Surface Design Center and Jane’s new book

A few months ago, I was invited by C&T Publishing to test drive some products they were considering for their new Liquitex Surface Design Center. I created my Indian Corn and Hosta pieces using these products, and they are now touring around the country publicizing this new collection of professional acrylic colors, mediums and inks.

C&T designed this Surface Design Center as a way for quilt shop owners to bring surface design materials into their shops, making them more accessible for quilters who want to explore making art quilts. The Center will include Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic colors and Professional Acrylic Ink! colors, Liquitex Fabric Medium and Matte Gel Medium, and Winsor & Newton brushes.

These are really cool products, and I think you’ll enjoy using them. I had never used the Liquitex Acrylic Inks, and they are really great.

The Surface Design Center debuted at Quilt Festival in Houston to an enthusiastic response.



In conjunction with the Surface Design Center, C&T is releasing a great new book by Jane Davila that teaches you how to use all the products in it. Jane Davila’s Surface Design Essentials (72 pages, $16.95) will be available in January 2010. You can pre-order autographed copies from Jane by e-mailing her at info@janedavila.com

This is a smaller format book with a covered spiral binding that will be a helpful reference for fiber and mixed-media artists. Through 15 techniques and 7 projects, it shows you how to use acrylic paints, mediums, acrylic inks and water soluble pencils on fabric and some unusual, mixed-media surfaces.

In addition to Jane, the following fabulous artists contributed samples for the book:

Natalya Aikens
Terry Grant
Lynn Koolish
Jane LaFazio
Judy Coates Perez
Virginia Spiegel
Elin Waterston

I’ve had a number of questions from people curious about the Liquitex Professional Acrylic Ink! (and yes, the exclamation point is part of the brand name). I’d never used them before this. They come in little bottles like India ink that calligraphers use, with an eyedropper:



Here’s a sample of the inks used in a calligraphy pen on off-white muslin (I mixed the yellow and red in different combinations as I added more ink to the pen making these marks):

What’s really cool about them is that they don’t bleed at all into the fabric.

Here is the ink painted onto the surface of white Kona Cotton. The yellow band at the bottom of the photo was done with watercolor pencils to achieve the bleeding I wanted there; the other marks were made with the inks:


And here are the inks mixed with a bit of Liquitex Fabric Medium and stamped onto Kona Cotton:

The fabric medium acts as an extender (makes the inks go farther), and also keeps the hand of the fabric a bit softer.

You can also dilute them with water and paint on fabric to get a nice watercolor effect, where they bleed out into the fabric.

I really liked using these inks, and plan to buy them in a bunch of different colors and experiment some more.

“Bohemian Bouquet” giveaway!

I’m giving away a copy of all 11 block patterns for my “Bohemian Bouquet” quilt! To enter, just check out my website and then leave a comment on the C&T Publishing Blog, telling which of my patterns you like best. You have to leave your comment on the C&T blog, not mine, to be entered in the contest. Each block is regularly priced at $5 ($55 for the set of 11).

Here are some detail shots from the quilt:

SAQA Frontiers: Art Meets Science

I just got the news that two of my pieces were juried in to the Studio Art Quilt Associates’ exhibition “SAQA Frontiers: Art Meets Science.” They are Lepidoptera and Coleus, shown below.





My friend Nancy G. Cook also had her piece, Southern Hospitality, juried in. There were 147 entries, and juror David Fraser, MD, selected 35 for the exhibition.

This exhibition will travel to the 2010 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. Additional venues are to be determined. This exhibit “explores the unexpected intersections of two seemingly different disciplines, Art and Science. The works focus on inspiration from scientific theories or phenomena expressed in new or unexpected ways, from the harmonies of randomness to the dynamics produced by scientific imagery.”

House Rules 2

I am in the middle of teaching an online course on how to make this little art quilt on joggles.com. I made a version several years ago called “House Rules” that featured only my kids and the dog. When I was getting ready to teach this class, I needed to re-do it so that I could take photos of each step and write directions, so I decided to include the whole gang this time. Yep, even Fishy. That’s him/her on the right, about to get trampled by Miss McDoglington.

