IHAN's 30 Days of Giveaways
Anniversary Celebration
Day 21
by Toni Whitney
Toni lives in Montana, one of my very favorite states. She has told me that bears come walking up to her house and through her yard. Can you imagine coming home late from a Guild meeting carrying some extra peanut butter cookies and having a chance meeting with a bear on your way into the house? I'm keeping my cookies in a smell proof zip lock bag!!!
Toni designed the Backdoor Bear pattern to be mounted on canvas or used as a wall hanging. She has been teaching classes recently and all of her students left the class ready to quilt their projects. Wow, that is my kind of class. I love to make that kind of progress when taking classes!!!
Here are some of Toni's other patterns:
If you are interested in taking one of Toni's classes you can find Toni on Facebook , on her blog tor by e-mail at toniwhitney@rocketmail.com I would personally recommend taking a class with Toni . She is a wonderful artist and has a true appreciation for the animals she has choosen for her paintings and patterns. Her patterns really capture more than just the shape of the animals....they seem to capture the spirit of the animals as well. I have the Savanna pattern and fabric kit. Finishing Savanna is one of my goals for the comming year. Pray for me....lol...I have way too many UFO's.
Three very lucky IHAN blog winners will each win one of the Backdoor Bear patterns. Thank you Toni for being so generous and joining IHAN in celebrating our First Anniversary!!!
If you would like an opportunity to win one of the three Backdoor Bear Patterns you need to leave a comment on this post telling us what inspires you to create.
Smiles,
Kelly
Wow! Am I making the first comment? I'm inspired to create by looking at what other quilters have made and at nature. Then, to make it real I have to think about it a while. Like to have a plan and alternatives in the back of my mind before cut into the fabric.
ReplyDeleteI love these Backdoor Bear patterns, especially the zebra and giraffes.
Thank you for this giveaway. It is fun.
P.S. We have black bears visit in rural Florida too.
What a wonderful give-away! Thank you to Toni for this generous offer. I love all her patterns.
ReplyDelete~a
Most of the time I create because I get this urge, and I become restless until I make something, even if its only making a dessert for after dinner. Though most days it means I spend sometime sewing.Creating somehow makes thing right in the world, eve if only for a little while.
ReplyDeleteI really love this but expect it would be difficult to make without taking one of her classes, so I will pass on it. It is very kind of her to offer 3 patterns, though!
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought I was going to enter only a couple of times! How silly of me!! What beautiful patterns - I've always been so amazed at how art quilts come together - it really just blows me away! Toni is very talented - not only to create these beautiful pictures - but also to teach us how to make them on our own! Pretty cool :)
ReplyDeletePS - Hope the Orlando trip is going well! I'm sure your IHAN team is enjoying their hiatus!
I'm sorry - I forgot to tell you what inspires me. Beautiful new fabric makes me want to make more and more - I especially love the new bright fabrics - I've always been a traditional kind of fabric lover - but new designs are just so beautiful lately. I just saw Jessica Levitt over on True Up - what beautiful fabric!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kelly for yet another chance to win :)
Colors, emotions, life makes me want to create. Blogs, books, magazines, quilt shows - there are so many talented creators. Inspiration comes from all nature - sky, storms, ocean, flowers, birds, butterflies, -- love and happiness.
ReplyDeleteKelly,
ReplyDeleteWhat inspires me to create? Life! Sometimes its a beautiful sunset, or the stars shining in the heavens. It can be a feeling that needs to be expressed on paper or in fabric. I also am inspired to create as a legacy for my children and friends. A way to leave a note of love to future generations and tell them I was thinking about them.
I love Toni's patterns! Fabric, patterns, magazines, books, quilt shows all inspire me. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe various fabrics inspire me to create new quilts all the time. I love Toni's patterns, especially the giraffes.
ReplyDeleteI get inspired by so many things, mostly nature though! The world is so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI have seen Toni's patterns and am amazed at how realistic they look.
ReplyDeleteWhat inspires me??? It would have to be fabrics and threads. My mind goes wild with ideas when I eye a piece of material candy.
I'm really hoping to take a workshop with Toni someday. She is so talented. I love all her designs, but particularly interested in Zirafah (giraffes).
ReplyDeleteSewCalGal
www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com
love the bear pattern!
ReplyDeleteI love the safari patterns, I could see the Zirafah pattern in my grandsons room.
