Welcome to Mountaintop Quilting Studio

This is where you find me exploring a variety of creative adventures mostly about but not limited to quilting. I'm a firm believer that one increases their creativity by being open to and playing with a variety of cretative endeavors ... at least that my excuse for today. Enjoy your sourjourn through my studio playroom. May you find encouragement and inspiration, and on occassion, a little pin-prick that may be thought-provoking or spark your imagination. Thank you for stopping by.

As I've worked with this pattern it's becoming my new favorite. I love the movement across the top of the quilt and the secondary patterns created when the blocks are placed side-by-side. If you squint you will see whirling circles rather than blocks in a row. Isn't ...

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo .

... a thing to add to the bucket list ... to be able to see this in real life ... sigh

A project started at the beginning of the month as part of a workshop with Tangie Baxter at Scrapbook Graphics , the Count Your Blessings art journal is just one of the many activities contained in her Studio Box Workshop 3 . The kit has everything you need for a variety of ...

They're back ... tis the season of the pomegranate once again for another year. I saw them in the grocery while shopping this afternoon and was so tempted to get one. I remember picking the seeds out of the peel and juice running down my chin as I feasted on ...

Winston Churchill: Never, never, never give up.

This give a whole new meaning to the phrase the quilt dance! 

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Sindy and her friends wanted to make a quilt - a grandma quilt - for a new baby due to arrive in May. They gathered their scraps and yardage and set to work. I think the outcome is just perfect fr comfy cozy grandma snuggle times. Sindy chose to use a very ...

If you were at the Southeast Statler Retreat in Atlanta this year you may recall a request for design help on a quilt called Irish Mist. Many in the audience had suggestions but most were edge-to-edge. The customer wants custom quilting with a Celtic flavor. After much searching through my ...

Susan's quilt ... a scrappy 9-Patch using all different shades of red and brown. Part of what makes this quilt so effective is the way Susan used so many different textures, so many different shades, and varied the scale of print. What really pops is the fabric that is a ...

... know your craft ... practice your craft ...

... be innovative with your craft ...

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I love red and white. I love red clothes. I love red shoes. I love red dishes. I love red in my quilts. So you can imagine my excitement when I read about the exhibit held in New York City in conjunction with the American Folk Art Museum just this ...

Here it is ... one of the prettiest Christmas collections of fabric I've ever seen. You may be familiear with the Stonehenge line of fabrics from Northcott. It is a stale in their fabrics and they are the most versatile luscious texture laden fabrics I've seen in a long ...

... the music of your soul ...

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Every day for the last two weeks promptly at 1:00 I have been at my desk phone turned off and been treated to the most amazing and inspiring interviews with host Jennifer Lee as I participated in a video summit for right-brained business planners. You may have even seen ...

Ooooooh ... the weather outside is ... melting ...

Now that song will be stuck in your head all day, won't it. But we can't deny it ... it's melting and thawing and melting and thawing and every day there is a little less snow and the icicles are a little ...

It wasn't in the plan. It wasn't on the map. Scheduled for release next week but I just couldn't wait. I got so excited about the possibilities of this collection. I couldn't stop rearranging pieces and parts to make up a new wholecloth design.

What makes ...

What a great conference we had in Atlanta during this last week. Thank you's and kudos coming your way to all the wonderful students and teachers in attendance at our Southeast Statler Retreat. An amazing wealth of knowledge and inspiration was enjoyed and shared all around, friendships made and ...

In all the hustle bustle of the world, the chaotic noise. motion and commotion that surrounds us in our dailey lives, the sheer sensory overload that bombards us to the very  core of our souls, it is very easy to forget to listen to that little creative voice inside of ...

One of the ideas cooking in the back of my mind is to develop a art journaling project centered around the theme of houses, homes, the comfort of home, castle in the sky ... you know ... It just takes a heap of living to make a house a home. I just ...

It's almost time to jump on the plane and head down to Geogia for our Southeast Statler Retreat. I'm so excited to be going and mingling with all the great people who will be there. So much to learn from each other. I love going to retreats and ...

An email with triumphant shouts of joy and a request came into my inbox yesterday afternoon. Olga played with her Feather Surprise pattern in Creative Studio but now she needs a corner block with feathers going out rather than in as they are in 1471 FEATHER SURPRISE BORDER CORNER. 

So ...

I thought I might take today to share some of the great tips I've stumbled upon while out in the cyber quilting world lately. After all, that's part of the legacy and heritage of being in this wonderful community called "quilters." Sharing the latest tip; sharing a new ...

 A photo-walk the other day ... and Mike told me he was mowing the lawn in Oregon! After I stopped laughing it was time to ponder ... I wonder how many days before I get a glimpse of the green green grasses here in the Berkshires. Enjoy my Winter views ...

And finally ...

