DaGMT Day 3 - "You'd Think I Was a Shoe Girl"

In reality, I probably own about 6 pairs of shoes per season. It's barely enough to qualify me as a woman. What can I say - I'd rather spend my money on fabric and apparently, this month, hot water heaters and new tires. Woo hoo!

But I do love the shoe shape for a base for practicing some fun embellishment, as is evidenced by the shoe appliques I used both in my Once Upon a Time book and my Shoeby Dooby Doo pattern. Not only are they fun to jazz up with your own shoe personality, but the shape of them is pretty simple for even new machine appliquers.

A couple of years ago before I went to Spring Market to help promote "Once Upon A Time", I asked if some quilters could help me out by making some appliqued and embellished 12" shoe blocks that I could use in my Schoolhouse presentation to demonstrate that really, the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do with a few beads and baubles. A la Prince Charming, I returned most of the shoes to their rightful owners, but a few told me I could keep them. Today I UFO-busted and turned them into a quickie quilt.



I decided to have some fun with the quilting, and decided I was going to freehand quilt in some names of kinds of shoes as part of the quilting. Judge me if you will, but I had a hard time coming up with enough different types of shoes to do four types per block, and had to google "types of shoes". What did we ever do without google? And is it appropriate to not capitalize it? Do I care? Not today.

Witness the cute word "espadrille" quilted in. I will have you know that is one type of shoe I thought of on my own.



Sorry this one is sideways, but I am sure if you look hard enough you can see more types of shoes in there.



I also finally got to play a little with some of the Scrappy New Year blocks that have come in so far. I created an album on my EPQD facebook page and would love for you to take a look at it: www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns. I am not sure why that isn't linking like it should, but you can also get there by clicking the snowman button in the left column.

I did say under no uncertain terms that I really didn't care if participants made all four of their blocks exactly the same or used different fabrics/colors for each, but now I am so thankful to those who did all four the same because it makes my choice so much easier. I cannot believe how stunning they all are and choosing just one from some of these ladies is going to kill me.

Enjoy! Remember to keep sewing over the weekend!

Chelmsford Quilt Guild - Quilting Guilt free since 10/25/10

As you may have heard, I love to talk. Unfortunately my daughters have inherited this skill from me, and sometimes I have to escape from them so I can stop the ringing in my ears for a moment. At those times I love to be able to head to a guild meeting for one of the thousands upon thousands of guilds in America and listen to myself talk for an hour or so. Most of the time I wait until I am invited to do so, but give me time and I might start just showing up.

Last week I was the guest lecturer at Chelmsford Quilt Guild in nearby Chelmsford MA. I must be honest in saying I was a little stressed out about this booking, so much so that I almost showed up 3 days late! I can admit that now, but wooo! That would have sucked. Let this be a lesson to all guild program bookers - always follow up with your lecturers, because they sometimes put things in the calendar incorrectly. Rarely, but it happens. But why was I stressed out, you ask? Anyone ever heard the saying "You are never appreciated in your own backyard"? Or did I make that up? In any case, this particular guild has a lot of overlap between its members and those of my own guild, Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild (aka The Squanicookies), and I just wasn't sure how many of them would truly be interested in my lecture. Don't get me wrong, it isn't that they don't support me and enjoy my stuff, but I guess I was worried they didn't need THAT much of me. Half the time I don't need that much of me either. Plus being a local guild, lots of them had seen my song and dance already at other bookings. But thankfully, I was very wrong about the enthusiasm. Together we all rocked the house. Or the casbah. Whichever you prefer.

Jeff Lomicka was seated in the front row and snapped a few photos for me. Mr. Shutterfly would have liked to share with the group some of my more horrific first quilts, but I managed to have him hold his fire until some of the more attractive ones came out. In all he managed to capture the essence of the trunk show and I thank him. Unfortunately they will be discussed in a very bizarre order (to me, at least - most of you probably don't care what order you see them in!) because blogger strikes again with some odd formatting.

This little quilt is always quite popular, and was actually the inspiration for my latest pattern (see "Please think 50's music" post). I call it "Ode to Imelda" and in its 1 year existence I have only once been asked to explain that name, so don't make me do it again. Allow me instead to believe that I have hit the motherload of quilt naming skill, because I do love this name. The quilt is from my book and is an example of using just one size and one applique block in various ways, with the applique bias strip border option. I just adore it. Another noteworthy thing about this photo is that "Ode to Imelda" is being held by Jenny Day, a fabulous woman who really does have a head, and is a Quilting Hottie extraordinaire who has seen Perfection is Overrated at least 4 times and always brings a friend. It is awesome to have a groupie.



