Quilt Designer News

Karen Gass, Cotton Spice
www.CottonSpice.com

Q:  Is there a special time of the day, day of the week or emotion that you find yourself in when you sit down to design a quilt block or quilt? Can you tell us about it?
 
A:  Morning has always been the best time for me. I think it has to do with the fact that I have a fully rested brain, and I’ve always been a morning person. So, I wake up ready to go. Not quite as ready to go as I was 20 years ago, but it’s still my best time of day for anything creative.
 
I have found the I go through periods that are hyper-creative. I have tons of ideas for several days. I either have to do them, or write them down. Then, I go through periods where I couldn’t think of an idea to save my life. There are normal days in-between, with the odd idea or two, but I love to take advantage of the hyper-creative days to come up with some really new things. During the days with no idea, is when I get a lot of the work done, the work that was started during hyper-creative days! It seems to work out just fine.
 
I create best when I’m happy. And I’m happy just about all the time.

Karen Gass, Cotton Spice
www.CottonSpice.com

Q:  What is your quilting style and what type of quilter (i.e quilt level) enjoys your patterns the most?

A:  I’ve gone through a lot of quilting styles it seems. From beginner-to-advanced. As time goes on, our tastes change; didn’t Gerry Kimmel-Carr say “Every Seven Years?”  (I have a wonderful autographed copy of that book from her) :-)

And I can say that’s very true. Most of my designing in the past few years has been for Cotton Spice.  And as such, there was a need to keep the quilt design interesting, yet simple enough to make that it wouldn’t take a book to provide the pattern.

Lately I’ve been very attracted to architecture and tile patterns from the Middle East and the Mediterranean. There are also some very beautiful Spanish tiles and some from the Victorian eras that just catch my eye and hold it. I’m eager to explore this kind of quilt, and now that I’m not publishing four Cotton Spice magazines a year, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!

I didn’t leave the ezine world completely though – no, I started another one!  This one is completely different – Ruby, a magazine for women of all ages. We just today put out our second issue, and is it awesome! I have a staff of 15 editors that are doing some incredible work. You can see what we’re doing here http://magazineruby.wordpress.com.

Karen Gass, Cotton Spice
www.CottonSpice.com

Q:  If you could pick any ONE quilt block (old or new) that you’ve either made or designed that exemplifies how you feel toward quilting, what block would that be – please name it and show us a picture (drawing or photograph) of it.

A:  This Woven Star block is one I designed a few years ago.  I’m a sucker for a ‘difficult’ quilt block and intricate piecing. I’m not sure that I’d want to make a bed size quilt out of this block, but I did make a table runner for Thanksgiving (which I don’t have a picture of, sorry)!

This red quilt top, is one I designed as a Mother’s Day quilt many years ago. I had recently painted my kitchen a gorgeous red and my son (perfect son that he is) brought me some yellow flowers for Mother’s Day. They sat in a vase on the kitchen table and I caught a glimpse of them against the red wall and it shouted, “Quilt me!” So, of course I did. I drew it out on freezer paper. I wanted all the shapes to be different, and I wanted the black stripes to be woven. At one time, there were yellow flowers on the top – but they weren’t right, so I took them out (they were pieced in as well) and started on the border. This quilt is still unfinished, but I love the challenge of it and someday it will be finished.

Karen Gass, Cotton Spice
www.CottonSpice.com

Q:  If you were to describe your quilt designing style by comparing it to food, what “recipe” would you say your quilt designing is made up of?

A:  Italian food! Fresh ingredients, colorful and simply delicious!

Karen Gass, Cotton Spice
www.CottonSpice.com

Q:  Please tell us a little about yourself … your name, your website, some of the names of your recent quilt designs.

A:  I’m Karen Gass, recent publisher of Cotton Spice Quilting Magazine. We published 4 issues a year for 4 years and had a good run. While the magazine has ‘closed up shop’ so to speak, the website is up and will stay up! http://www.cottonspice.com Every back issue of Cotton Spice is available for download. We also have a BOM Challenge currently going on, which you can find here http://cottonspice.com/BOMblog/ and from that page you can also access the previous BOM Challenges – there are some great blocks to be found there – for free! And right now we are working on the Quilt Shop, expanding it to carry downloadable patterns for everything! Not only quilts, but knitting/crocheting patterns, cross stitch and embroidery. A One-Stop Pattern Shop! Stay tuned and if you’d like an awesome place to sell your patterns – email me!

Lately the majority of my quilt designs have been for the Quilt Dash, the Quilt Block Dash and the Mystery Quilt Dash. Tammy (owner of www.QuiltDesignerNews.com and my business partner on a few projects) and I trade off months. One of my favorites was Serene In Pink which can be seen (and purchased) here http://cottonspice.com/proddetail.php?prod=QBD-Apr09.