Dreaming of flowers during our February windy snow storm and a special request from Mitzi inspired this fun play exercise designing with Creative Studio. What better way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than playing in your studio.

You need:

• Creative Studio ready to go starting a new project.
• 1234 ...

Have you seen the new patterns going up in the store over the last few days? I had a few minutes to play with a new wholecloth design in Creative Studio. This mockup features patterns from a new collection coming together called FEATHER SURPRISE. Individual patterns used in this mockup ...

One of the things I really enjoy about living in the Berkshires is how many more clear night skies we have than I experienced living in Oregon in the Portland metropolitan area. The reasons for this are … unlike the cloudy rainy Pacific Northwest, we are much drier even though we ...

Did you go read the article by Matt Gartland I posted yesterday? I was so taken with this sculpture. Usually I am not that excited about sculptures but this one really spoke to me ... the beauty and the passion ... the emotions it evokes. Chalk it up to the spirit of ...

This last July at our retreat in Sisters Ruth Bass was our fearless leader as we played with some of her artbox supplies. The concept: Stitch It Then Paint it. If you've been following along for any length of time you will have read several different posts and had ...

Inspiration and/or distraction ... very hard to concentrate and stay on task when nature throws everything she's got at you all at once!

Check out these quilting patterns celebrating the fall season ...

• 1238 RIPPLES AND LEAVES
• 1339 LEAFY VINE DENSE E2E
• 1340 LEAFY VINE OPEN E2E 
1082 LEAF CURL ...

Looking for .... An easy way to add images to your art quilts ..An easy way to add printed text to your art quilts ...

Here's what you need:

• Goldens Matte Medium
• Brayer
• Wide paint brush (nothing fancy or expensive … sponge brush works well, too)
• Image on an ink jet transparency ...

Hmmmm ... what is this?

Hmmmm ... what could the material be?

Hmmmm ... where would I be most likely to see something like this?

Hmmmm ... very inspiring ... how could I use this in my quilting art?

Hmmmm ... I want to reach out touch this texture.

Hmmmm ... who knew there could be so ...

A FEAST FOR THE SENSES

color   texture   scent   line   form   rhythm

BEAUTY

There is a fine line in maintaining a balance in life whether we're talking personal, emotional, or career and our creative endeavors. Many times I find that I can get so caught up in the finished product I can easily loose sight of the process. How easy it is ...

With the journaling on the page you can kind of get an idea of where I might be going with this project. I like brainstorming the possibilities. The exploration helps me narrow the focus of the project. But sometimes even the brainstorm is a little slow to get started.

I ...

Patterns used:

• 1402 HEARTS A FLUTTER BLOCK 2
• 1403 HEARTS A FLUTTER BLOCK 3
• 1374 TOUCHING BEADS SINGLE
• 1380 JOURNEY BLOCK 2

Creative Studio skills used:

In Repeat Mode ... concatinating, rubber stamp, circular array, rotation, and resizing.

And the bonus for today: a freebie - 1374 SINGLE TOUCHING BEAD is a ...

The inspiration: the view from a visit on-stage at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts. I took these photos during a visit to Boston during 2008 and ran across them recently during an unpacking/organizing session after our recent move. (Will I ever have all of those boxes unpacked with contents ...

It's DESIGN CHALLENGE TIME ... are you a designing diva?

Time to dust off the mouse, open up Creative Studio and start playing. I've designed a new block that is easily divided so you can create and re-create until your "hearts-a-fluttering."

The challenge unit ... 1402 HEARTS A FLUTTER BLOCK ...

Just a quick glimpse into my art/journal quilt planning journal. This is a copy of the page with notes and ideas ... first impressions ... how would I transform this concept into an art quilt. I find it really helps me to come closer to making the project REAL ... making it ...

Taking it one step further ...

I've made a commitment to fit in a weekly photo-walk when planning my calendar. I find much inspiration when I take the time to slow down and be more observant of the little things normally missed in the rush of the day. Built in ...

hope and faith

in the promise of Spring

planning

dreaming

listening and watching

in the stillness of the hour

The snows came down and the ground was white. This could be amazing thread work, painted wholecloth, applique ... use all of it or crop the section that speaks to you.

Hmmmmmm ...

Click HERE to enlarge.

I'm very guilty of bringing the concept of multitasking to a whole new level. That can be a good thing and it can also be a bad thing. In a communications class I took once the instructor reminded us that most of the time "our ...

I love the feature called CONCATINATION included with our Creative Studio software on our Statler quilting machines. Concatinating is a design process allowing us to create unique edge-to-edge designs using several different but related quilting patterns. We can choose an order in which we would like the patterns to be ...

At the last second we decided since we were driving through St Louis we might as well stop and check out the Gateway Arch. I wonder how many of you have driven through St Louis as tourists. It seems like the freeways catch us up every time we've driven ...