How to make a French Knot

Here’s a little tutorial on how to make a French knot. You can download a printable PDF version by clicking here. This is free, so please share it, but keep my name and logo on the printout, okay? Thanks!

Note: Directions here are given for right-handers, but the PDF has photos and directions for left-handers on the second page.


Thread the perle cotton or floss in your embroidery needle, and knot the end. Bring your needle up from the back of the fabric to the front, exactly where you want the knot to form. Pull until the knot is snug against the back of the fabric.

Put the fabric down on a flat surface, like your knee or a table.


Take the thread coming out of the fabric in your left hand between your thumb and pointer finger. Have the needle in your right hand.


Wrap thread over the needle …


and around it three times. (To make a smaller knot, wrap only one or two times.) It should be wrapped tightly, and close to the tip of the needle.


Slide the loops of thread close together, down toward the tip of the needle, holding them with the pointer finger on your right hand. Push the tip of the needle back into the same place where the thread came out (or just a thread or two away).


As it goes in, keep pinching it in place with the thumb and pointer finger of your left hand. The loops must be kept tightly together, or you will not produce a neat, tight knot.

Pull the thread completely through to the back of the fabric, and the knot will form on the front.

Practice, practice, practice!

Lark Books contest

Lark Books has announced a new contest called Quilt It! and is offering some great prizes, including a grand prize of a $100 gift certificate from Hancocks of Paducah and 11 Lark quilting books. Four other quilters (one in each of the four categories in the competition) will each receive the 11 books as well.

Entries are due by Jan. 5. Winners will be announced Feb. 1, and all winning quilts will be posted on www.larkbooks.com.

To enter, read the rules then email them at QuiltIt@larkbooks.com with the title of your piece, at least one photo of your quilt, and the category in which it should be judged. Entries must be an original quilt of any size that incorporates at least three of the following five required elements:

• Bird(s)
• Mountains
• Silver fabric, thread, or item
• Recycled/repurposed material
• Beads
  

The categories are:
1. Best Use of Beading or Beaded Elements
2. Best Use of Hand-Dyed/Altered Fabrics
3. Best Art Quilt
4. Best Use of Recycled Material

The Grand Prize will be awarded to the quilt that exhibits the most quilting creativity, originality, ingenuity, and artistry in addition best use of the required elements.

The Grand Prize winner and Category Prize winners will each receive the following 11 books:
Quilt It with Wool
Simple Contemporary Quilts
Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again
Quilts, Baby!
Masters: Art Quilts
Color Your Cloth
Pieced Symbols
Quilt National 2009
Creative Quilting with Beads
500 Art Quilts
Pretty Little Mini Quilts

Good luck!

A Tulip Bag of steel

My mother’s friend, Winnie Lemmon, a member of The Village Quilters in Loudon, Tenn., made this super-cute version of my Tulip Bag pattern. Can you tell Winnie’s a Pittsburgh Steelers fan? Just a little bit? She actually made this purse for someone she knows in Pittsburgh. It’s all done up in Steelers black and gold, complete with a little football button on the tab.

Winnie and her husband, Bill, are incredible Steelers fans, and even have a room in their house devoted to Steelers memorabilia.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, so I am waving my Terrible Towel right along with her. Go Steelers!

Nothing Could Be Finer

“Nothing Could Be Finer” is a quilt I designed for the Charlotte Quilters’ Guild’s 2010 Raffle Quilt. It is 82" x 84", and was hand appliqued by some very talented members of the guild, and then longarm machine quilted by Kay Giese. I just love how she quilted it.





