Blair Stocker, Author at Wise Craft Handmade

May 1, 2012

may inspiration and a crochet granny square sampler-along (how do I say that)?

Happy May Day!

Thank you all so much for the comments and tweets about yesterday's painting. I feel a bit sheepish about showing something I am so new at, but you guys are so great and so enthusiastic, you make me feel the same way about it.

Now, how about a little May inspiration wallpaper for your computer??

Download the May inspiration image here.( I only know how these images look on our Macs, so if there is ever an issue with how they look, and choosing "resize to fit screen" in your settings doesn't seem to work, please shoot me an email.)

I have had such good thrifting luck lately. I found those embroidery woolen skeins in the image (they're so teensy and cute!) and some beautifully colorful sheets. In fact, I am working out a quilt design in my head every night when I'm going to sleep that involves those pretty floral sheets.

<><><>

And let's talk for a minute about granny squares. I have been working a bit here and there on the crocheted granny square sampler that I discovered a few weeks ago. A commenter had cautioned me that it is full of errors and she was right. Some of the directions just really don't make sense, and I was getting frustrated the other day when I thought, let's just come up with our own sampler! We (you and I) could do our own crochet granny square sampler. I started writing up a pattern that would include the granny with a circle center, as well as the traditional granny, and some other variations.

Will you do it with me??

I could create a loose timetable here on the blog each week, to follow as strictly or loosely as you want, this would be a go at your own pace kind of thing. I could also include links to videos (and possibly my own videos, if I am that together) that explain any new techniques, or how to do each new square, etc. I'm not totally clear on all the details yet, but I will figure them out. We follow along, all doing our own thing at our own pace, what do you say?? The beauty of a sampler project is that its a great take-along project for summer trips, there's little more you need other than a hook and a couple colors of yarn.

If you're interested, let me know in the comment section.

April 17, 2012

Quick DIY: How To Unify Picture Frames

April 14, 2012

quilts

I love making quilts. Over the years, I have learned new techniques, taught myself traditional methods, and made many mistakes. These days I design original quilt patterns and play with improvisational quilting methods.

Here’s how to make the quilt display ladder I have in my studio (pictured above)

I wrote a post on quilting books and links for the new quilter here.

A post here about my favorite vintage and unique quilting books.

I explain how I baste my quilt layers together here.

The original quilt patterns I have designed can be found both in my online shop and at Pink Chalk Fabrics.

Day of the Dead quilt, completed September 2013.

Spool mini-quilt turned into a sewing machine dust cover, completed August 2013.

Cocktails on the Beach Quilt, completed August 2013.

Fantasy Four Patch Toile, completed July 2013.

Flower Star, completed June 2013

Sliced Swoon, completed May 2013

Jewel Boxes, completed March 2013

Friendship Bracelet quilt version 2, completed March 2013, pattern available here.

Echo Star original quilt design, a modern play on traditional star quilt blocks. I wrote about the making of this quilt here.

PDF pattern available here.

Jelly Roll Race quilt, an easy to make quilt out of pre-cut fabric jelly rolls, completed Winter 2013.You can watch a video of me free motion quilting on this quilt here.

Emerald Blocks original quilted pillow, completely Winter 2013, available for purchase here.

Plaid Windows original quilted pillow, completed Winter 2013, available for purchase here.

Echo Star original quilted pillow, completed Winter 2013, available for purchase here. Will also be available as a pattern soon.

Neon Blah pillow, completed Winter 2013, available for purchase here.

Crazy Star Quilt, completed in Fall of 2012.

“Fractured Circles” quilt made as a gift for Lisa Solomon, completed in early Fall 2012.

Friendship Bracelet original quilt pattern, August 2011, available for sale as a downloadable PDF here.

“Waves” framed piece for Assemble‘s “This Will Be Our Year” exhibition, January 2011. Tiny patchwork squares pieced together,with beading and embroidery added as a final layer.

Sunshine Medallions original quilt pattern, available for sale as a downloadable pdf here.

