Color Mastery » Quilting

Social Media Scavenger Hunt: Day Three

mpeagler — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:32:21 +0000

Welcome to Day Three of my Social Media Scavenger Hunt to celebrate Color Mastery being a Benjamin Franklin award finalist for Best Craft Book of the Year. If you missed Days One & Two, no worries: I’ll have links at the bottom of this post to direct you to the rules and the each day’s clue.

Look for the answer to clues in my social media channels here:

Quilts & Creativity blog (my personal blog)
Monthly newsletter (archives here; sign up to receive it here)
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

I’ll be awarding a prize pack that includes a Liberty fat quarter bundle (just in time for those July 4th projects), a Love Apple table runner kit, and a copy of my new ebook, The Frugal Fabriholic: Your 12-Step Plan to Saving More Cash for Your Quilting Stash.

Day Three Question: What was I doing in my studio today?

Find the answer, collect them for each day, and once you’ve got all five, email your answers to me at maria @ colormastery.com (minus the spaces). Good luck! Here are the links if you missed them for each day:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Social Media Scavenger Hunt: Day Two

mpeagler — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:13:01 +0000

Welcome to Day Two of my Social Media Scavenger Hunt to celebrate Color Mastery being a Benjamin Franklin award finalist for Best Craft Book of the Year. If you missed Day One, no worries: I’ll have links at the bottom of this post to direct you to the rules and the first day’s clue.

Look for the answer to each day’s clue in my social media channels here:

Quilts & Creativity blog (my personal blog)
Monthly newsletter (archives here; sign up to receive it here)
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

Day Two Question: Where do I share my famous Cheeseburger Meatloaf recipe?

Day One

Day Two

Color Journals – I Miss You!

mpeagler — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:36:50 +0000

It’s been strange over the past couple of weeks without my color journals. I lovingly packed them off to Quilter’s Newsletter for an excerpt of the book they’re planning for a spring issue. I was hesitant to send them, they are so much a part of me. But I wanted to share the color journal process and its potential with quilters so they could explore their own color styles.

To fill that void, I’ve started a new journal. Still a color journal, but more of a visual journal and business plan in one. I’ve been following the exercises in The Creative Entreprenuer by Lisa Sonora Beam and part of that is to create a mandala that ties together four pathways of business. I was at a local cafe with my journal and supplies and created this.

I doubted the whole visual journal process at first (does this sound familiar to quilters who doubt color journals?). I own plenty of beautiful books on journals, but they all seem to be recycling other people’s art and the makers spend more time creating the pages than getting meaning out of them. But I forged ahead anyway and was pleasantly surprised. This visual journal process works for creative business owners. I really don’t like filling out state tax forms, doing accounting, cash flow projections, and the like, but they are necessary parts of my business. And Lisa’s visual journal process helps creative business people visually map out their strengths, weaknesses, and plans. In a method that speaks to them.

So again, it’s journals to the rescue. For color. For business. For quilts. After all, it’s always about the quilts.

Posted via email from mariapeagler’s posterous

Color Mastery in the Quilt Shop

mpeagler — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:09:37 +0000

Watch as I give Facebook Fan Annette Franklin a color consultation for the Renaissance quilt. Annette won a one-on-one color consultation, and we went to Dragonfly Quilt Shop in Watkinsville, GA to coordinate her color palette. Annette was really excited because she was able to bust her color rut and go beyond her usual color scheme and try out new fabric styles as well. Over at my Quilts and Creativity blog I’ll be talking about some behind-the-scenes details from producing this video.

Amethyst & Mimosa: Fall’s Hottest Colors

mpeagler — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:17:52 +0000

Fall 2009’s hottest colors are Mimosa, a yellow-orange selected by Pantone to cheer up consumers in a down economy, and Amethyst, a violet that is showing up everywhere from textiles to apparel to cosmetics. Not only are these colors popular, they work great together in a color palette. Why? How do you use them? Watch this short video and learn how.

Other videos you might be interested in:

Master Color Using Only Six Fat Quarters

mpeagler — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:43:41 +0000

Maud shares her Renaissance quilt from the Color Mastery workshop I taught this summer in Dawsonville. My students use their color journals to discover the three elements of color and build unique palettes around their favorite color. Even if quilters start out with the same blue, they’ll develop completely individual color palettes. They truly discover their color personalities.

Last, I have students select one of their color palettes and build a fat quarter bundle from it: one fat quarter for each color. And I teach them how to use the Three Bears Rule of Color to know exactly how much of each color to use. They can use that bundle to make the Renaissance quilt shown here. Maud used a double-complementary color scheme of blue, orange, yellow, and violet, and what gorgeous results she got!

Maud was so inspired by her Renaissance quilt she decide to make a matching valance, and here she’s laying out the fabrics for it. Discovering a new technique sparks the creative juices and gets new ideas flowing, and mastering color gives quilters the courage to try all kinds of new things. Make time for an artist date for yourself and try these exercises. You’ll never look at bolts of fabric the same way!

