“Magical Mistletoe” pattern now available as a download

A few months ago, Tami Pfeil, the owner of Handbehg Felts, contacted me to ask if my Magical Mistletoe project (shown above) was available as a pattern. I told her that Magical Mistletoe was a project I created for the 2010 Quilting Arts Gifts, and that they now owned the pattern. When Tami e-mailed Helen at Quilting Arts, and told her about the demand for the pattern, Interweave decided to set it up for them as a downloadable pattern. You can now get it for $4 on Interweave’s website. Just in time for Christmas!

And if you do, you’re going to need some cute little felted wool balls from Handbehg’s Etsy shop! (Shipping is free right now, for a limited time.) Better get busy so you can smootch with your sweetie under the mistletoe next month!

I’m in Sue Bleiweiss’ book about The Sketchbook Challenge

In January, I decided to participate in The Sketchbook Challenge. The project was developed by Sue Bleiweiss, and a team of fabulous artists, including fiber artists, art quilters, and mixed media artists. The idea was to inspire artists to work in their sketchbooks, and to share their work with others through an online photo site. It took off in a big way, and major retailers of art supplies kicked in some amazing prizes for those who participated. 

Each month, the group announced a new theme, and provided tutorials or insights to inspire readers. In the middle of the year, Sue wrote to ask if I’d like to have my work featured in a book she was working on that detailed the Challenge, and showed examples of how artists worked on themes to create sketches that they then made into artwork. I was really honored, and of course, I said, “Yes!”

The book will be out this summer, but you can already pre-order it on Amazon.com. 

Next year, I’ll be one of the artist hosts for The Sketchbook Challenge. I encourage you to join us!

Quilt Market, Part 5

Several days into the 2011 Fall Quilt Market, I realized that I had so much stuff that I couldn’t post it all … at least if I wanted to get enough sleep ;-) So I’m going to keep posting it here in chunks. And I’ll have some give-aways as soon as my giant boxes of stuff that I shipped home arrive.

Kaleidoscope Kreator is software you can use to make fabulous kaleidoscope designs. The samples in this booth always pull me in for a closer look at the intricate patterns created by fracturing and stitching.

This booth offered beautiful hand-crafted items from Africa. Akonye Kena helps artisans in Africa find venues to sell their goods and earn sustainable incomes. The name of the company means “I will help myself” in Acholi, a tribal language of northern Uganda. It was founded in 2009 by Richard Kennair, who has lived and volunteered in Africa for many years.

There were colorful fabric beads made from local fabrics:

And lots of luscious hand-dyed silk scarves:

Lynn Koolish showed me some of the new products available from C&T Publishing. Joen Wolfrom’s Magic Design-Ratio Tool helps quilters understand and use ratios to make their compositions stronger. It retails for $9.95.

The third edition of Joen’s Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool is out. It features larger color swatches and expanded guidelines for use than earlier versions, and retails for $16.95. 

The Any Way You Slice It Eco Tote bag benefits the NAMTA Foundation, a non-profit that supports art education and encourages participation in fine arts by providing scholarships and grants. Six artists from C&T created this art quilt in slices; it is based on Van Gogh’s painting Bedroom in Arles. It is made from 100% recycled polypropylene from plastic water bottles, and retails for $8.95. 

Joan Wolfrom’s Studio Color Wheel is a 28" square double-sided poster that helps you find the right combination of colors for a quilt – or any art project. It retails for $9.95. 

 

C&T’s PatternSpot.com is a website with thousands of patterns for quilters, sewers and crafters. It has grown tremendously in the past year.

Jenean Morrison designs fabric for Free Spirit; her new line is called Power Pop. Jenean’s booth won the Creativity Award at Quilt Market. It featured hundreds – maybe thousands! – of three-dimensional flowers made from her fabrics that were affixed to canvas on stretched frames.

The lampshade and vase in her booth also featured the flowers, and she had also made a cool floorcloth and pillows with her fabrics.

 

Embellishment Village is always on my must-see list at Market and Festival. They have wonderful stencils, paints, books, fibers, foils, glitters, you name it – a myriad of supplies for the art quilter or mixed media artist. Didn’t make it to Market? They have a great online shop.

Gina Reddin of Splinters & Threads has a new tool called Wavy Squares (by EZ Quilting) that lets you cut these cool shapes, which can showcase embroidery designs, create a frame, or stand on their own. The nested template can be used to cut fabrics, paper, metal – anything you can cut with a rotary cutter or scissors. They retail for $29.99, and are available to wholesalers at Brewer and Checkers.

Fran Ortmeyer, communications director for Clover Needlecraft, Inc., was demonstrating a new way to use the Clover Yo-Yo tool to make really cute flowers. You can layer the flowers and then add a button in the center to make a pin like the one she's wearing, or a bigger flower.

That’s it for now. I will have one more post about the goings-on at Quilt Market, and then it is on to the quilts at International Quilt Festival!

Class with Noriko Endo

I taught three classes at International Quilt Festival last week, and I took two classes, too! On Tuesday, I took Noriko Endo’s “Confetti Naturescapes” class. (I blogged earlier this year about Noriko’s new book with Dragon Threads; you can read about it here.) 

I really loved Noriko’s teaching style, and this class, even though her technique and process are so totally different from the techniques I usually use in my work. But that was the point: I always try to take classes that will teach me something, and something I don’t normally do. I always learn something new, and often it ends up helping me in my own work. 

Noriko had us dicing up tiny pieces of fabric like this before sprinkling it on batting to create the background of our pieces:

When she showed us her rotary cutter technique, I was stunned. She moves almost at the speed of light with that dangerous blade!