Proceeds from the raffle will help cover the expenses of the 2010 North Carolina Quilt Symposium, which will be held in Charlotte at Johnson & Wales University June 3-6, 2010. Teachers now scheduled are:

Bonnie Hunter
Carol Taylor
Velda Newman
Robbi Joy Eklow
Flavin Glover
Cythia Corbin
Terry White
Laura Wasilowski
David Taylor
Susan Purney Mark
Charlotte Angotti
Paula Scaffidi
Janet Lasher
Elin Waterson
Karen Eckmeier
Patti Culea
Pat Sloan
Jenny Raymond
Ellen Anne Eddy
Melody Crust
Karen Stone
Kim Diehl


It’s gonna be great … because (sing along y’all!) “nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina!” For more details, check out the 2010 Symposium Blog.

And that’s the way it goes.

So. Yesterday I won Best of Show. This morning I woke up to find out that ArtQuilt Elements 2010 had rejected me. Next to my name on the electronic entry form were three big red Xs.



And that’s the way it goes. You win some and you lose some.

I’m mentioning this not to publicly humiliate myself (I could have just kept quiet and not told anyone that I had entered, right?), but to point out something very important. Something I remind my kids of, and myself of, very often. You don’t always win. You don’t always get in. And that’s okay.

I know people who never enter their work in quilt shows. Some of them have confided to me that they are fearful of what the judges might say. Or that attendees at the quilt show will say nasty things (and I have heard some very rude people say amazing things at quilt shows!). I always tell them this story:

When I was a fairly new quilter, and showed my quilts to my mother, a former home economics teacher, she always had lots of nice things to say. In fact, she’s my biggest fan. But she always pointed out that my bindings were, well, crappy. She didn’t say it like that, she was very polite, and her criticism was always constructive.

But of course, since she was my mother, I ignored her.

The first quilt show I entered, I noticed on the judge’s forms that I had mostly plus marks, but my bindings got bad grades. I started thinking that I might have won a ribbon, or a better ribbon, if I had paid attention to what my mother said. (Okay, Mom, here’s where you get to say “I told you so!”) I went home, and that very day, I read books on how to properly bind a quilt. I practiced. I even (gasp!) asked my mother’s advice. I got better. And the next time I entered shows, I got good marks on my bindings.

That’s one reason for entering quilt shows. I enter my small local guild’s show, I enter the Charlotte guild’s show, I enter some big national shows, and I am starting to feel brave enough to enter some high-end art quilt shows, like Elements. With every judge’s form, I am learning what I need to improve. Or at least what that one particular judge on one particular day thinks I need to improve. (And it’s my prerogative to disagree, of course.)

The other reason I enter is that it brings me joy to be part of the event – the fellowship and camaraderie, the laughs, the rejoicing in others’ accomplishments, and our own.

But here’s the biggest reason I enter: Trying counts. Persistance counts. Keep on truckin’.

Life. You must be present to win.

So I leave you today with a few photos of friends with their winning quilts, taken at the setup last night. More tomorrow.


Greta McCrea pins a blue ribbon on her version of my quilt, “Bohemian Bouquet,” called “Susan’s Mystery,” since she did it one block at a time, finished quilt unknown. Greta is a dear friend from my hometown of Pittsburgh. I’ve known her and her family since I was 16, and now we are in the same quilt group! She is a spectacular hand appliquér, and I just love her color choices in this quilt, so different from my version.


DeLane Rosenau started this quilt, “Cold Feet,” in one of our Pandoras meetings more than a year ago. She struggled mightily with it, but persevered and created this amazing work of art. She was especially tickled that she beat me out of the blue ribbon. (“Lepidoptera” took second place in this category, Art/Pictoral.) Hooray for her!

Pink Petal Party wins Best of Show!

My quilt “Pink Petal Party,” which is the focus of my new book, Appliqué Petal Party, just won Best of Show at the Lake Norman Quilters’ 2009 show. Wish I'd worn a different shirt tonight; it is hard to tell where the quilt stops and I start in this photo.

We hung the show tonight and it is going to be fabulous. Please come if you are in the Charlotte area!

Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
East Mooresville Intermediate School
1711 Landis Highway, Mooresville NC 28115

If you need directions to the show or want more information, please go to the webpage for our group. It contains a down-loadable PDF with a map and general information. Here are some photos from setup tonight:



A husband lends a hand on a very high ladder!


DeLane carries a panel of small quilts to its stand.


It takes a lot of sweat and muscle to put up a quilt show!


Setting up the doll display.


A local doll group displays their beautiful creations.


Hand-made ribbons await the awards ceremony. That's our raffle quilt in the background. It's my design, and beautifully quilted by Judy Whitehead. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5.


Jean Newman made these teeny-tiny ribbons with baby yo-yos and grosgrain ribbon, mounted on paper clips, for ribbon winners to clip onto their nametags. That way, attendees will know the people who win ribbons, and can ask them about their quilts. What a great way to make the winners feel great, and to help encourage interaction between our group’s members attendees, and education about quilts.

Weeks Dye Works

Let me introduce you to a great North Carolina company, Weeks Dye Works. If you embellish quilts, embroider, needlepoint, punchneedle, rug hook, or make wool appliqué projects or penny rugs, you are going to want to know them.

I met Miranda Weeks McGahey (below) and her husband John at Fall Quilt Market in Houston, where I was drooling over their spectacular varigated embroidery threads and perle cottons. (Some of the ones that came home with me are shown above, and now I want more! more! more!) must... have... more...



Miranda started dyeing fabric and thread in her apartment bathtub in 1992, after graduating from the School of Design at North Carolina State University. Today, her company has 10 full time and 9 part time employees. They have a 6,000-square-foot facility in Garner, N.C., and do 13,000 dye baths a day!

Weeks makes a bunch of wonderful products: over-dyed, 6-stranded cotton embroidery floss; hand-dyed wool fabric; size 40 sewing thread; and perle cotton (sizes #3, #5 and #8). And as you can see from my photo at the top, the colors are rich, with subtle color variations. I’ve used them in some recent free-style embroidery work, and in punch-needle embroidery, and I absolutely love them!

Weeks does not sell to individual customers on their website; they only sell wholesale. But you can find retailers across the U.S. and around the world on their “Find a Retailer” webpage. If you go to some of the bigger quilt shows, you can often find their products in booths selling punch-needle or embroidery designs and threads.

Another chance to win my book!

Here’s an opportunity to get a copy of my new book, Applique Petal Party, for free! Appliqué artist extraordinaire Kay Mackenzie is giving away an autographed copy to one lucky person who leaves a comment on her blog post before the ghouls come out to play on Halloween evening.

If you’ve never visited Kay’s blog, All About Appliqué, you are in for a treat. Great tips for appliqué; beautiful quilts; and links to quilt organizations, appliqué designers and pattern companies. Kay is the author of a bunch of books (most recently, Easy Appliqué Blocks by That Patchwork Place/Martingale) and produces patterns through her company, Quilt Puppy.

And she is a very sweet person to boot!

Judging day for the Lake Norman Quilters’ show

Today was judging day for the Lake Norman Quilters’ show, which is this Friday and Saturday in Mooresville, NC. It is going to be a beautiful show, with more than 230 quilts. If you are in the area, I do hope you’ll come!



Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
East Mooresville Intermediate School
1711 Landis Highway, Mooresville NC 28115

If you’ve never participated in the judging process, here’s a little peek at what goes on. First, all the quilts are grouped together by category (with all the large pieced bed-size quilts in one pile, the appliquéd wall hangings in another pile, etc.). They all have little tags on them with their numbers:


Each pile is placed on a large table in front of the judge, with each quilt opened out flat. Each is held up for the judge (here’s my friend DeLane holding one up) so he or she can get an overall look at the design:


The quilts, sorted by category, were stacked on tables at the edge of the room:


They ranged in style from contemporary to traditional:


The judges carefully consider the overall design, use of color and fabrics, techniques, quilting, finishing and binding, and give each a score, which typically ranges from a check minus (meaning it needs work) to a plus-plus (exceptional). Here, certified quilt judge Carol Larimer examines the back of a pieced quilt:




