A wreath of roses for you today. This kaleidoscope image was created using computer software, Kaleidoscope Kreator, to manipulate one of my photographs. Enjoy, on this Valentine’s Day!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Author Archives: Maggie Ball
The Disappearing Pinwheel
My small quilt group met recently and our prolific member, Joanne Bennett, shared an attractive and ingenious pattern with us. Watch the video and give it a go!
The technique used is the “Disappearing Pinwheel” demonstrated in this video by Jenny Doan from Missouri Star Quilts. The block is remarkably easy to construct beginning with two 10″ squares of contrasting values (in the above example light cream fabric paired with a color). Large Pinwheels are constructed and then cut into nine pieces. The center piece is the small Pinwheel and you also get four half-square triangles and four squares made of two rectangles. Rotate these pieces to make the Shoo-fly or Monkey Wrench patterns surrounding the small Pinwheels. In the version below, Joanne has switched the Pinwheels to create more variety in the colors of each block.
The Quarter Inch Seam Allowance
One aspect of teaching that I enjoy is learning about new quilting tools from my students. When I taught recently at Quilters on the Rock, Whidbey Island, a lady had a plastic gadget to gauge precise seam allowances. An accurate 1/4″ seam allowance is very important especially when pieced sections of blocks are joined to non-pieced sections. If the seam allowances are off by even a tiny fraction, the error is compounded with multiple seams and can cause serious piecing problems.
This little gem is made by Bonnie Hunter and included as a freebie if you purchase one of her books. However, if you go to her website, you can order these in quantities of six ($24 for a six pack). The seam guide is easy to use and it works! Simply place the machine needle through the appropriate hole with the plastic aligned squarely on your machine bed. Then position tape along the edge and remove the gadget. Butt the raw edges of your fabric against the edge of the tape as you sew and you will have a perfect seam allowance.
Home Stay in Vancouver, WA
During my recent teaching trip to Clark County Quilters in Vancouver, WA, I was fortunate to stay in the home of Sandi Miller. Sandi is a prolific quilter who teaches and enjoys trying a wide range of techniques. She has a beautiful home, made me very welcome and gave me a quilt show of her gorgeous work. Here’s Sandi in her studio. I loved all the cubbies for storing her fabrics and the little shelf along the bottom which is the perfect size for spools of thread. 
Sandi had an ingenious way of storing and displaying her wall hangings with several rods bearing quilts supported by the quarter-wheel bracket. Here’s the bedroom in which I slept with a lovely Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt on the bed and a matching applique floral wall hanging.
This Flying Geese quilt with curved lines of geese and the black background caught my attention in Sandi’s stack. Sandi’s stunning floral quilt was begun in a Melinda Bula class. Thank you Sandi, for giving me permission to share.
Kaleidoscope Puzzle class at Clark County Quilters, WA
Last week I taught at Clark County Quilters in Vancouver, WA. This is a large and active group and over 200 attended my lecture. I always enjoy seeing what each student brings to class. Everyone has different fabrics and visions for their quilts. In the Kaleidoscope Puzzle class, they have the opportunity to experiment and make their own designs from the assortment of kites and wedges they cut. See my video page for a demo of this technique.
Here are my samples displayed in the classroom. Students can use these patterns for inspiration or create their own. It’s fun watching the designs develop as the pieces are laid out.
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Students are also inspired by looking at each others’ work and I encourage them to walk around the room to see what is going on, compare notes and make suggestions to one another. It’s also good to stand back and view the design from a distance. Value is really important in this technique and the placement of the lights and darks make a big difference to the composition. I always recommend taking a proper lunch break so that students come back with a fresh eye for their work. As you can see, we had a good variety of fabrics and designs including scrappy and asymmetrical as well as the symmetrical.
Inspiration for quilting
What inspires you when you quilt? I suspect that it’s not only seeing the work of others, or quilts in books and magazines. Patterns are in abundance in our everyday lives – in nature, architecture, furnishings, floors, windows, media and so the list continues. I believe that what we create in our quilting designs is strongly influenced by all of these and they provide us with inspiration.Staying open and receptive to seeing what is around us is fun and helps us build our store of ideas. It may be a particular color combination, or a geometric design that gets us started and as the work evolves, other factors come into play based on our visual and life experiences, whether it’s traveling the world or staying close to home. 
In this era of android phones, it is very easy to snap photos any time we see something that captivates our imagination and that can be stored for a future quilting project. This graphic work of art hangs on a wall in the baggage claim area at Seatac International Airport. The photo shows only half of it. All the colored circles are reflective discs and this is a stunning vibrant piece.It reminds me of the Trip Around the World pattern (most appropriate for an airport). Unfortunately, there was no information on the artist.
