North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2010

North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2010 in Charlotte was fabulous! Here are some highlights of symposium, and I'll start with last night’s “Iron Quilter” event. Celebrity quilters Laura Wasilowski, David Taylor and Elin Waterston were the judges of this event, which was roughly based on “Iron Chef” reality TV show, only with fabric substituted for food, and quilting substituted for cooking.

We all got chef’s hats when we arrived in the auditorium. 

My good friend Grace Howes looked very fetching in hers. Grace was one of the co-chairs for the event, and in charge of procuring all the fabulous teachers. What a huge job, and she performed it with her usual charm, positive attitude and good humor.

 

The competition pitted Karen Stone, a.k.a. Chef Daisy Blade, against Robbi Joy Eklow, a.k.a. Chef Goddess of the Last Minute.

A video presentation, which played on a screen above the set, set the scene and introduced the teams.

Robbi Joy holds up a humungous pair of women’s underpants (each of the judges was given a pair) while her sous chef, Leah Day, looks on. Leah is a very talented quilter from Shelby, North Carolina, and she won four ribbons at the Symposium Quilt Show, including Best of Show and Best Machine Quilting.

The underpants were an inside joke from the opening ceremonies. One of the teachers shared with us that her 3-year-old granddaughter had gone into the bathroom with her at a store and made a comment about how HUGE her underwear were. So underwear got to be the unofficial theme of the event. The ones Robbi Joy is holding in the photo above got snipped and made into a faux tossed salad during the competition.

Elin made the undies into a fashionable vest, and modeled it for the audience.

Robbi Joy and her assistant got right to business preparing an entree, appetizer and dessert from two “secret ingredient” fabrics and other fabrics and embellishments brought from home. Robbie turned some fish fabrics into sushi, pan-fried trout, and fish ice cream (this last one was not so popular with the judges).

Karen Stone and Leah pose as the show starts. Karen managed to piece and stitch several beautiful blocks in her signature style.

Robbi Joy’s team presents their finished dishes to the judges. This is the last photo I took at this event, because I was ducking for cover when the whipped cream pies started flying. Almost no one involved got out of there without whipped cream down her shirt front or in her hair. I was sitting in the front row, and managed to escape the flying debris.

Johnson and Wales University is a fairly new facility in the heart of uptown Charlotte. The dorms were clean and functional, and everything was within easy walking distance.

The classrooms were large, well lit, and well air conditioned (which was good, because man, was it hot this weekend!). This is the class I took, and you can see that we brought a lot of stuff with us and quickly made ourselves right at home. 

Students of Laura Wasilowski’s Chicago School of Fusing had pressing matters to attend to…

and could purchase Laura’s hand-dyed fabrics, threads and patterns.

The hall outside Velda Newman’s classroom was littered with trout bodies and flower petals painted in her “Quick and Easy Painting Techniques” class.

Elin Waterston strikes a pose before her class got started. Can you tell that Elin’s been dancing and acting since she was a wee lass? I had the pleasure of being Elin’s “teacher buddy” for the weekend and enjoyed getting to know her better. We are both natives of Pittsburgh, Pa., but went to different high schools and didn’t know each other then. Later we found out that we have friends in common, including a guy who was Rolf to my Liesel in our high school production of The Sound of Music (how’s that for six degrees of separation?).

 I showed Elin’s photo to Terry White, and she decided to one-up Elin by getting cozy with her quilts. What a sweetheart Terry is. I have admired her amazing thread painting for years.

Of course, Pat Sloan had to take a break and talk to her thousands of Facebook friends!

 Paula Scaffidi talks with her students about needle felting. 

 Cynthia Corbin critiques DebbyHarwell’s fabric choices in the class I took called “Structure and Variation.” We started with what Cynthia calls a “black fabric sketch,” which is a black rectangle cut into simple pieces (you can see Debbie’s at the top left), then played with different values of fabric, and experimented with arrangements and design variations. Cynthia was a wonderful teacher, and very patient. 


I took this class because I thought it would be a challenge for me to work in a different style and technique than I usually do. It was. I’ll share more on this in a later post. 

These are the funky creation of my fellow student, Lise. Aren’t they fun? 

Symposium was a wonderful way to spend time with my quilting friends, make new ones and learn new things. And guess what? Next year, I get to do it again, only then, I’ll be teaching! I’ve been asked by North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2011, which will be hosted by the Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh. I don’t know yet what I’ll be teaching, but I’ll have more details soon.

Stitchin’ Heaven offering PPP as BOM program

Stitchin’ Heaven, one of the best quilt shops in Texas, is offering my Pink Petal Party quilt as a block-of-the-month program. Stitchin’ Heaven has one of the biggest block-of-the-month programs in the United States, and I’m tickled that they chose my design to offer.

It is set up as a 12-month program starting in October 2010. There’s a $25 start fee, and then you pay $24.95 plus shipping and handling each month.

You can see all the details on their website, www.stitchinheaven.com.

June/July Quilting Arts hitting mailboxes now!