A scribe (someone from the quilting group) records the scores on a special form, and also writes down the judge’s comments. Here, certified quilt judge Scott Murkin (left) judges a quilt while Jean Newman scribes. It looks like Scott’s just said something funny (which he does a lot):


Scott pinches the binding to see that it is filled with batting, neatly stitched, and firmly attached to the quilt:


The judge then either releases a quilt (meaning that it is not in the running for a ribbon) or asks that the quilt be held. After judging all the quilts in the category, the held quilts are examined one more time, and the judge names the first, second, third places and honorable mention. He or she may also ask that a quilt be set aside for one of the special ribbons (Best of Show, Best Use of Color, Best Hand Quilting, Judge’s Choice, etc.) that the quilt group has decided to issue.

At the very end, the judges work together to assess quilts set aside for consideration for special ribbons and decide the winners:


It was a fun day. Here are some of the people left at the very end of the judging (from left:) Grace Howes, DeLane Rosenau, Joyce Mullis, Susan Dunne-Lederhaas, Cindy Magee, Cheryl Campbell, Barbara Barrier, Michele Sheets. There were a lot more people who volunteered for the day, but I only got photos of this group. It takes a lot of people to produce a quilt show!


If you need directions to the show or want more information, please go to the webpage for our group. It contains a down-loadable PDF with a map and general information.

ATCs from International Quilt Festival

As promised, here is a shot showing all the ATCs I traded for at International Quilt Festival a few weeks ago. What fun! The swap was hosted by Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines, and took place in the Make It University/Open Studios area on the convention center floor.

In this shot, Michele Muska talks about her work as part of Open Studios, and you can see the ATC trade wall in the background:


Lots of the cards I traded for came from people in Texas, but a few came from farther away. This is the first time I’ve ever participated in an ATC swap. I only met a handful of the people whose cards came home with me. Here’s some of the information on the back of the cards about the artists:

First column (far left):
1. Stalker by Ruth Steinhagen
2. Yellow Flower by Linn Shimek
3. Go raibh maith agat by Colette in the UK (Gaelic for thank you)
4. Secret Agent by Kim DeCosto

Second column:
1. "Wishing for Fall Foliage" by Lou Castaneda of Austin, Texas
2. Love flower by Katie of Flying Woman Studio, Austin, Texas
3. "Paris for Jesse" (7 of 36) by Colleen Bouchard
4. "Vintage Garden" by Ann Mays

Third column:
1. Cake by Kaye Martindale
2. Moth by Jennifer L of Waller, Texas
3. Yellow flower by Katie of Flying Woman Studio, Austin, Texas
4. Green by Lyric Kinard of Raleigh, NC

Fourth column:
1. Fish by Madalyn Sibley, 10 years old ("I love art!")
2. "Cassy Zinnia" by Lynn Shimek of Sebring, Florida
3. Green by Ann Buzzalino of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
4. Red and gold by Nicole Rivera of Fresno, Texas
5. Witch by Deb Morley of Hockley, Texas
6. "35 and Counting" by Dorothy Cochran of Lufkin, Texas

Fifth column:
1. Men on moon by Ruth Swinhagen
2. 35 Years at the Big Dance" by Sherry BOram
3. Bee by Lori Bedo of Jacksonville, Florida
4. Butterfly by Lori Bedo of Jacksonville, Florida
5. Gold on gold by Nicole Rivera of Fresno, Texas
6. Boo by Lynn Shimek of Sebring, Florida

Sixth column:
1. "Paris for Jesse" (28 of 36) by Colleen Bouchard
2. Black stalks by Kate Kline of Tulsa, Oklahoma
3. Yukon Sam by Ruth Swinhagen
4. Space girl by Sharon of Houston, Texas

Here are the cards I made and traded:


Sharon, the artist who created the last card on my list, got one of my ATCs, and posted about it on her blog, E14Studio. Cool.