Facets original quilt pattern, in the Fall 2010 issue of Stitch Magazine.

Little Forest wall hanging

Hills ‘n Hollers quilt

Marquee (or as we now call it, the Lego quilt) for Ian

Value Stash Quilt

Single Girl quilt

Sunshine strips quilt

The Simple quilt for a girl who is anything but

May 2006 What A Bunch of Squares quilt (king size)

2005’s Once Upon a Time Quilt

(my first blog project)

A patchwork quilt made of Emma’s baby clothes

before I started the blog, 2000

February 23, 2012

Free Pattern: Crochet Cloud Cowl

Often its the yarn that dictates the project. I saw this yarn the other day by the winding table at The Weaving Works, Crystal Palace Mochi Plus yarn in #612 (there are several colors available here as well) and I picked up some on impulse. No idea what I would use it for, but I loved the feel and colors in this self-striping yarn. Later, I decided to do an easy crochet cowl pattern, just to see how the striping would work with it. Turned out kind of cute! And easy to do, one afternoon is all it took.
READ MORE

February 16, 2012

How to Crochet a Granny Square with a Circle Center

Crochet pillow
Want to learn how to these crocheted granny squares with circular centers? Keep reading! I’m not even sure what the proper name is, but here is how I make them. Please let me know if you have questions by emailing me at blairwisecraft@gmail.com and I promise an answer as quickly as possible.
READ MORE

September 9, 2011

Apartment Therapy Tour

I am very honored (and, quite frankly, a little nervous) to have our home toured on Apartment Therapy today, please take a look. When I was asked by Andie if I wanted to do this, Peter and I had to think hard about it. We are not decorators, we don’t have expensive, iconic pieces that make others drool. But I decided to do the tour because I think what we do have is a home filled with us. Our home is filled with love, lots of handmade things, and we’ve made it a very comfortable, livable space. My hope is that our home shows that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to create a comfortable, lively space that you can feel proud of.
Enjoy!

August 4, 2011

My Weekend at PNCA Part 2

More about the workshop I started telling you about yesterday…
Denyse wanted us to start thinking about and planning our own blocks during the second half of the class. I let my thoughts stew for the evening on Saturday, there was pizza and ice cream to be consumed with the Franz family. And laughing… lots of laughing.
So, the next day, it was time to start thinking and planning. I realized what I loved most about those first improvisational blocks were the tiny pieces of fabrics I kept pulling from the original brown bags. Teeny tiny pieces. I’d never done much piecing with fabric this size. It opened my eyes to the different effects of cutting down a large patterned fabric, or using a tiny piece of fabric in a bright color, bordered by a larger, calming block. I began sketching an idea using those little tiny pieces sewn together, thinking of them like little jewels, and surrounding them with lots of white, and fabrics I would “pretend were white”- I’ll explain.
I showed my idea to Denyse and the fabric that I brought. She quickly began to separate some of my tiny prints into the “white” or neutral pile, suggesting I treat them as solids. I took a picture of my stack-

And the prints I had to work with, a collection of yarndyes, thrifted men’s shirtings, yarndye plaid, etc-

I started playing around before lunch and made one block. I was only marginally happy with it, but making it made me realize what it was lacking and what I needed to do. I wanted to be as improvisational as those first blocks, and I felt like I was making too many rigid decisions and editing too much.

So I did my own version of paper bag piecing so I would take the picking and choosing out of the process. I would just grab and sew with whatever I got (I made sure to put in all the fabrics I thought were suitable, so I wasn’t picking crazy stuff). Also, Denyse made the suggestion that on those next pieces to concentrate only on the inner “jewel boxes” themselves first, and not the outer white spaces that made up the rest of the block. That was a brilliant idea that I hadn’t considered, and made it much easier. After lunch I made 3 more jewel boxes (I could have made more, but a small group of us went to lunch with Denyse and that was a total treat I couldn’t pass up!).

