Interview with Shelly Pagliai
Posted by Deirdre Quirk on May 5th 2017
We loved reading this interview with Shelly Pagliai, author of A Simple Life, and we're sure you will too! If you're looking for even more of this talented author, take a look at her upcoming trunk shows and workshops right here.
Where do you find your quilting or sewing inspiration?
Everywhere! I live on a farm out in the country, so there's lots of nature to inspire me, but I also get inspired when I travel anywhere—by architecture, art, people, fashion, anything and everything I see. I've been inspired by carpeting in a waiting room at the doctor's office, bathroom floors, and curtains; my family makes fun of me for taking pictures of walls, ceilings, and floors when I travel, rather than the people and scenery!
How do you stay up-to-date on new trends?
I go to a lot of quilt shows (and Quilt Market, the trade show), I read a lot of blogs of several different types, and I especially love seeing what the new color trends are from season to season.
What is something we might not know about you?
I can twirl a baton like nobody's business!
What are your go-to colors?
I love red, and I have a hard time NOT using it. I'm currently crushing on bright, clear colors, so it's easy for me to use those in my current projects. I love ALL color—the more, the better!
What projects are you working on right now?
I'm working on many, many projects all the time, but this year, I made a goal of finishing 25 scrap quilts, which are really fun for me, so I'm playing in my scraps a lot right now.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve made?
Probably my favorite quilt right now is the Fancy Farm Girl quilt from my book, A Simple Life: Quilts Inspired by the '50s. I really like every quilt in the book because they're all bright and happy and they were really fun to make, but Fancy Farm Girl has my heart at the moment. I'm sure at some point, it will be replaced by a new favorite.
How did you come up with the idea for your book?
My book was inspired by the little red five-year diary that my mother kept while she went through high school in the early 1950s. Her wish was that her children would someday read it and that they would have the same fun in school that she did. Knowing that my brothers would never take the time to read it, I turned it into a blog so that they could read it day by day online. I designed quilts inspired by her entries, and I host free quilt-alongs on the blog. Go check it out—there's a quilt-along running currently called Canning Season.
