The WestSide Modern Club meets monthly at The Pine Needle,
and this month we welcomed fabric designer Violet Craft to our meeting.
Geri started off our meeting by talking about Color.
Color is everywhere! It's bright and intense.
Gone are the neutral days of beige and black.
Fashion and quilting colors used to be planets apart,
but now they are very similar.
All you have to do is look around to see how bright colors
are influencing home decor, fashion, accessories, and even our tennis shoes.
Don't be afraid to mix and match your brights.
Violet is a Portland girl who is a licensed designer for Michael Miller fabrics.
She gave us a sneak peak into how she designs her fabric.
We love how she incorporates elements from the Northwest and Portland
into her designs and we love her bright use of color.
Violet shared some of her collections
and demonstrated how well these different colors work together.
There's no such thing as a blender fabric for Violet.
All her fabrics can stand on their own.
Love the elephants, the tree, and the fence from SE Portland.
This was the featured fabric in the "Michael Miller Madrona Road" Challenge.
You can see many of the quilts entered here at Flickr.
Violet gets her inspiration from Portland - check out the weeds and the swifts.
"The Broken Herringbone" is a pattern the Violet designed.
It will be available soon!
If you want can't wait, you can download it from her website:
or... if you CAN wait....
she will be teaching this class at Northwest Quilting Expo in September!
Here's another one of Violet's quilts.
Love the grey, the white, the bright, and the open spaces.
Another wonderful Modern Quilt.
Violet says that "Modern Quilting" is not that different from "Traditional Quilting".
It's about developing your inner creativity.
Take any traditional pattern, tweak it a little, and make it your own.
Throw in some fabrics from your stash to mix things up a bit.
The Modern Quilting movement is about "positivity."
Bring an open mind and be open to others work.
Every quilt you see has a person behind it who spent their time and money on it. Appreciate it for its uniqueness.
Life is too short to judge whether a quilt is modern or traditional.
Here is an outstanding video from Robert Kaufman
which gives us a peak into how fabric is manufactured.
We closed our meeting by exchanging our "What Was I Thinking?" fabric creations.
These fabrics were unclaimed. Is your fabric here?
If it is... be sure to come claim it at our next meeting on April 24th and bring your creation.
If it is... be sure to come claim it at our next meeting on April 24th and bring your creation.
Come enjoy open studio space at The Pine Needle on April 9th from 10-1 or 1-4.
Keep on quilting.