ReplyDeletewhat inspires me is my grand kids, I am always on the lookout for new things to make for them, they are only young for a little while. Of course I still make things for family and friends and my charities. Right now with spring being in full bloom around here I am leaning towards flowers and pastel colors in my quilts.
What a great question -- what inspires me to create? Usually it's the fabrics that call to me but sometimes it's nature, flowers or trees or great scenery...
ReplyDeleteI would love to win one of the patterns from Toni. They are all so neat looking.
ReplyDeleteRosemary
cntryways@att.net
I'd love to win a backdoor bear pattern! I'd also love to take one of Toni's classes, but I'm a little short of money just now... maybe sometime soon when things shape up a little bit.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was artistic enough to create my own patterns like this. I would make a quilt depicting my dog. He deserves to be memorialized in art.
One of the things that inspires me to create is getting to blog about it later. I like the idea that I can share the things I've made with an audience who will appreciate them. Sometimes people who don't quilt (or knit, or crochet, or whatever) don't appreciate the amount of time that went into my craft and sort of take it for granted. I love being able to share my completed creations with people who "get it".
I love Backdoor patterns as they are so awesome! I especially love the lion, he is so majestic. What enspires me, almost anything, my mom being an artist taught us to appreciate and let those things around us inspire us to create so, we did. To this day I just look around me and let those things inspire my creative muse. Whether its nature, manmade or just an idea that can grow from my imagination. If you stop, look and listen you can always find inspiration. Also closing your natural eyes and relying on your innner eye to see can bring loads of inpsiration to you.
ReplyDeleteI love Toni's patterns. I just recently purchased the pattern and a kit for Serengeti! I work in a high school library and the Lion is our mascot. I plan to complete it and 'hang' it in our library.
ReplyDeleteI am inspired by others. I see them being so creative and I want to be creative, too.
I have seen the Savanna quilt in person and it is stunning! I would love to learn Toni's methods.
ReplyDeleteI am truly inspired by the beautiful earth created for us. I love finding new color combinations inspired by nature
Most of my inspiration comes from seeing other creations and then I think of what I could do to add my specific touch to the project. Or How I might improve on something I have seen. Or think about changing colors.
ReplyDeleteOh, my! They look like photographs! The colors of nature are the best place to look for inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI am inspired to create when life gets hectice and I need to calm down. But I am using the term "create" to mean make something, not necessarily meaing that I am artistically inclined! Ha! Toni's work is beautiful. Thanks to Toni for sharing her patterns.
ReplyDeleteI love these patterns. The bear is awesome, as well as the other animals. I am inspired by just about any stimulus...new fabrics, new patterns, a colorful shirt...lol..it doesn't take much to get me going.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful patterns! I guess nature and science inspires me, the urge to create something after a rather fruitless day at work. Just looking at other blogs, fabric, books, magazines just makes my fingers tickle. And in the end you have something in your hands that you created: it may not be perfect and maybe you followed somebody elses pattern, but it still was made by YOU and that makes it unique! Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteI have always admired Toni's patterns. How wonderful it would be to win one. thankyou.
ReplyDeleteI think so much inspires creativity....just now the blooming trees, shrubs, flowers make we want to paint.......but ultimately, I think real creativity comes from just doing it. Make a quilt. Make a painting. Then do another--with a twist and just keep on keepin' on.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I love Backdoor Bear! Seeing that photo makes me itch to create! Animals and flowers are probably my favorite inspiration and sometimes fonts :-) I know, weird combination! I really love this bear though. Thanks for the chance to win!
ReplyDeleteBeing a stay at home mom of four little boys, I am surounded by unyeilding piles of laundry, stacks of dirty dishes, an assembly-line of runny noses, the constant drumming of little feet and the never-ending whine "I'm hungry..."
ReplyDeleteI create because it keeps me sane.
kbsteuber at yahoo dot com
Quilting magazines, quilt shows, my local guild, fabric shopping, photos,
ReplyDeleteblogging. wonderful giveaway and such beautiful patterns, thanks Toni.
toni's patterns are really fab!!
ReplyDeletelike her i'm inspired most by the natural world
gill
Oh man I do not want to run into a bear! We do have them here in upstate NY but I have never had the pleasure!
ReplyDeleteI love nature for inspiration but honestly I do get most of my ideas from others.....there are so many creative quilts and sewers.
thanks for a chance to win a fantastic Toni Whitney pattern.
