have been inspired by watching the birds in the world around them.

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Bird Watching for Quilters

I enjoy receiving newsletters from online quilt and fabric shops, as well as from quilters and quilting bloggers.  They always have something new I can learn and to inspire me.

To check out the How to Quilt newsletter and site, visit: http://www.how-to-quilt.com .

There’s also a How to Quilt blog at http://howtoquilt.blogspot.com .

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Halloween Quilting Patterns at No Cost

To make a pieced quilt top, the quiltmaker cut patches of specific shapes and sewed together to create a design throughout the quilt.

Quiltmakers created appliqued quilts by laying pieces of fabric on a colored or white background then stitched them to that material with fancy stitching to form a design.

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Back to Basics – Two Types of Quilts

Many of us started out with those traditional patterns for quilts, then diverged into other art forms and techniques until now we have a great diversity of quiltmakers and fabric artists.  My daughter and I both did the same.  We made the traditional quilts, and still enjoy them.  (I have a fascination for those quiltmakers of old who, midst their busy day, found time to piece and applique tiny pieces and create artistic bed covers.)

However, today, Beth and I have begun to experiment with the many techniques and styles of quiltmaking in the 2000s.  Ann Johnston tells how she began making traditional quilts, then started using them as inspiration for her own designs.  I found Ann’s book in Beth’s library and have been fascinated what she does with pattern, color, texture, line, shape, and value.

(This is not to say you have to move from the traditional patterns to something else.  Many beautiful traditional quilts take their place among those receiving awards and recognition.  However, today there is a place for both and many quilters got their experience with the intricacies of the quilts of our ancestors, as Ann Johnston relates.)

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Our Quilting Tastes May Change

Today’s fabric artists may recreate storm scenes or combine colors that give an energizing, even stormlike appearance.  Because of the brilliant color combinations in Kumiko Sudo’s quilts, some may bring to mind the vibrancy and action of storm.

Her book, Harmonies and Hurricanes: Color and Line in Japanese Quilts will give you some ideas for designs of your own.

Other quilts, although not resembling nor recreating storms, may be used to raise funds for storm disasters or aide people who need comfort.

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Quilts With Storm or Hurricane Themes

Quilting for the Men in Your Life: 24 Qulited Projects to Fit His Style by Pearl Louise Krush gives you ideas and patterns for quilts and home decor projects in sports-centered themes.  Among these are patterns for soccer, football, and golf designs.

With a little creativity, you can interchange soccer designs for quilts with basketball, football, and other patterns to make a quilt that fits your sports enthusiast’s interest.

If you act quickly, you might get a soccer or World Cup quilted project finished for a Father’s Day gift.

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Soccer Theme Quilts & Pillows

Among these are patterns which refer to the sun:  Sunshine and Shadow, Basket of Sunflowers, Sunbean, Sunflower, Sun Dial, Sunburst, Blazing Sun, Harvest Sun, Rising Sun, Sunshine, Triple Sunflower, and Kansas Sunflower.

From the garden we may find Corn and Beans, Golden Corn, Gourd Vine, Cherries, Grapes and Vines, Melon Patch, Strawberry, Mary’s Garden, and Martha’s Vineyard.

Nowadays with pictorial and landscape quilts, quilters create seasonal scenes and may be taking photos this time of year to incorporate into their work.  They’ll also make quilts that reflect memories of family outings and special occasions throughout the summer.

Some of the traditional books where you’ll find summer ideas include : The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting by Marguerite Ickis, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America, and American Quilts by Elizabeth Wells Robertson.

More recent books are found below.

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Summer Quilt Ideas

This is an intricate design (as seen on the cover of the book below) and can be pieced in many color combinations.  As with most any quilt pattern, you can make smaller projects, like placemats, pillows, wall hangings. 

With the coming of spring and summer (at least in the northern hemisphere) patterns with flowers often seem timely to include in our quilting.

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Grandmother’s Flower Garden

However, the term also could refer to various quilting designs through the history of quiltmaking that describe tracks of animals and birds.  Among the names of traditional quilts you’ll find:

*Turkey Tracks

*Bear’s Paw

*Duck’s Foot in the Mud

*Flying Geese

*Bird’s Nest

*Blue Bird

*Crow’s Feet

*Duck and Ducklings

*Puss-in-the-Corner

Even if the quilt patterns don’t specifically picture the foot of the bird or animal, you can introduce that into your quilting design. 

Most of the above patterns can be found in one of the well-known resources for quilters, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America by Carrie A. Hall and Rose G. Kretsinger.

The romance of the patchwork quilt in America;: In three parts: pt. I. History and quilt patches. pt. II. Quilts – antique and modern, by Carrie A. Hall. … and quilting designs, by Rose G. Kretsinger; (English men of letters)

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Tracking Quilts Through History