Author Archives: mlwilkie

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About mlwilkie

Software Developer, Mother, Wife with keen interest in art, design and crafts of all kinds.

Quilted Postcards

I had a goal for September to make 30 postcards in 30 days (#30daysofpostcards) and have been sharing over on Instagram. Well, I will have 30 but it will take me more like 60 days. It has been the greatest experiment to play with 4 x 6″ quilts. I love it as I get these ideas all the time, and this size allows me to play but not invest too much time, to see if it works or not.

Right now, I am at 29 postcards. I am sending around 17 of them off, as postcards, to people who wanted to receive one. They in turn will send one postcard to someone else. I love the idea of sending a traditional note, a piece of mail, with a little quilty inspiration.

The first postcard that kicked it off was inspired by my effort in finding balance. The line representing balance and the quilting about finding the positives. I had to use my wonder women stamps in this pic., it seemed fitting.

Balance_Postcard

I have a couple of other book project ideas rolling around in my head. I experimented with both ideas and will likely move forward with these as book projects.

The first is a project based on the plastic construction fences.
PlasticFence_Postcards

The second an improvisational triangle idea that is based on airplanes. ImprovTriangles_Postcard

With these next two postcard, I had vivid shapes pop into my head that I could not shake. The first being a Square with a cream border on one side, and one half made up of two triangles at various heights and dimensions. I played with the white and cream solids, stripes and black linen for interest.

Minimalism2_Postcard
The second shape was split across 4 postcards, where each had a corner of a square. One of the corners was a 1/4 circle instead. In my head this 1/4 circle was also the opposite in color combination. I had not envisioned a color combination but decided when making it to do it in a navy and bright yellow. This is my favorite combination and will likely become a much larger quilt at some stage.
Square_Circle_Postcard

For the longest time, I have admired Erin Wilson’s work (@erinwilsonquilts) who does amazing line work in her quilts. These last postcards were my study of lines. I still need to quilt these two.

LinesStudy_Postcard

I have loved playing with this size that I think I might do another round, but this next one will be a cohesive collection vs. random experiments. I am thinking of playing with minimalism or just with lines in a specific color-way. The idea is still forming.

PS. If you are living in the US, I was very surprised with some of the great stamp collections the USPS (US Postal Service) has at the moment. I went a little crazy in purchasing a few, so I am thinking my son can now collect stamps ;-).

PPS. In a couple of days, I will post a tutorial so that you too can make your own quilted postcards. I am just finishing editing the photos.

 

5 Years! {+Give away)

I can not believe it has been 5 years since I started sewing/quilting and blogging. I did not start out to be a quilter.  Last time I sewed anything it was a pillow case in home economics when I was 13. However, I have always been someone who dabbled in all art medium and baking//cooking, where the blog started.  I was always had a diverse range of interests from Art to Science to Languages. Quilting really has been one of those “hobbies” that has integrated the love of art and math.

I am lucky to be inspired by my own family. My Dad and Aunt are amazing artists, and my mum a highly skilled seamstress with a career in science. My only regret with starting quilting so late is not being able to actually sew with my Mum, but I love that I was able to gift her with a quilt.

Just to show you how far I have come, my first quilt was an original design of the 4 season of an apple tree. I would do this so differently today – and PS its still not finished. Yes, those are buttons and glittery snowflakes all hand stitched onto the top.

FourSeasonsInOneDay_2

The first finished quilt, was for the MQG Madrona Road Challenge. It was loosely inspired from tiles and a Turkish bath (inside the blue square). I still love this image today.
Turkish_tiled_bath_inspiration

The quilt now hangs in my studio, to remind me of my journey.
IMG_7339

In 2014, I joined Quilt Design a Day on facebook….a game changer for me. It moved me away from a multi-subject blog to mostly quilting. The designing of quilts and bringing them into reality is my passion. (so thank you Anne @playcrafts :-))

QAD_TapaClothMotif

I am so appreciative of the opportunities that this group has led me too. This is my first design for QDAD and it also won a quilt design competition. I gained enough courage to submit an idea, shortly after, to Sew Mama Sew and do a mini blog series on design to reality. Sew Mama Sew directly directly influenced the wonderful opportunity I got to work with Love Patchwork and Quilting. Eager for the opportunity to have a magazine submission, I committed to delivering a quilt in 10 days (while working a full-time job and being a mom). I was so shocked, it paid off though, as my first submission was a quilt cover.
LQP_23_cover_cmyk_300dpi

While I look back, it makes me smile. Seeing some of my favorite quilts I have made. Two of which are Sunday Best and Altitudinal Ecosystem which represents my bi-polar quilting interest; Improvisation and Minimalism.

cropped-img_795311.jpgAltitudinalEcosystem_HighRes

A couple of the big challenges I gave myself this year were:

  •  To enjoy my blog and just post when I have content I want to share. Very different to posting to gain followers and following a fixed schedule.
  • Write a book. It is underway but I will say it is a much slower process than I expected. Life is always in the way (and definitely not in a bad way).
  • Be bold and submit for an exhibit, which I am still working towards. This idea though, led to me submitting to an art curator. They purchased 3 of my quilts yesterday (you can see my digital portfolio I submitted).
  • Lastly, setup my own business. I am hoping to have it all complete in a couple of weeks.

I have learned so much in this process, and still work on most of these every day:

  • Be you and don’t worry what others think. If you try to please others you are likely not going to enjoy things.
  • Be adaptable, things are always changing and new opportunities become available.
  • Don’t be afraid of rejection. A no is just a no.
  • Be bold, email manufacturers to discuss fabric and possibilities, submit to magazines, submit to quilt shows, etc. The worse that will happen is they so no.
  • Experiment, find you. Give yourself permission to just play and enjoy the process.
  • Enjoy your people. Support others and give back. We learn so much now-a-days via the internet and others in the community. Share experiences, techniques, support others, give feedback and if you don’t have anything nice to say – don’t say it.

Give Away

Thank you for all your support in me and my blog. In the spirit of giving back I am doing three things:

  • Posting fabric postcards to individuals (over on my IG account: ml_wilkie , tutorial coming later this week)
  • Giving one of my blog followers a $50 gift card to Hawthorne Threads. Leave a comment below telling me what one of your goals are for this year. Leave a second comment if you are a follower. I will randomly select a winner next Saturday.
  • The winner of the giveaway, will also designate a charity of their choice, where I will also donate $50 (Please make sure they accept online contributions).

NY High Line {a finish}

My quilt New York High Line was released as a pattern this week, via the Modern Quilt Guild resource web page and newsletter. It is free to members.

NYHighline_Finish

This quilt was designed as part of quilt design a day. It was based on an image I had taken of a building from the New York High Line.  This image was our used also as our QuiltCon Showcase earlier this year.

IMG_7520-palette

This is a great quilt if you want to play with accuracy, as matching the various lines is important to the overall composition.

I feel very rewarded now that the quilt is done, though the 1/2″ straight line quilting was a difficult task. A mix of  lots of procrastination, burying all those threads (which was due to thread matching, lead to a process taking 5 months.

NYHighline_CloseupOrange

I did extend the quilting lines through the orange stripe, edge to edge.

NYHighLine_wild

Details

Name: NY High Line
Design:
Design by myself
Fabric: Kona Cotton
Backing: Variety Carolyn Friedlander prints
Binding: Kona Snow
Dimensions:  72 x 72″
Quilted: With straight line quilting 1/2″ apart