Happy sewing
beautiful animal WHs this is something i am interested in trying someday.. love animals and the pictures and quilts made using them..
ReplyDeleteThese patterns are GRRRReat! I love to create projects that are different and challenging:) What a cool pattern the Backdoor Bear would be awesome at my house! Jenna Louise
ReplyDeleteI love Toni's patterns! I am inspired by others.
ReplyDeleteI have heart problems, diabetes, and a fused neck with nerve problems that cause a lot of pain. Without my quilts needlework, and crafting I would not be able to stay sane or to be able to forget about my pain for even a few minutes at a time.
ReplyDeleteThere are many, many talented quilters who blog that are a great inspiration for me. I also love to look for patterns and designs outside in nature and architecture.
ReplyDeleteToday I found your webpage on FB! Wow, you have some great items available for quilters & crafters. I have bookmarked your site for revisiting.
ReplyDeleteSome inner urge drives me to create - I can't really explain it. There is a sense of accomplishment as you see something coming into being. I get inspiration everywhere! I love the black bear pattern - reminds me of Whistler where I know many people who have had 'backdoor' encounters with black bears. Thanks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeleteJust seeing the Backdoor Bear pattern of the black bear inspires me to create. I once hunted black bear and this would be fun to make!
ReplyDeleteThese patterns are gorgeous - I'd love to have anyone of them.
ReplyDeleteI'm inspired to create by so many things, my kids, seeing beautiful things, wanting a challenge. I have a feeling that this pattern would challenge me.
ReplyDeleteLots of things inspire me - nature, other quilters and their quilts, photos, music...I could go on and on as it changes as the days change.
ReplyDeleteSeeing other people's work always inspires me to do some creating of my own. I just love working with my hands to make things!
ReplyDeletemybusyhands@gmail.com
Just about everything inspires me. I live on a farm so a lot comes from just stepping outside. I also find tons of inspiration just poking around blogland reading people's blogs. I love these patterns and would love to try one.
ReplyDeletePeace and quiet and color! I love my empty nest now...after 30 years of raising kids I sooo need it! I just always am thinking of that next project! When I see colors that excite me, I want to create.
ReplyDeletetruly amazing patterns.. I would love to win one..
ReplyDeleteCath's Blog
Cath Ü
I love those patterns! Thanks so much for introducing us to Toni! I get inspired by beautiful fabrics and things around me. I like to see, touch and handle before I get inspired and then bring sea and nature together with cloth and scissors.
ReplyDeleteI am inspired to create by my personal nature I think. Nothing I do in my day (vacuuming, cooking, child rearing) is done without a creative thought. I think it's what helps me get through the daily grind of life - I'm not complaining, just saying.
ReplyDeleteFabrics, textures, nature, all are inspirational to me. I also enjoy brainstorming with others...the "one idea begets another" concept
ReplyDeleteI am inspired to create when I see such beautiful quilts and projects posted on the internet. It amazes me what a pattern,some fabric and a little bit of time can actually make!
ReplyDeleteI would love to win the patterns and will be looking into taking one of the courses.
ReplyDeleteMicki
I create because I get in trouble when I see the new beautiful fabrics and shades and patterns, I need to hurry to make it
ReplyDeleteToni's designs are beautiful! They remind me of some "artwork" I did growing up back in Ohio. You know, the kind where you take a pack of colored construction paper, cut it up and paste?
ReplyDeleteMy view back then was from the house on "the hill" (an old river bank) in the flat farm country of Northwest Ohio. And, if you've been to the ski hill next to I-75 in Wood County, you probably "borrowed" a lunch tray from the cafeteria at BGSU to ski down it, too.
Anyway, back to my "artwork". Even though I had never seen buffalo or the mountains, that was a recurring theme. Turns out I was experimenting with snippets, texture, color gradation and perspective even before I had heard of some of those words!
Still not sure what inspired me to create those, but maybe that partly explains being drawn to live out West...
A westword kind of Day 22, and a wave to my North!
What inspires me to create? I guess the internet. I find patterns I like, and plan on making them, but with my own color combinations. Sometimes, it's a the fabrics themselves, combining different colors/prints.
ReplyDeleteLooking through a fabric catalog or walking through a fabric store is very inspiring. It also causes me to want to buy everything.
ReplyDeleteWendy