August 24, 2014

Isn't every quilt a mosaic?

Mosaic quilt © W. Russell, patchworksquare.com
Mosaic quilt
Mosaics are everywhere. They are created from bits of a certain material (and often many materials) and then arranged and put together in such a way as to make a design. That's what making a quilt is all about. So when you think about it, every quilt is actually a mosaic.

The featured quilt block today is one I have named Mosaic -- for the simple reason that I do not know its real name. (An aside here -- if you happen to know the real name of this quilt block, please let me know). The block could not be simpler to make but the fun starts when you have made many blocks and then start playing around with placement.

Download the free quilt block pattern.

Since quilts are an artform, and the quilts you will see today displayed at shows feature some magnificant artwork, I chose to use Art as my topic for today's quotes.

Quotes about Art

  • "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art."
    ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Street mosiac © http://www.all-free-download.com/
    Street Mosaic
  • "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
    ~ Thomas Merton

  • "The big artist keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools."
    ~ Thomas Eakins

  • "Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets."
    ~ Oscar Wilde


Mosaic quilt image © W. Russell, patchworksquare.com
Street Mosaic image courtesy all-free-download.com/

August 14, 2014

Celebrities, Wisdom and Feathers

For some reason, feathers came to mind today, so I went looking for an appropriate quilt block to feature and Indian Plume fit the bill.

Indian Plume quilt block © W. Russell, patchworksquare.com
Indian Plume
I have categorized this quilt block as at an intermediate level, not because it is difficult, but because there are quite a few pieces making up the block. This requires that you are precise in your sewing and that is the only difficulty you will face. The patches themselves are easy to create, so the only problem you will have is in choosing the colours that are right for you.

Download the free quilt block pattern.

And speaking of feathers, what would a series of quotes about feathers be without a reference to a peacock?

Quotes about Feathers


    "Peacock" image courtesy of Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
  • I don't know if it's animalistic or what, but men become like peacocks with their feathers up when women are around.
    ~ Bradley Cooper

  • I'm always in favor of more glamour. I embarrass my children, I think. I am the lady in feathers in the car pool line.
    ~ Mia Sara

  • It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death: ideas that had often fluttered around her head like nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them.
    ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  • The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing.
    ~ Jean Baptist Colbert

  • Now cut that out boy, or I'll spank you where the feathers are thinnest.
    ~ Foghorn Leghorn

"Indian Plume" image © W. Russell, patchworksquare.com
"Peacock" image courtesy of Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot at FreeDigitalPhotos.net