Tuesday, July 30, 2013

What I'm Working On



I belong to the Art Quilt small group of Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters.  When working on this month's challenge/exchange, I found myself in a decidedly "modern" mood. So I thought I would share here.

The rules were: for each set,  to  begin with a 11" square, make  four concentric circles (3", 5", 7", 9"), cut your squares into quarters and ready to trade. For every square you make, you trade 3 quarters and keep one of the original quarters.
I decided to applique my circles atop one another, using decorative machine stitching. 
The most difficult part was slicing them into quarters! (Emotionally, not technically!)
 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Confessions of a Quilt Magazine Editor

Hi, Lisa here again!

This post's headline is my tongue-in-cheek title for Saturday's presentation. 

I spent seven years as the managing editor of several different quilting magazines. 

During that time, I:

  • helped launch two new magazines
  • worked with designers to commission projects to be featured
  • doublechecked the math on patterns
  • attended photoshoots
  • got sneak peeks each season of all the new collections
  • rubbed elbows with celebrity quilters at Quilt Market
  • doublechecked the math on patterns
  • proofed more patterns than I can count
  • wrote articles
  • doublechecked math on patterns (oh, did I say that already?)
  • had one nerve-wracking appearance on the Today Show
I'll walk you through a day in the life of a quilt editor, how an issue gets put together, show you some examples, and then share tips about what editors are looking for and how to submit projects. 

Hope to see you there! 

The details:
Saturday, June 27th, 10 am
Plainwell Library
180 S Sherwood Ave.
Plainwell, MI 49080
(269) 685-8024

Monday, July 22, 2013

Meet a Member: Lisa Ruble

Hi all,
I'm kicking off our "Meet a Member" series, intended to help all of us Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild members (and anyone else who happens across our blog) get to know each other.

I volunteered to go first because I'm giving the presentation at next week's meeting, and this way I can skip the intro! :)

A little about me: 
I've lived in Kalamazoo almost 2 years, and before that St. Louis, New Jersey, Chicago. I grew up in Milwaukee. I'm married and I have two boys (4.5 and 2), and during the day I do social media marketing freelance work. Prior to that I was a quilting magazine editor for seven years I've been sewing since I was a kid and quilting for the last 13 years. My biggest challenge, quilting-wise, is finding time to sew!

About my quilting:
I like to dabble in a bit of everything. I started out making traditional quilts and have played around with crazy quilting, landscape quilting, made fabric, and of course modern quilting. At the moment I am focused on improving my machine quilting skills, so I've been doing some smaller projects that are easier to handle on my machine, though I did get to try out a friend's long arm this spring, and boy was that fun!

Time for a little show and tell!

One of my favorites first:
Last year I participated in an online Color Challenge over at 15 Minutes Play (great resource, if you're not familiar with it! And get ready to be sucked into the world of "made" fabric). Each week Victoria listed a color and we had to make fabric and then make a block with that color and whatever we thought went with it.


I'm in an online quarterly art challenge with three other people. Our first theme was "growth." I ventured into the world of applique (somewhere I don't hang out much!) and recreated silhouettes of leaves I found in our yard. Had a lot of fun with the machine quilting on this one too!


My first Dresden plate attempt, from this past winter. Gearing up for round 2, which will be a Christmas tree skirt!


My entry into the Tula Pink challenge last fall. You could use a pattern of hers, fabric of hers, or both. I used scraps and her "LOVE" pattern, but pieced the backgrounds because what made her quilt so cool was the quilting in each panel and I just don't have those skills! Oh, and I won the Challenge. Which was REALLY exciting!


My first "modern" quilt--a wonky log cabin made when I began my blog. Also my first straight line quilting attempt.


I'm a fan of log cabins. This one is all dotted fabric, and I quilted it in a huge spiral.


My Shades of Gray charm square swap quilt, using three different solid greens to make a Cathedral window-style corner on each square.


Getting ready to bind this one as we speak--stitched for my newest nephew, using Marcia Derse fabrics (love her designs!).


Pantone Emerald Challenge. This quilt was a huge struggle for me. Couldn't decide what to do/didn't love emerald/had trouble choosing colors to go with the greens.

I made this last fall for a blog hop promoting Emily Herrick's book, Geared for Guys. (The idea was to remake the patterns in non-guy fabrics, lest you think this looks a bit flowery for a man.) Definitely the largest quilt I machine quilted on my home machine, primarily with straight lines. And let me tell you, my biggest frustration is how the needle jumps when I stop and then start again!

I had to jump on the chevron bandwagon this spring! This uses an ombre dot and thoughtful cutting and layout.

You can see more of my work on my blog, though it is recently a bit neglected. Hoping to change that!

Hope to see you all Saturday, July 27th at the Plainwell Library for our meeting!
I'll be giving a presentation about what it's like to be a quilt magazine editor (more on that to come in another blog post!)