Color Journal at Work

mpeagler — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:00:12 +0000

Debbie and I met at FoxTales Book Shoppe during my book tour, and she is a fantastic lady who was so ready to learn about color in quilting. Debbie read Color Mastery and applied the lessons, and look at her results. Wow. Debbie made this beautiful quilt for her niece Karen.

Debbie has never taken one of my workshops, so she was able to do all this from the book alone. She knew what quilt she wanted to make – a Yellow Brick Road, and she knew she wanted blue as the main color. She used her color journal to figure out what blues to use, and what other colors would give her the effect she wanted with those blues.

Fabrics are cut and ready to be put into a quilt. Debbie’s “artist date” in her color journal paid off big rewards. You can already see the effects of those colors working together. Blues and greens blend nicely, while the yellow and pink sparkle.

Here’s a close up of all those beautiful fabrics together, plus a few more. Debbie is thrilled with her results, and her niece Karen is one lucky girl! Imagine what you can do with your fabrics, a color journal, and Color Mastery!

Try out the Renaissance quilt, one of the nine quilt projects in the book – it takes only 6 fat quarters, shows you how to select your colors, how to decide how much of each color to use, teaches strip-piecing, and has no triangles. Super easy and totally rewarding! In only one day, you can be a color master and have a gorgeous quilt. Send me photos of the projects you make from Color Mastery and I’ll post them here on my blog!

A Real Book’s Lasting Value

mpeagler — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:23:55 +0000

I want my work to last. Longevity is one of the three main goals I have for my books. The other two? A post for another day.

I realized long ago that it took just as long to write a book that was trendy and out of print after two years as it did to write a classic. And as a quilter and artist, I appreciate books that provide me with lessons for years to come.

I often hear people complain about how expensive books are, which is why I go for those that provide me with lasting value. I enjoy patterns, booklets, and other fun diversions. But they don’t have the lasting value of a book.

Color Mastery has nine quilt projects. If you bought them individually in a pattern, each would average $15.00. Multiply that times nine and you get $135.00.

Color Mastery also has 11 exercises, and has twelve months worth of class material. I teach shop owners how they can offer a different class each month using the exercises and projects in the book. A full-day class averages about $60.00, and 12 of them would be $720.00.

$135.00 worth of patterns/projects, and $720.00 worth of classes is a total of $855.00. Still think a book is expensive? Look’s like the world’s best bargain to me.

The real test of a book-lover’s book is this: does it provide those things that make a reader’s life easier, that will make the book last, and makes it easy to find, or get more information? I printed Color Mastery on museum-quality paper using the best photographer and printer in the industry.

I included an index to make information easy to find. Look at the latest quilt book you bought: I bet it doesn’t have one. Publishers are skimping on this kind of stuff and betting you won’t notice. Bibliographies too. I want to know how to find out more information when I’m interested in a topic, and I know my readers do too. And librarians love them.

Does the book’s binding last? Is it sewn or glued? Color Mastery’s is sewn, of course. And it has a spine, so you can find it on a store shelf or your own.

Look for these qualities when you buy a book. Be a discerning consumer. Expect them in your books and ask for them. And support quilt book authors who give you the best.

Color Mastery Goes to Second Printing After Only Three Months

mpeagler — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:57:25 +0000

I’m excited and humbled to announce Color Mastery is already in a second printing. Color Mastery so rocked the quilting world we are going to another print run only three months after its February 2009 debut. That’s unheard of. Most authors never have a book reach a second printing, even after years on the bookstore shelves. This is my eighth book and the first one to make a second print run.

You can read more about it here. After that, get quilting! A suggestion? Make the Renaissance quilt from Color Mastery. Add a border and it makes a great summer throw. Or make it in a table runner size in your favorite light and airy summer fabrics.

Coming to a Quilt Shop Near You

mpeagler — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:09:18 +0000

Announcing the Color Mastery Georgia Book Tour! I’ll be visiting ten locations across the state April 21 – May 5, so save those dates. Come out and see me at your local quilt shop, guild, or bookstore. Here are the dates and locations:
April 21: Apple Country Quilt Guild, Ellijay
April 23: East Cobb Quilt Guild Evening Group, Marietta
April 24: East Cobb Quilt Guild, Marietta
April 25: Foxtale Book Shoppe, Woodstock
April 29: Magical Threads, Dahlonega
April 30: Sew Bee It, Ringgold
May 1: Log Cabin Patchworks, Hiawassee
May 2:     Sew Much Fun, Columbus
May 4:     Stepping Stones, St. Simons Island
May 5:     Colonial Quilts, Savannah

Gather your best quilting girlfriends and make it a party! I’ll be chatting about how you can master the color in your quilts and where to spot the best color trends, and signing books for you and your friends. Shop owners would absolutely adore you for calling ahead and reserving your own copy of Color Mastery, so they will have enough on hand. And who knows what else we’ll be doing?

I’ll be blogging each day, so you can visit the town and shops as I do. Here’s my itinerary on Google Maps, so you can plan your visit to your local shop (complete with addresses for each stop). And if you would like to keep up with the latest updates as they become available, subscribe to the RSS feed for the tour.

I’ll see you in your hometown!