quilt inspiration – tierneycreates

Continuing my series of posts on sources of Creative Inspiration…

HOW ORGANIZING MY SCRAPS GOT ME INSPIRED

Sounds like a testimonial, right?

“At first my life was empty of direction and meaning and then I organized my fabric scraps and suddenly everything was much much much better!” – Anonymous Scrap Hoarder

Not exactly. However organizing my fabric scraps last evening did inspire my creativity!

I love fabric scraps and I have quite a collection. I have several blog posts about my love of scraps. My fabric scraps were getting out of control and were in two fairly large boxes. I enjoy the “hunt” for the right fabric scraps when creating a scrappy quilt, but found I grew irritated with not being able to easily find the colors I want.

So I decided to organize my fabric scraps in two ways, to give me flexibility of how I create with fabric scraps:

By color
All thrown in a box (random)

This new system allows me to create fabric scrap pieces (quilts, pillows, wallhanging, table runners, etc.) based on my “creative mood”. I might want to work on a piece that it focused on oranges, yellows and reds; or I might want to work on a piece that is very scrappy and more random. Now I have two options!

I am interested in working on some pieces in the future that are more monochromatic but with fabric of different patterns and textures in the same general color. Having fabric scraps organized by color will make this design process easier.

As I was organizing my fabric scraps I got very excited as ideas for new pieces ran wildly through my head!

So…

Sometimes I want to create from these containers…

And sometimes I want to create from this box…

Happy Crafting!

In the post “Creative Inspiration: Family” I introduced a series of posts exploring my resources for creative inspiration. This post discusses another important source of creative inspiration for me: Nature.

There is so much beauty around us. Whether you live in beautiful Central Oregon like I do or whether you live in a busy urban environment. You just have to stop for a moment and look around. A solitary tree on a city block can be a wonderful source of nature based inspiration for your creativity as well as a panoramic vista in a national park.

Jean Wells in her inspirational books Intuitive Color & Design: Adventures in Art Quilting (C&T Publishing, 2009) and Journey to Inspired Art Quilting: More Intuitive Color & Design (C&T Publishing, 2012), explores in depth how nature and the environment around you can be a significant resource for creative inspiration. I will talk more about Jean Wells and her influence on my creative inspiration in a future blog post on “Creative Inspiration: Mentors”. Check out Jean Well’s publications for inspirational ideas on your fiber art or just walk around and really see the beauty and inspiration around you!

To demonstrate Nature’s Inspiration, below are photos from a wonderful trip with my friend Michele to Red Rock Canyon State Park a couple years ago. I used the colors in the photos from this trip to inspire a batik art quilt I made.