Bidding Farewell to Quilt University . . .

After much deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from Quilt University . . .

I had been teaching there since before my appearance on "Simply Quilts" (I was not allowed to mention Quilt University on air). I held the double distinction of being the first male instructor, as well as the first African-American instructor.

My class was called Symmetry Play (a precursor to Beyond Symmetry). The first time the class was offered, eighty-one students enrolled!! Carol Miller, the dean, closed enrollment and offered the class again the following month (a rare occurrence). I've taught students from around the world.


Several years ago, around the time I started working on my book, Beyond Symmetry, I discussed updating my class. Carol said "fine," but the more I worked on the book, the less interested I became in the class. My heart just wasn't in it. Last December, I submitted a class based on my book; Carol was less than thrilled. I told her I'd work on the changes she suggested.

Now, four months later, those changes STILL need to be made (talk about procrastinating!!). I bit the bullet, and wrote Carol to tell her where I stood and ask if she'd remove me from the faculty roster. I told her that teaching is a learning experience, and I thanked her for the opportunity to do both.

Carol accepted my resignation graciously, and said if I ever came up with a new class, she'd be glad to look it over . . .at least, I haven't burned my bridge behind me.


As always, thank you for reading my blog. Please feel free to leave a comment, and follow this blog!!

Tessellation Nation changes for the third (and final) time . . .

A couple of weeks ago I launched a new blog, Tessellation Nation. The format displayed line drawings of the 4-tile blocks and 9-block patterns. I worked hard to have plenty of posts (about 125) for people to pore over.

A week later, I changed the format to display a line drawing of the 4-tile block and a colored 9-block pattern in black, white, and shades of gray. I deleted all of the previous posts, through a stupid mistake. I have no one to blame but myself.

Well, a couple of days ago, I made a discovery: a 4-block pattern and a 9-block pattern are not necessarily colored the same way!! ARRGH!!

Yesterday, I tried something new. Now, each post displays a line drawing of the 4-tile block and 4-block pattern, followed by a step-by-step coloring of the pattern. Then, there's a line drawing of the 9-block pattern, and a colored pattern (if different from the 4-block pattern).

I'm certain this is the LAST time I'll change the format!! And, I won't delete the prior posts until I've replaced them with new ones, LOL!!


Thank you for reading my blog(s) . . . please feel free to leave a comment, and follow these blogs!!

Shaking the Winter Blues . . .

Last week I mentioned I had a lot of leftover fabric from my Winter Blues quilt . . . well, I've come up with a way to get rid of it. Granted, I'm limited to the same pattern as before, since all the blue fabric has already been cut in only three shapes. What I need is a different background (instead of the black I used before).

I decided to use warm colors for the stars, squares, and border: yellow for the squares; orange for the stars; and, dark red for the border.


What do you think of it?? This is just my preliminary drawing of the final quilt (the actual colors may vary, depending on what catches my eye at the fabric store). I may even "mix it up" a bit with several shades of the different colors (three different yellows, oranges, and reds).


As usual, thank you for reading my blog. Please feel free to leave a comment, and follow this blog!!

"Ring around the Rosie . . ."

You may have noticed (or not) the new button(s) in the upper right corner of this page . . . I've been invited to join a quilt designer's blog ring!!

Some of the names I recognize, and others I'll get to know . . .

So, if it's working, take a spin around the ring (and tell 'em, "Raymond sent ya," wink, wink).


I've also added a button with a link to my other blog, Tessellation Nation. If you visited it before, you'll notice a slight change . . . like, 121 blog entries are missing!! The other day, I was surfing the 'net, looking for other tessellation blogs/websites because I intend to start a Links page. What I found inspired me to trash everything and start over (and, I won't be doing THAT again, LOL)!! So far, I've received favorable comments about the change. I'm liking the look, myself.


Thank you for reading my blog(s) . . . please feel free to leave a comment and FOLLOW THESE BLOGS!!

So if it's Springtime already, why do I still have these Winter Blues??

Yeah, it's time to shake the winter blues . . . not that state of mind that comes from being cooped up inside during the cold months, but a pile of fabric.

Earlier this year, I made a quilt I dubbed "Winter Blues" made from blue fabric from a fabric swap with the QuiltGuy Yahoo! group.



Well, I still have stacks of light and dark blue fabric left over!! I do not own a stash, and these piles of fabric are too "stashlike" for my tastes . . . They've got to go!!

What I have in mind is buying some fabric in warm colors (yellow, orange, and red) to balance all these blues. I'll put together a drawing to see how I like it . . . and, I'll share it with you (to see how YOU like it).

More to come . . .


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A New Blog (no foolin')!!

I was gonna save this news until tomorrow until I realized it's the first of April . . . I didn't want you to think I was pulling an April Fool's joke.

I've launched a new blog (I may have hinted at this before) . . .

The blog is Tessellation Nation (it's got a catchy ring to it, don't you think??). It's primarily a catalog of the blocks and patterns possible using my design tile. I intend to post to it often, but, even so, it'll take 5-6 months to get through all of the patterns. The blog entries are drawings, nothing but drawings . . . all the real meat is in the pages in the sidebar.

I invite you to take a look, leave a comment (or two), and subscribe (via reader or email) . . .

Don't fret . . . I'm not abandoning THIS blog. I just thought the patterns deserved a blog of their own. Besides, I'm still quilting!! Just wait till you see the next project . . .

My 100th post!!

Yes, I've been quiet . . . several people have written to ask "what's up"??

The truth is, I've been busy. Too busy to write, you wonder?? Well, in a word, "yes."

Several weeks ago, I got an email from Joe Cunningham. He's the quilter in San Francisco who interviewed me last year for the book he was writing about male quilters. Anyway, he sent me a pic of the book cover. This book will be out in the fall, and I'm in it!!


Joe had a favor to ask of me: would I be willing to write a pattern for one of my quilts shown in the book?? Though I'd never written a pattern before, I said, "yes." The process was quite fun, actually. I configured Electric Quilt to print the templates to a file; then, I imported that file into CorelDraw, where I made the cutting lines thicker, the seam lines dashed, and positioned the templates next to each other to facilitate cutting them apart. The instructions were originally 12 typed pages long!! I managed to edit them down to three (which is what the editor wanted). I could see doing this again . . . in fact, I DID do it again with the templates for my design tile, which leads me to my next activity.

Last week, I gave a lecture and workshop for the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild in Santa Rosa, CA. I prepared about 35 sandpaper-backed templates for my design tile, and 500 muslin foundations!! I shipped slides, templates, foundations, and quilts to Santa Rosa overnight, rather than stuff 'em all in my suitcase. The lecture was well-received, with about 200 quilters in attendance, and there were about 14 quilters in the workshop the following morning. And, of course there were requests for patterns!! I'm gonna have to work on those . . .

Now, I'm home and getting ready for a lecture at a local guild next month. I want to have plenty of templates and foundation muslins on hand, LOL!!

I'm toying with the idea of starting a new blog . . . don't freak out!! I'm not abandoning THIS one (and leave you behind), but I want to focus on a single topic. I'm all over the place on this one, LOL!! I will certainly keep you posted on developments . . .

Thank you for reading my blog . . . please feel free to leave a comment and follow this blog!!