I am going to continue to play with these. Denyse talked through a couple of variations with me on where to go with this, and I am really inspired. I’ll be sure and post what I come up with.
(this is such a bad picture of me, but I don’t care!)
This girl is cool, and funny, and smart, and just plain nice. I was pretty star struck at first, but to be honest, she’s so approachable and willing to help, you just stop thinking about that.

Denyse has been teaching variations of this course since 2003 and she really knows how to talk through process (as a few of us were discussing on twitter). Not only that, but I really had fun getting to know Denyse herself. There were many of us from out of town, and we tended to hang together during the day and had such fun getting to know each other. It was a treat to be in a room with others all sewing and creating at the same time. Sewing as I do can be a solitary activity (not that I don’t love a stretch of time alone to create) and it was a nice change of pace to create and get inspired within a group. No blogs, no websites, just creative talking, sewing and support. I highly suggest switching gears and being a student when the opportunity arises. I want to try and do this from time to time.
Now to wait for Denyse’s new book to come out! Spring ’12!

August 3, 2011

My Weekend At PNCA Part 1

Could you hear the excitement and anticipation coming from my house? Early last Saturday morning, I got up before the rest of the family and headed down to Portland for a 2 day workshop at PNCA with Denyse Schmidt. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that Denyse is my quilting hero, the reason I made my first quilt years ago, the spark that started my love and passion for quilts, and this workshop, part of the Summer of Making series was a birthday gift from Peter, one that I’d been anticipating all summer (as I told the kids, my summer camp). I knew it would be a fun weekend, not only to sew alongside some other fantastic, funny, and interesting ladies (so fun to sew with others, rather than alone as I usually do), but to hang out with my favorite Frantz family.
We started Saturday with Denyse explaining her improvisational “paper bag piecing” method. I know some of you quilters know the idea behind this, but you are given 3 brown paper bags with various sizes of fabric. Without looking in the bag and choosing, you pull out pieces randomly, begin sewing and piecing, and building squares. Here is our first set of blocks (mine is bottom left).

We did this exercise 3 times, discussing after each what we liked and didn’t like. As we each suspected, there were some nice combinations within each block.

Here is Denyse, arranging the blocks on the flannel wall.

By midday on Saturday, we had the makings of a beautiful quilt top.

The goal of this exercise is to really embrace the unexpected combinations and happy accidents of colors, shapes, and patterns that we wouldn’t normally think of putting together. I focused on speeding through my own improvisational blocks, I didn’t want to hesitate for a minute and possibly start making decisions.
Here is one of my first blocks-

Often quilting can feel very rule-oriented and rigid. It can feel wrong and incorrect if its not done using the proven traditional techniques. Rules aren’t bad, in fact there are many times when I’m sewing a quilt that I enjoy being told exact process steps and I often learn something sewing that way. But it is also great to break free of that and experiment without the rigidity of hard and fast rules. Making it up as you go along can also be beautiful.
At the end of Saturday, once we’d completed these blocks, Denyse tasked us with pulling out the elements that really spoke to us during that exercise, to start designing blocks for our own quilt in our sketchbooks. I’ll explain more about what I came up with tomorrow, I wasn’t initially excited about it, but after talking with Denyse about it, now I am.

July 6, 2011

how to make your own anime mural wall

Now that the anime mural wall for the kid’s bathroom is finished, my husband Peter did a little write up on his process of redoing the kids bathroom with anime images pasted to the wall, hopefully it all makes sense.READ MORE

July 5, 2011

Dining Room Cocktail Bar Sparkle

In the midst of a ton of things going on right now, I started obsessing thinking about adding a little sparkle to the dining room. Just cause. In its newest version, this room is so much cheerier and brighter than it has been (before and after pics in this post), I absolutely love everything about it. But there was a void in the corner, it just needed something there, nothing crazy or complicated, just something. I thought about a large plant (even though Gracie is good about not eating plants, THAT one would be the one, with my luck). I tried out a couple of things we had, which were okay but not the answer.
READ MORE

Follow Wise Craft Handmade