7 Tips to Reignite your Creative Mojo! - Tip #2

So when I find myself in a place where I have run out of creative ideas it usually means I just need to play and explore my art supplies again. One of the best places for me to get ideas, see tutorials and organize me thoughts is on Pinterest! I love Pinterest! If I find something on there that I love I can categorize it and keep it safe. I can create visual boards for helping me come up with ideas, I have color boards, I have tutorials, I have all sorts of boards of things I love. You can also make private boards where you can collect thoughts, quotes, secret ideas for projects, the options are unlimited.

Pinterest is also a wonderful place to pin photos of your work for sale off of your website, blog or Etsy site. When you pin directly from those places the photo actually will become a link back to the source and they can purchase also! A great marketing tool.

So if you not on Pinterest, get on, its easy. You set up boards, kind of like bulletin boards to pin things you love. People can follow you and you can follow them. If you love art or quilting there are tons of sites that are available to follow, just do a search. I hope you will follow me too! Find me under Desiree Habicht! You can see my art, my fiber art, my sketches, my fabrics, my patterns! Hope to see you there!

Feastival at Houston

Lauretta told me about a blog that did a wonderful job at displaying alot ofthe beautiful quilts that were at Houstons Feastival this year. She also mentioned that that Susan Brubaker Knapps blog, bluemoon river, mentioned my quilt so I had to go check it out now! Thanks Susan for such a thorough tour of the feastival. Congrats on your new book and I hope we can meet soon!

My studio - OCT 3

Hi everyone, well today is the studio reveal through Quilting Arts. Everyone who signed up is supposed to post pictures of their studio spaces. I will be posting different photos during the day since I have two work areas now in my home. Although my husband says that the whole house is a work area before a show or during a project. It happens to the best of us, we nicely organize a space to sew or paint, but then we need just a bit more, so, we borrow some space from over there. Then that space is full so we take a tiny corner from over there! LOL Does this ring a bell with anyone else?

My studio is a converted bedroom, I have tile floors and a design wall for quilts. I always have a ton of projects hanging at anytime on my design wall. I hang some of my quilts and some of my artwork on the opposite wall. I love to have the walls full of "my" things. The room becomes an inspiration and motivation just being in there. It is my refuge, I love it. I have a TV also that allows me some company when I am working but I often find the family loves to just come and sit with me while I work. Isn't that how it always is, just like when the kids were small and followed us into the bathroom. I usually do not hang other art in my studio, only my own. Other art can be found around the house along with mine.

Since I also design fabric and paint for a living I love natural light. Although my husband installed all kinds of good lighting its just not the same. So..... in our bedroom we have a sitting room, it is a large area that we basically don't use and I love the view and the light from the octagonal windows that face the backyard. I love to sit and watch "nature" as I paint. The windows are tinted so often birds will play within inches of me painting. There is no TV here, the view, the area is enough, and I love this spot too. Combining painting, pastels and fabric didnt really work, I always had to clean up one before starting the other. I love having multiple project going at one time so this allows me that luxury. We have a big house and I am making the best use out of otherwise usless rooms.

Look for pictures throughout the day today sent from my phone. We are frantically working on quilts etc for Houston since my fabric just arrived yesterday. So I will post some of us working from varies spots.

Houston Quilt Show coming up

I was informed today that my quilt called "Glass Beach" is being used for the advertising media page. Here is the link, www.quilts.com/mediapage/ I am very excited that it was choosen to represent the Edges Exhibit in Houston. I have been so busy with patterns and fabric designs for Houston. My fabric is now going to be late in arriving, the mills are all backed up so it could come as late as the end of Sept. With Houston Oct 9th that doesn't leave much time!

My quilt for the SAQA auction done!

My quilt for the SAQA auction done!
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

The quilt is squarer than the picture shows, I took the picture with my phone! LOL I used collage, acrylic inks, paints, shiva paint sticks, distressing inks, raw edge applique. I like the way it turned out. As I was posting this I noticed that Jamie just posted our quilts on her blog for the Edges Exhibit she is curating at Long Beach Quilt show. Take a look at how she has assembled all 21 quilts, its pretty cool. Thanks Jamie for all your hard work on this, and Leslies too!