Now before we go any further, we have to address the elephant in the room. Just how fabulous is that hunk o' rock around my neck in the next photo? Pretty darn fabulous, I know. I'll have you know it weighs about 5 pounds and I think my neck muscles are going to look like a linebacker's if I wear it very often, but I love it. I also love and adore this quilt, Syncopated Ribbons. I do believe it is my favorite design of all time and this particular version my very favorite version of all time. The quilt is made with strips and squares of all sizes and is put together in a very freeing and funky manner, making it ideal for free-quilting spirits like me, and, let's face it, a bitch for the Quilt Police to wrap their heads around. If you want/need/obsess about every seam being exactly 1/4", every point matching, every strip the same, etc, do us both a favor and do not make this quilt. You will hate me by the end of the first page of the instructions, and I want to be liked. But if you are ready to have some pure unadulterated fun and work down some serious scrappage, run to your favorite quilt shop and ask for this pattern. The necklace came from Nordstroms if you need that too.



Here we have two tall members of CQG holding up my star version of Feelin' Hot Hot Pink, which proves you don't have to have hot pink in the quilt just because the title says so, nor do you have to bind a quilt to show it in a trunk show. Perfection is Overrated, peeps. I love that the Quilting Hottie on the left appears to be saluting me (my fabulous necklace and I are off camera to the right). Right back at you, sister!

I didn't used to show this quilt in trunk shows because the quilting on it is, in a word, atrocious. But then I realized the whole point of my trunk show is to show that your quilts are gorgeous even with their little problems, and I got over myself. The colors are so pretty they make up for the big quilting issues. And it's still not hot pink!

Ah, the piece-de-resistance. The quilt I thought might kill me. I call it Scrapapalooza 2003-2005, and at risk of ruining the entire trunk show for you should you ever see me live, I will share here that when I first saw the pattern in a Quilters Newsletter magazine in Feb 2003 (Starry Nine Patch) I swear on the Bible and my mother's memory that I said to myself "What a fantastic weekend project that will be!" I know, stop the laughing. I was young, naive, and way sleep deprived from having birthed twins 5 weeks prior. But the point is I eventually, 176 weekends later, finished it. And it is gorgeous, if I do say so. I will also point out that there are no more than 14 or 15 actual star points on this quilt - the rest have been lost to eternity through what one might call careless piecing. But do you care? No. Well, maybe you do. The better question is, do I care? And here the answer is a resounding no. I love this quilt, I think it is gorgeous, and from the reaction it gets when it is unfurled at every trunk show I give, I think I'm not alone in my love for it.

As far as what number exactly I am singing for the audience in this photo, that I have no idea. And I'm covering up the fabulous hunk of rock. What is that about?

Thank you to CQG for having me! It was a fantastic group and I had nothing to fear but showing up the wrong day.

Please think "50s music" not "way annoying mystery solving dog"

"Shoeby Dooby Doo"

EvaPaige Quilt Designs

Now and then the name for a new creation comes to me long before the actual design. And then the pressure is on...create something to fit or lose the fabulous name forever. This time it was a little bit a fabulous name popping into my head and little bit wanting to expand upon one of the applique shapes from "Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tale Puzzle Quilts" - the shoe block. Add in a little do-wop music courtesy of Pandora and here we are. Have I mentioned Pandora rocks?

Time and again at shows where my "Ode to Imelda" (and sorry, but that hands down is the best name for a quilt EV-AH!) mini quilt from the book is displayed, people adore it, but like all normal women, they want more shoes. They want heels. They want boots. They want flip flops. Some even want sneakers. And because I live to make quilters everywhere happy, I took their desires on as a challenge and created "Shoeby Dooby Doo", adding six new styles of shoe like "Here Kitty Kitty", "Kiss Me, You Know You Want To", and "Flip Flop Fling" to the already fabulous pump now named "Coffee, Tea, or Me".

Fun machine applique shapes to mix and match at will, the freedom to embellish however you choose, and it's fat quarter friendly! And if you follow the directions properly (which I know lots of you don't always do, and don't worry, I'm not judging), you won't even have to piece the backing! So get to sewing that fantasy shoe wardrobe for yourself or your favorite Imelda-esque friend.