MEET BLOSSOM HEART QUILTS

There’s moments in life where everything just comes together to put someone in your life at just the right time and for just the right reason and Alyce (of Blossom Heart Quilts) was one of those people for me.  A lot of the time I don’t remember how someone came into my would but when it comes to Alyce I know exactly how they came into my world; Gemma (of Pretty Bobbins).  Gemma kept talking about this amazing Alyce and how she was doing so much great stuff and how inspiring she was and I just had to go find out for myself. I wasn’t disappointed.

At the time Alyce was doing her Bright Sky Quilt-a-Long and for the very first time ever I participated in a Quilt-a-Long. (You can check out my version, Bright Sky Rose Garden, by clicking here.) It was, as they say in the movies, the start of something beautiful.

I’ve loved getting to know Alyce more and to bask in the glow of her success and share in her wonderful wisdom and friendship. Alyce‘s blog is a wonderful repository of tutorials, knowledge and sharing the good stuff. If you’ve not met Alyce yet, you can thank me later for sharing this little piece of wonderful with you…

What’s your creative story so far?

For years, I dabbled in an large range of hobbies – scrapbooking, beading, card making, the list goes on! Once I had kids, this drastically slowed down until early 2011 when a friend in my local mums’ group was showing off a quilt she had made with her mother for her daughter. From vague memory, it was a patchwork quilt with appliqued owls on it?

Anyway, what I do clearly remember was being inspired to “one day” make a quilt for my kids. You know, one day when I have time, maybe for their fifth birthdays (at the time, they were 1.5 years old and only a couple of months old). But being the kind of obsessive personality that I am, that long-term timeframe didn’t stop me from starting to Google, find and read quilting blogs, and even buy a couple of books.

While in Spotlight one day, my husband spotted an Elna 1000 (aka their most basic machine) on sale for about $100 and asked if I wanted to buy it. What?! So I did. Four years later, that little Elna and I have moved countries, sewn many quilts, cushions, wall hangings, and a handful of clothes, joined in many swaps, and designed and sold patterns. Now that quilting is also my job, I have also added cross stitch and embroidery to my stitchy basket of creative pursuits as something fun and creative to do when I’ve crashed on the couch at night!

What is it that you love about being creative?

There is of course the very-true cliché that it keeps me sane, but in truth, I have always been very creative. I was always creating as a child, whether it was making a butterfly out of coloured wooden blocks as a 3 year old or making a cash register out of cardboard boxes when I was 8. Creativity is a huge part of who I am as a person, as evidenced by my long resume of creative pursuits! So I guess what I love about being creative is the joy that it brings. Whether it’s choosing fabrics for a new project, or seeing it all come together when the top is finished, or experimenting with free motion quilting, I find joy in just about every stage of quilting! Except making binding. I get my husband to press my binding if I can!

What fuels your creative passion?

A very deep need to play and experiment and create! There’s no other way I can really describe the restless urge that comes at times to do something creative!

What gives you the most joy from being creative?

Most definitely playing with colour and shapes. I love the designing stages the most, both the actual quilt designing step of working with shapes and lines and the colour step of choosing fabrics and prints for each shape. It is very normal for me to spend hours working out exactly which shade of colour I want to use, or which print works best for the overall big picture!

What are you most proud of from your creative journey?

There are so many little milestones along the way that I’m still so proud of today! I supposed the most recent and relevant one was going to QuiltCon. Which may be an odd thing to choose to be proud of in regards to my creative journey, but it’s the little things like having been able to pay for a large amount of my trip myself from my patterns, blog and fabric club; or, valuing and believing in myself as a quilter enough to make such a big trip.

What’s the one piece of advice about being creative that you wish all people knew?

What I wish I could tell myself two years ago – create for the sake of creating! For me, that’s designing quilts just for the sake of designing even if there’s no actual quilt going to be made from it.

We all love finding new creative people to get inspired by, who are some of your favourites at the moment?

Rachel from Stitched In Color has always been a huge inspiration to me – her use of colour has me in awe, and her way with words in her blog posts are always a joy to read.

Another Rachel, this time from Wooden Spoon Quilts, is one of the amazing ladies that I have long-followed and admired, and had the pleasure of meeting at QuiltCon. She has such a way with colour that makes me gasp aloud frequently when I see her work pop up on Instagram.

Staying in New Zealand, and Adrianne from On The Windy Side has a unique way with colour and I love the way she challenges herself with each new project. Her #year30quilt project is one such example, and I think I may steal, er, be inspired to do something similar when I turn 30!

What creative challenges would you like to conquer in the next 12 months?

I want to explore free motion quilting more – keep practising, keep trying new things, challenge myself to do more. I also want to use the skills I learned at QuiltCon in my projects – embroidery on some small projects and applique on larger projects.

What are your 3 favourite creative projects that you’ve done that reflect who you are as a creator?

I feel that The Bee Hive series is everything I am as a quilter/blogger in one – designing, teaching, online community. Seeing people making the blocks, growing as quilters, and the Swarm blocks coming together into quilt tops gives me such joy!

My second Bright Sky quilt was not only a project that involved carefully choosing shades of blue and the right print to make the effect I was after, but it was also the most amount of quilting that I have done on a project. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed the process and absolutely loved the final result! I have my Swarm quilt to now enjoy some FMQ play time, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

I was going to choose my Swarm quilt as my third creative project, but the next question inspired me to share something else (having already covered “online creating” and quilting) – Project Life. I’m currently working on a mini album documenting my QuiltCon trip at the moment, grabbing the chance between fabric deadlines! So it’s still quilting related, it’s just with paper instead.

If you weren’t doing what you do now, what other creative endeavour would you like to master?

If I wasn’t playing with fabric full-time, I’d definitely be playing with paper full-time. I do Project Life to document our time here in Japan, and while I don’t do it as often as I’d like, I do love playing with paper and washi tape and stickers when I can.

A Bit of Fun:

If you could only have one or the other for the rest of eternity what would you choose?

You can just choose a word, or choose to elaborate on your choice, it’s just a little bit of fun.

1. Fabric: Solid or Pattern? Pattern – blenders please.

2. Quilt Styles: Pattern or Improv? Pattern – mine!

3. Seams: Open or to the Side? Side, unless there’s ton of seams in a block and then I try to do open.

4. Stitching: Hand or Machine? The only things I hand stitch are cross stitch or embroidery. Machine all the way, baby!

5. Binding: Hand or Machine? Machine for minis, hand for big quilts.

6. Food: Sweet or Savoury? Both – chocolate with salted caramel and nuts.

7. Entertainment: Books or Music? Music during the day, books at night.

8. Entertainment: Television or Movies? TV, because 90% of the time, my husband falls asleep if we put a movie on, so I just don’t bother anymore!

9. Computer: Mac or Windows? Windows.

10. Drink: Coke or Pepsi? Coke Zero.

You can find more of Alyce in the following places:  Blog | Store | Facebook | Pinterest | Bloglovin | Instagram | Flickr