Beaches in Southwest Florida are full of seashells. Some people spend hours searching for perfect specimens. After a storm you can sometimes find shells from waters hundreds of miles away. Sifting through the sand I discovered these seashell fragments.

I like the bands of soft colors. They remind me of strip-pieced quilts. Maybe a seashell-inspired quilt awaits, or maybe a walk along the seashore…

What inspires your quilt-making?

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Quilt-cation
Quilt-cation fabrications

I love the soft, organic shapes of the adobe style buildings. The reddish tones contrast nicely with the blue-gray of the approaching storm.

Don’t miss the Georgia O’Keefe Museum if you’re visiting Santa Fe. There’s mega-inspiration inside these doors!

And there’s wonderful art out-of-doors too! Here’s Patricia Wyatt and her fantastic mixed media paintings. I love the way she paints the frame to go with the picture. Find out more about Patricia at PatricaWyatt.com.

Spring Moon is my favorite. The mountains look like stacks of fabric.

Don’t forget to stop and eat in Santa Fe. Enjoy creative southwest cooking at The Shed. Feast on fabulous food and eye candy too!

Vases by Suzanne Marshall, MO

What I love most about Suzanne’s prize-winning quilt is the way she outlined each applique piece with hand embroidery.

The Sky’s the Limit by Linda MacDougall, CA

Linda MacDougall pays such attention to each exquisite detail in all her quilts. (Her Garden Party quilt won 2nd place in the Innovative Traditional category. You should be able to see it and the other winners soon on the Road to California website.) Notice the beads and crystals she used for the tiniest ice cream scoops.

I also like the way the iridescent sheer changes the colors of the fabric underneath it.

Flowers Galore by Cindy Shoop, CA

These pieced center circles look like stacked cover buttons or dimensional applique. It really makes a difference compared to plain circles.

Inner Beauty by Cathleen Miller, NM

Look at how the trapunto flowers and leaves tie the appliqued borders into the rest of this magnificent quilt.

When you take a closer look, you’ll see that it’s details like these that take a great quilt and make it a fantastic quilt! Visit the Road to California website to see photos of the rest of this year’s winning quilts.

Although I only reached 50 blocks or so before I called it quits in my Dear Diary 2006 quilt, I’m now ready to give it another try.

One quilt block per day, inspired by each day’s activities. Sketched, sewn and quilted each day. Every several days I’ll sew them to each other so that I won’t lose any blocks. By January 1, 2011 the quilt will be complete.Here’s my journal, all ready to go. My daughter and I have broken it in so that I won’t have any empty sketchbook fears come January 1.

Come back and visit my blog in the new year. I’ll post my Dear Diary 2010 progress for you to see.

Stroll through a few Christmassy shops and see what colors the trees are decked out in this year. Maybe you’ll discover just the right color palette for your first quilt of 2010.

Or maybe there’s a red & green quilt in your near future. Check out my “box of ornaments” above. 3 reds + 3 greens = 9 different red & green combinations. Not all of them are what we think of as traditional for Christmas, or even for red & green quilts, but it’s interesting to consider which patterns you might choose for each one and why.

I think it would be fun to make a Christmas tree quilt out of the bottom left combo. Which combo do you like best and what kind of quilt would you make from it?

On the other hand, making a quilt takes not only the right ingredients but also much more time. Some people can make an entire quilt in a day or two, even an afternoon. Most quilters I know need weeks or months to complete their quilted masterpiece. So although I am baking cookies this morning that will be eaten at my daughter’s class Christmas party this afternoon, the quilt I am working on tonight will make its debut next spring.

I’m also thinking about designing a fish quilt. See the cookies on the bottom left part of the tray? Those are my version of Christmas carp. Carp is traditional for a Czech Christmas Eve dinner. Since I’m vegetarian this is the only carp my family and friends will get to see this Christmas. Although perhaps next Christmas there will be a Christmas carp quilt.

Some of the fish below are carp, but some are koi. I’m going to have to do a bit more research before I hit the sketchbook. Happy Holidays!

If you’re in the neighborhood, drop by and visit the African Folklore Embroidery exhibit at Road to California, January 14-17, 2010 in Ontario, California. To learn more about African Folklore Embroidery visit the African Folklore Embroidery website.

Make blocks for baking cookies, shopping for presents, attending a Christmas pageant, and more. Just about anything, really. Then make a New Year’s Resolution to piece the blocks together and quilt them so that next Christmas you can reminisce and enjoy your quilterly creation.

What a great combination of shapes! A brussels sprouts stalk would be a lot of fun to use as a reference for a yummy wall hanging. You could do it all in shades of green or mix it up scrappy style in any colors you choose. It would make a wonderful abstract piece of art.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends (and to those of you from other countries too. We all have so much to be thankful for!) If you find yourself cooking up a feast this week or simply eating one, be sure to take a few moments to to savor the shapes and colors of the holiday food, because you just might find the inspiration for your next quilterly masterpiece. And if you haven’t seen it before, be sure to check out my first Quilt Your Veggies post for a veggie-licious color palette and a fab Boston Lettuce quilt.

word cloud created at www.wordle.net

Wow… what great color palettes everyone selected! Such fun to read through them all! Actually makes me want to shut down the computer and go back to my studio and play with fabrics. You are the best! I have to say I am very inspired.

Autumn colors and earth tones are some of your best-loved palettes, as well as pink & green and aqua & red. Orange, purple & green is another fav. Brights are popular and so is the combo of yellow & blue. I love Lynne’s comment that her favorite colors would have to be all the colors in the rainbow plus turquoise, jade, pink and yellow.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get into a color rut. It’s fun to try out some different colors every now and then, even if just for a small project before going back to the tried and true.

If you’re looking for some color inspiration check out your fellow readers’ favorite color palettes in the responses for the post, Pocket Full of Posies, and there are also a few more on the post Cut Smart! (part two). Who knows, you just might discover a new favorite!

The words in the word cloud above are all the favorite colors you submitted last week. The dissonance between the words and the actual colors of those words in the image above  is interesting. The concept could make an intriguing art quilt.

happy quilting! =(^_^)=