Finishing Up 2008

Ok admit it, this is the cutest picture so far! Nathan trying to hold his twin sisters on Christmas! Sorry I had to share it.

As the year is winding down I was glad to have finished some old UFO projects. I am going to start 2009 without all this extra baggage. I finished Nathan's pirate quilt which I have been working on for TWO years! I wrapped it again and gave it too him, unfortunately I forgot to photograph it so picture will come later. I also made that fleece blanket I have had the fabric for all year. I have so many art quilts in different stages of completion and although I am working on them I doubt I will make my Jan 1 deadline.

I am busy finishing up a quilt for the "Edges" challenge for the July IQA show in Long Beach, deadline is Jan 14th. There are a few of us in the art quilt group I belong to that are going to enter it. The challenge was to come up with our interpertation of what "edges" means to us. I thought it was going to be a really tough challenge but I love what I came up with. Shhh, its still a secret until I am finished. I will give you a peek then. The thing about challenges is that they make us think outside of the box and stretch. Monday I also received a two year contract to design fabric for Red Rooster Fabrics in NY, I am really excited about that! We are reading it over and checking all that fine print. How exciting to think that "Desiree's Designs" will be printed on the side of every yard of fabric they produce with my designs. Wow, another 15 minutes of fame! LOL I need to now work on the coordinating fabrics to go along with my panel I submitted to them. And then finally, my patterns got picked up by a big distributor and possibly a catalog company. These latest opportunities are directly related to our trip to Houston. THANKS HOUSTON!

It is turning out to be a busy end of 2008, a good time to clean up the old and welcome the new! I am hoping for many new and exciting opportunities for 2009!

Long Beach Quilt Show

Well, as rumors have it, some of you know that Marta and I went to the Quilt Show in Long Beach, CA on Friday. I have classes planned all day Saturday so our plan was to go check in and see the show then I would attend classes Saturday, while Marta went to the Aquarium of the Pacific to sketch and paint.

The show was great, we almost ran through it though since we didn't have a full day and we were starving. Lots of vendors and some cool quilts. I love the art quilts, since that's what I do.

Here are a few of the entries, great stuff!

We stayed at the Hyatt, and had a wonderful room overlooking the harbor! The lights were amazing as was the view, from our window we could see the Queen Mary and the dome for the Spruce Goose.

After the quilt show we changed and decided to walk around a bit before deciding where we would eat. We walked down one of the main restaurant rows where the eatery's lined each side of the street. There was live jazz bands playing and the hustle and bustle of the city hummed around us. It was still a bit early so we walked up and down the street reading the menus that were displayed in front of every restaurant. We originally wanted to eat at this little hole in the wall, cafe, wine bar, art gallery, it sounded perfect. When we got there it was a little lack luster and there sandwich type menu wasn't what we had hoped for so we kept walking. There were plenty of people walking the streets and the police were everywhere. They were on horseback, bicycles, cars, walking, they were all over. Every restaurant had outside seating along the street and I wondered if they appreciated the police on horseback or not, considering that the horses would leave gifts wherever they pleased.

We decided on Sevillas, a familiar place where we found things that sounded good. We ordered Sangrittas (Sangria/Margarita combo) and sat outside so we could enjoy the city. It was interesting to be sitting amongst smokers, most restaurants have banned smoking but I guess outside in Long Beach its still OK. We had our fill and walked along the boardwalk and the pier. Marta was watching moving stars in the sky(she swears they were moving) as I watched the people walking and bands playing. It just proves that you don't have to go far to feel like a vacation! We tried to talk her hubby into coming down to see us but he couldn't so we just waved at all the other firemen that drove by.

My classes were good too, the first was taught by and IQA judge and she was teaching binding finishes. Can I say BORING but I got through it. She was a bit slow and methodical in her approach and she had a hard time explaining herself to the class. I wont do that one again. I loved, loved my second class. It was called Fabric Graffiti and we painted, stamped, drew and colored on both fabric and paper. It was a wonderful creative class, very relaxed and the time flew by. I could of stayed in that class another 3-4 hours easy. These are just backgrounds for either journaling or collaging or whatever. Some I am not done with yet, can't wait to come up with a way to use them.