We were all working from our own photographs. Here is the one I chose; it is of the ancient sugar maple in our front yard, taken several years ago. We will probably have to have this tree taken down soon, as it is now half dead, and if it goes over, it could hit our house. This makes me so sad, as I have loved this amazing tree, and watched it changing through the seasons for 15 years.

As luck would have it, a woman I had met last year was in my class – Julie Creus, a talented pattern designer who owns La Todera. I adore her stuff. (And she gave me a few of her patterns that I’ll be giving away soon in a blog post, so stay tuned!)

Me with Julie Creus

Julie came with her friend, Cecelia Koppmann (from Argentina), whom I had met the day before. 

Cecelia and Noriko

It is always fun to take a class when you are sitting next to friendly and interesting people, and we had a blast getting to know each other better while we sliced, diced and sprinkled. Here is Noriko demonstrating her cutting technique to Cecelia:

 Julie created a fabulous piece with red-and-white toadstools, the symbol of her company:

Here is Noriko conferering with Julie about her piece:

Julie and Noriko

Here you can see more of Noriko’s work pinned up in the front of the classroom. It is breath-taking!

Here is how my piece looked at the end of class. I still have a lot more thread work to do; I’m going to do some of the smaller branches with thread, and add some more detail. But I’m pretty happy with it!

On Monday, I took Nancy Eha’s “Crazy Beading” class. She taught us how to create beaded patterns that replicate the elaborate embroidery stitches on crazy quilts. Nancy is a great teacher, and I learned a lot and had so much fun. I forgot to take my camera to class, so I don’t have anything to show you from it, but once my 60 pounds of stuff I shipped back home from Market and Festival arrives, I will post to show you what I did. 

Yes, 60 pounds!!!

Aurifil Designer of the Month for November – and a giveaway!

“For Ella‘s Sister” by Jacquelynne Steves

Aurifil’s Designer of the Month is Jacquelynne Steves from The Noble Wife. Her free project, “For Ella’s Sister,” is shown above. Pat Sloan has interviewed Marianne on the Aurifil blog. (That’s where you go to download the pattern for her free project!) 

Jacquelynne with Alex Veronelli of Aurifil

Each month this year, a different designer has been giving away a free pattern on the Aurifil blog (my month was January). Remember – if you make any project from the design team, load a photo to our Aurifil Flickr group; this puts you in the running to win an Aurifil thread prize!

GIVEAWAY!
Each month this year, I’m going to be giving away a pack of Aurifil minispools (like the one shown above) when the new project is announced. Just leave a comment after this post telling me if you have ever tried Aurifil thread. I'll pull a name at random on Saturday, December 10 at noon EST. The sampler pack includes great colors in different weights. AND THE WINNER IS… Made by Herbie Hands

Quiltapalooza!

Tonight I attended Quiltapalooza, a dinner and entertainment event at International Quilt Festival. The “Fashion Stops Below the Knees” shoe challenge was a hoot! Competition entrants strutted their stuff on the runway, showing off handmade and/or hand decorated shoes.

There were also some fun games, and lots of laughs. I was frankly amazed at the amount of loot given away at this event by sponsors. There were also awesome raffle prizes. If you have not attended this event before, you should really make plans to come next year if you are at Festival. 

Please note: I am taking lots of photos at Festival — including lots and lots of quilts! — and I will share them with you in batches once I get home. I wanted to post each night, but I am teaching, and starting my duties as Vice President of Public Service for International Quilt Association, so any extra time I have during Festival (ha!) is spent sleeping. 

“Max” wins at IQF-Houston

I am honored to announce that “Maximum Cat Nap” won third place in the Art Quilt-Miniature category at International Quilt Festival. Woo-hoo!

For a complete list of all the winners, please go to the International Quilt Association website. 

Quilt Market, Day 4

This was the last day of Fall Quilt Market 2011. At 4 p.m., everyone started packing up and getting ready to transition into International Quilt Festival, or going home.

I had a nice time chatting with quilting legend Eleanor Burns of Quilt in a Day; we are both natives of western Pennsylvania, and went to colleges very near each other.

Laura Wasilowski’s booth gets my vote for most colorful! I had not realized how many patterns Laura has out right now. All feature her whimsical flowers, houses and everyday objects. Laura's company is called ArtFabrik.

Sarah Fielke is author of the books Material Obsession and Material Obsession Two. Her quilt designs were stunning.

Sarah's new book is called Quilting from Little Things.

Valori Wells’ spicy new fabric line is called Karavan, and features elephants and a color scheme in shades of robin's egg blue, paprika, and gray. New this year is a knit fabric (Valori’s dress is made from it).

Kaffe Fassett was in his booth signing books.

Sarah Vedeler’s breathtaking digital embroidery designs were displayed in the Brewer booth (Brewer is a major distributor of everything for quilters and sewers).

Companies from many countries meet at Market. This is Yara African Fabrics, which makes traditional African fabrics in Mali, West Africa. I met people from every continent except Antarctica here this year!

Eco-Fi makes polyester fiber from 100% post-consumer recycled bottles, including great felts, embossed felts, and knits. Their fibers are also used by other manufacturers who produce soft knits like this babyknit:

Sweetwater, a mother-and-daughters team that designs for Moda, always have a fresh, appealing look that manages to look retro and modern at the same time. This is Lisa Burnett of Sweetwater, in their booth:

Sweetwater decorated the top of their booth with a simple clothesline tied with strips of their new fabric line.

I still have lots of photos and info to share from Quilt Market but there is way too little time to post it all — at least if I want to sleep a little — so I'm going to keep doing it in chunks until I'm done.

Today was the first day of classes for International Quilt Festival. I took a great beading class from Nancy Eha today; she is a great teacher. I'll post more about it later, too.