NEW PROJECT! The Essential Clutch
Travel light with this No Sew hard-sided clutch. Pop in your wallet, keys and phone and you're ready for a night out. The essential clutch is made with materials found at the craft store and hardware store and is a great way to use pieces of luxury fabrics. Add a little hardware or embellishment to make it your own. This project will take about 3 hours, plus drying time for the contact cement. Download The Essential Clutch
A little from our Designer, Amy Van Scoik:
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
Amy: Usually I see a fabric that I love, and I want to figure out some way to use it. Also, I always see ready-made products and think about how I could improve the design and make them more user-friendly and also produced in a more sustainable manner. This includes the sourcing of the materials used to make the product, as well as the way it is produced and the experience of the people who are making it.
Why do you enjoy crafting? A: I enjoy the process. What I really enjoy is getting tuned in and having 100% of my focus on what I am creating. All of the rest of your day to day preoccupations melt away and all of your energy pours into your project. When and why did you start sewing & crafting? A: I have been sewing and crafting casually since I was a kid. My grandmother sewed amazing clothing for me and my sister, and had an alterations business out of our home. My mother and I would go to the fabric store together and she would create outfits for me from fabric that I chose. Now I am really enjoying directing my own learning and building skills as I complete new projects. I sew because I want to create unique things, and I definitely get a satisfaction out being able to say, “I made this!”
On a higher level, ultimately the creative process is about empowerment, because you are directing the creative process. When someone asks where I got something, and I reply, “I made it,” I can see the wheels turning in their head. They might think, “I could make that too!” Creating anything, even the simplest project, turns us away from a purely consumer-oriented concept of ourselves and begins to open up the limitless possibilities we have as expressive beings capable of shaping the world around us.
Meet Connie Watkins
Connie Watkins has made over 200 quilts over the years and is now sharing her creativity with Pellon Projects™. Connie's most recent project is this large checkerboard mat. Not only does it provide fun for all ages, it's washable and comes with its own storage case! Make your own "checker pieces" or use hockey pucks to play this classic board game. Checker's Anyone?
Connie: I find inspiration everywhere. I look in books, magazines and looking at old quilts.
What does your creative process look like/entail?
C: It takes a lot of planning to make a quilt. I have to decide on a pattern and decide on what color and what fabrics I will need. Once I construct the quilt top, I need to decide on what Legacy™ by Pellon batting will suit the project and what quilting designs I want to use.
Why do you enjoy sewing/quilting/crafting?
C: I love to sew and find it very relaxing and creative.
Do you create mainly for satisfaction, gifts, art or another reason?
C: I sew and quilt for satisfaction, gifts, art and just the enjoyment of the total process from start to finish.
What tips or tricks learned through experience can you share?
C: I teach quilting from beginners to experienced quilters and we learn together as we create our quilts. Modern tools such as the rotary cutter and cutting boards have made quilting so much faster and easier. More selection of 100% cotton fabrics and great Legacy™ by Pellon battings have made quilts more beautiful and durable.
When and why did you start sewing/quilting/crafting?
C: I have been sewing, quilting and crafting almost as long as I can remember. I made my first quilt when I was really young for my doll and was making doll clothes on my toy sewing machine until I got my first electric sewing machine for Christmas when I was 6 years old. I have been sewing ever since.
What triggers you to start a project?
C: Sometimes I need a gift or my children or grandchildren want me to make something for them. I see a pattern I want to try or I see an antique quilt that I want to copy. Lots of time I just go into my sewing room not knowing what I want to work on but just for the joy it gives me to create something from all my scraps. I am very traditional and make a lot of quilts from old traditional patterns. I have created a few art quilts but love the old traditional quilts best.
Pellon® asked a few questions about inspiration and the creative process to featured designer Robbi Joy Eklow. Robbi designed the eye catching Steampunk Sublime Quilt. Click here to download the pattern and instructions.
Robbi: To tell the truth, not so much from other quilters. More so artists from the past, for example Picasso and the Cubists, the impressionists, Charles Rennie Macintosh, Art Deco design, architecture, graphic artists. The other day I took a picture of the titles from a movie because I liked the color scheme.
R: I do a lot of design on the computer, at least the line drawings. I do some color work on the computer but in the end, the color choices are made with the cloth. Lately I've been printing out the Wonder Under® templates on my inkjet printer, I iron them to fabric and then just keep working until the space of the quilt is filled up.
R: I've been thinking about this, because my designs could be painted or even collaged, but I haven't. I think it's because I like the texture of fabric, or rather its ability to have texture imposed on it. I like that I can fold it up and put it on a shelf and admire it. Actually, folding is a wonderful property. I can make very big quilts, even though I'm a very short person, because I can fold the quilt up to reach different parts of it.
R: Really for my own satisfaction, but my own satisfaction includes submitting quilts to shows around the country, and sometimes, like now, doing designs for someone.
R: One thing I've learned with Wonder Under is to let it cool before I try to peel off the paper. In fact, ironing onto fabric, then letting it sit, as happens when I'm working on a big quilt, is the easiest way to get the paper off. Some people like to peel the paper off and then cut out shapes, but I prefer to have the paper on while I cut, the paper gives it extra body I need to cut detailed shapes.
R: I've been sewing since I was about five years old, I lived with my grandmother, and she had a box of fabric scraps. I used to go grab some and then do hand sewing. She eventually taught me to use a sewing machine when I was about six. I've always done various crafts, I spent a lot of time at overnight camps when I was a kid, both as a camper and as a counselor. I loved the arts and crafts sessions and eventually started teaching them to the other campers. I used to wander around camp all the time as a kid with lanyards. You'd weave them and then theoretically hang something from them, but I just liked weaving them.
R: I am often triggered by deadlines, but usually an idea just comes to form and then I want to do it badly. Sometimes I have to delay that particular design while I do something for a magazine or a website, and I can use a simplified form of the design. Right now I have a quilt up on my working wall that I've been dinking around with for over a year. I keep having to put it away and work on something else, them I come back to it.
I will let you know a little about me. I have quilted most of my life but I got really serious in the late 80's early 90's. I have probably made at least 200 quilts over the years. I have won 3 "Best of Shows" in Central Texas Quilt Shows and numerous ribbons. I have had 9 quilts go to the Houston International Quilt Show with 2 finalists and 6 quilts in the "Traditions" exhibit over the last few years. One of my quilts will be featured in a book coming out in the fall. I enjoy teaching and giving programs to quilt guilds around the state. I had my own costume and uniform business when my husband and I lived in Houston but quilting is my passion.