I snapped this one out of the plane window when I was returning home from Texas in mid-November. It was somewhere in northwestern TX or SE Colorado, probably not far from Amarillo, The light dusting of snow highlights the patterns created by the irrigation circles and it looks very quilt-like to me.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! May 2015 be a stellar year for you!
Many people make New Year resolutions, but it is often hard to maintain the discipline to follow through. I find it helpful to break down my goals into small chunks, month by month, week by week and even day by day. Large goals can be overwhelming, but doable when divided into smaller pieces. I’m a great list writer and every day have lists of things I want to accomplish. In 2014, my lists seem to have consisted of damage control and keeping up with the most urgent items. I haven’t had time to consider the long term goals for my quilting activities. However, despite the on-going difficulties, I continued to teach and thoroughly enjoy traveling and sharing my quilting passion with others. I feel ready to embrace the New Year with whatever it brings and I hope that you do too.
The image above was created using Kaleidoscope Kreator software on a photo of my quilt, Celestial Garden. Here is a picture of the quilt, 84″ x 84″, which I made in 2002. It was a finalist and placed 5th in the National Quilt Museum’s contest: New Quilts from an old Favorite: Feathered Stars.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you All!
My granddaughter, Claire, is the best gift of 2014! What a joy to be a grandmother!
Tour of the Mongolian Quilting Center in Ulaanbaatar
In September 2008, the Shine Zamnal (New Way Life) NGO was able to purchase a permanent facility for the Mongolian Quilting Center. I headed a capital campaign in the USA, administered through my church (St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island). We raised $83,000 which was enough to buy and redecorate the place. In 2009, I went to Mongolia to see the new Center and to celebrate. There is a shop, a classroom, small office and a tiny bathroom. It is an excellent location, just 10 minutes walk from the city center and easy for the women to reach using public transport. BD’s Mongolian BBQ is just across the street and is one of the best places to eat in town.
The picture on the left was taken in 2009 and shows the street. The playground has been upgraded and there are some new businesses that also occupy the street level spaces. The other picture was taken this summer (2014). They were able to expand slightly, pushing out at the front making more space in the office. As you enter the building there is a small porch and then you are inside the shop. I was excited to see the new counter and shelving built recently by Selenge Tserendash’s brother’s furniture company.
The Mongolian women are creating new products all the time and it was wonderful to see them so nicely displayed.
The classroom is through a doorway at the back of the shop. In the days leading up to our quilt show,the space was used for our preparations including pricing the products and packing up bundles of silk to sell. The Japanese ladies were a tremendous help with this and we all worked together in the chaos!
Recently, the Department of Social Welfare has been providing a more spacious classroom for use by the Quilting Center when they teach Government sponsored courses to unemployed women. This has helped tremendously as the Center classroom can only accommodate 8-10 students comfortably and these classes often have as many as 20 women. The office was also a hive of activity during our quilt show preparations.
Scenic Texas in November
On my recent teaching trip to the Rio Grande Valley Quilt Guild and the Midland Quilt Guild, I had the opportunity to explore in both areas. As luck would have it, my time with the first guild coincided with the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and I was able to go on two birding field trips. This part of Texas is practically in Mexico and is an amazing place for birding. Several of the native species cannot be found anywhere else in the USA. I went to the Sabal Palm Sanctuary where there was a beautiful old plantation home and the largest remaining area of sabal palm forest in Texas.
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I also visited Estero Llano State Park, Weslaco (pictured above), and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, Mission. My camera can’t do justice to the beautiful birds but I couldn’t resist sharing a couple of shots. The Green Jays are so vibrant in color and the Common Pauraque so extraordinary in its camouflage.
The second part of my trip was teaching in Midland then a 250 mile drive south to Big Bend National Park. This is a very remote and magnificent place including three distinct habitats – the mountainous Chisos Basin, the Chihuahuan Desert and the Rio Grande River. On the southwest side of the park is the spectacular Santa Elena Canyon with 1,500 ft high cliffs through which the Rio Grande river flows. On the southeast side there are spectacular views of El Pico and the Sierra del Carmen mountain range which turns pink at sunset. Both have camp grounds near the river that are great places for birding.
I spent two nights in the Chisos Basin in a little cottage with stone flags on the floor. My hike up the Lost Mine Trail now ranks in my top 10 all time hikes. The views were absolutely breathtaking and I loved it.
