My environment has a big impact on my motivation to design, create, make videos, take pictures.

For the past year and a half, Covid could have been the reason for my lack of motivation in my work, but the reason is a change of day job. 

I was working on a golf course only 11 minutes away from my house, in February 2020 I had to leave as the person I was replacing came back from her maternity leave. I then searched for another day job, and found a position on a golf course further from my home (45 minutes).

The distance would not have been a problem if I had enjoyed working there, but it wasn't the case, I was not accepted by the two people working there, they saw me as an intruder, which was ridiculous as they needed me because of the work load.

From the day I began working there, I was miserable, unhappy and desperate to leave, but with Covid happening, I needed to keep my job as I needed the income.

I tried to keep up with my objectives of videos, leaflets, projects. But I could...

If you want to start designing your quilt, I have multiple documents to help you follow the steps that you need to create that stunning quilt that you will be the only one to have.

If you want to learn different techniques just to understand all the basics, I have the documents for you.

But until you are ready to join me out of that box, why not start by imagining what you would love to make.

Here is a suggestion for you 2021 "One day I will... " Board to put all the projects that you would love to make.

Purpose of your Board: to represent the projects that you would love to make, represent the fabrics that you would love to use, notes about the techniques that you would love to learn...

Where to make your Board: either make it on your computer or make it on paper...

What you need to make your Board: pictures, shapes, colors, fabrics, crayons, pens...

Where to find your images: Pinterest, Designer's website, Magazines...

How to make your board: Cut you images and glue them on t...

I joined a zoom call early this year, we were 12 ladies from different parts of Britany (a western region of France on the Atlantic ocean), the subject of the meeting was talking about a 2021 Inspirational Board of what we hoped for our self during this new year:

the way to do this is to imagine what we wanted in our personal life and/or business life and make it visual either by using words, images, painting, writing, collage, anything that we wanted to express our desires for this coming year.

The exchange was amazing and each could relate to a piece or section on some else's board, whether it was the use of a word, the description of a way to escape, the expression of a dream, or just a thought such as "THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX" which is the one that I most related to during that event.

I always think outside the box, maybe too much sometimes, that people don't understand what I am doing or why I am doing it that way.

For the past five years, my way of thinking outside the box has ...

Let me share with you what I am feeling.

I am an introvert when it comes to everyday life, I love to be alone and do whatever I want and whenever I want.

If I am hungry I will eat, I don't care if it is 11 am or 2 pm, I will have my lunch when I am hungry and not necessarily because lunch should be taken at noon.

If I want to watch a movie in the middle of the day, I will take a break and watch it, and not at 8 pm because a movie should only be watched in the evening.

But most of all, if I want to spend 12 hours working on a quilt, I can spend my entire day making a quilt.

I can stay weeks without piecing a fabric, but when I get started, I just have to get it done no matter how long it takes, usually I don't see time go by and will realize after a while that it is 2 in the morning and it is time to actually go to bed!!

The following morning I will get my cup of warm chocolate and get to the sewing room straight away and that is when my lunch time gets pushed back until I am real...

I used the templates from Marti Michell, Set A to make the blocks :

I always start preparing all my block pieces on a design board and once all the pieces are cut, I then move on to the piecing with my sewing machine.

Emmanuelle

Using the board of the color set up, prepare all the blocks :

The next step is making the blocks.

Emmanuelle

By using the block and the color set up, the six colors are dispatched on the motifs:

Color in all the plain squares :

Then when coloring a motif section, choose the biggest shapes to color in :

Finish coloring in the rest of the motif with the same or other of the six colors :

Emmanuelle

Now that we have an idea on how to make the background, let's move on to the motif.

What motif are we going to use?

Once we have decided on the motifs that are going to be used we need to move on to placing them on our blocks.

They can be placed in a traditional way, meaning in a geometrical way, or they can be placed in a randomly way:

The two blocks on the left are placed in a geometrical way, but the two blocks on the right have the motifs placed in a randomly way.

Next step will be to associate the colors that we had decided for the background with the blocks that will be designed.

Emmanuelle

Rather than doing a traditional checker board, we are going to add some extravaganza to it.

The block has two set ups possible, I have chosen to work with 6 colors:

I am going to place these colors on my two blocks set up, I am then going to draw one block set up at the top and the other block set up on the side:

I am now going to match both set up to obtain new color set ups:

If you notice, in the diagonal I have a full blue, then a full purple all the way to the bottom to a full beige.

I will be using those set ups differently and you will see how later on.

So until the third step, have a good week.

Emmanuelle

I have a project for you for the coming few weeks.

I am going to show you how I create from scratch a quilt pattern.

I will call this project : The Checker Board Quilt

Step One: The preparation of the board

A Checker board is the alternation of a black square and a white square, if we add colors to it, it would look like this:

If we divide the checker board into 3 patch blocks, then it would look like this:

If we want to have different background colors, it would look like this:

Two block set ups come out of this, a block with the colored squares in the corners and in the middle, and a block with the colored squares on the edges:

So these are the two block set ups that we are going to work with.

Next step to follow.

Emmanuelle