The June/July 2010 issue of Quilting Arts magazine is hitting mailboxes now! This issue contains the most recent installment in my series on thread sketching, with my portrait of our world famous cat, Max.

If you don't subscribe, look for it at your local newsstand or bookstores. Or order at the Interweave online store. The price is $7.99.

Max gets more press

 Maximum Cat Nap (22" x 18.5")

If you have pets, you know how much hair they produce, and how it gets everywhere. So when I was considering subjects for an article on adding texture to your work with thread for the June/July issue of Quilting Arts, my furry friends came immediately to mind. Our cat Max, whom we often call Maximum Pusscat because he has a BIG personality, decided that he should be the star of the show. He even jumped up into the little stage I’d built to take photos of my smaller pieces, and allowed me to photograph him:

Here’s a closeup of his portrait. I painted him with acrylic paint on white fabric, and then heavily thread sketched on top. 

The piece below, “Wool Yarn,” is also featured in Quilting Arts, and a free pattern (a line drawing and simple directions) is available on the Quilting Arts website in the Online Extras section. This piece was created with colored fabric on a black background. I added some shading with Caran D’Ache water-soluable crayons, and then created lots of texture with thread.

Wool Yarn (12" x 12")

Two things

I have two things to share with you today. The first is this funny pincushion I made from a felted ball and a teacup. I think the teacup was a give-away from Baileys Irish Cream liqueur, and I found it in an antique store. I love how the ball makes her look like she has a giant brain, and how it reminds me of the disembodied doll head with erector set legs in the movie Toy Story. That thing really freaked me out, and I think it is fascinating how something so creepy looking turned out to be so gentle and shy. Kind of like Edward Scissorhands. A good lesson that you can’t judge a book by its cover. 

Anyway, I digress…

The second thing I wanted to tell you about is my discovery that Goo Gone is fabulous for removing sticky fusible adhesive (like Steam-a-Seam or Heat-n-Bond or Wonder Under) from your scissors. I’ve been working on a bunch of projects that use fusible adhesive, and it had really built up on my scissors. A little Goo Gone on a paper towel took it off very quickly.

If you don’t know about Goo Gone, you should. It’s the only thing I’ve found that takes off sticky price tags, and other yucky stuff. Here’s how the company that makes it describes it:

“Goo Gone® is a quick and fast working solution to remove adhesive, chewing gum, grease, tar, stickers, tree sap, labels, tape residue, oil, blood, lipstick, mascara, shoe polish, crayon, wax and even bumper stickers! It leaves no residue behind and contains no harsh odors. Safe to use on carpets, upholstery, clothing, wood, vinyl, plastic, glass, stone, laminate, ceramic, painted surfaces and even cement.”

If you are wondering what the green tape is doing on my scissors, it is there to remind me that these are my scissors for cutting paper, not fabric. My kids know what it means, too!

Candy Corn selected for 2011 QA Calendar

My “Candy Corn” art quilt has been selected for the 2011 Quilting Arts Calendar! Hmmm... I wonder what month they will use it?

It is painted on white fabric (Pimatex by Robert Kaufman, my favorite fabric for painting because it is very fine and tightly woven). The photo below shows the heavy thread sketching I did on this piece before I quilted around the individual candy corn candies. 

This is the third year that my work has been selected for the calendar, and I am no less thrilled this time than the other two years. Yippee!!! Just wait until you see some of the other pieces Quilting Arts has selected. (If you are a member of the Quilting Arts community, you can see some of them in the photo gallery section.) They are really spectacular, and I am honored to be in their company.

Quilting “Nothing”

Look at what a beautiful job Judy Whitehead of Goneaway Quilting did quilting my Nothing Could Be Finer wall hanging! I really love it. 

This is the first time I had someone else quilt one of my quilts (you can read more about this in my previous post), but was I anxious? Not one iota. Judy is a friend and a fantastic longarm quilter. You can read more about how Judy worked on my quilt on her blog.

I particularly like the echo quilting around the morning glories, which really makes them sing! (And if they were singing, it would be “where the morning glories twine around each door, whispering pretty stories I long to hear once more... Oh, nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning!”

The larger size of Nothing Could Be Finer (82 x 84") is the donation quilt for the 2010 North Carolina Quilt Symposium, to be held in Charlotte at Johnson & Wales University June 3-6. For more details, check out the 2010 Symposium Blog. There’s still time to make plans and join us!

This big quilt, beautifully quilted by Kay Giese, will be raffled off in early June, at the end of Symposium. The pattern, which will include directions for both sizes, will be available there, and all proceeds will go to the Charolotte Guild to cover Symposium expenses. 

A reader writes!

I’ve just wrapped up my fourth article in the series I’m writing for Quilting Arts magazine. It will appear in the August/September issue. One of the reasons I love writing for Quilting Arts is that I get to teach the things I love doing, and share my techniques with others. It’s even more fun when the readers write back!

I was pleased to get this photo and e-mail from a woman in Ontario, Canada, yesterday:

Hi Susan,
I enjoyed your articles in Quilting Arts on thread sketching. I had done some before, both with stabilizer and with batting, but was never really satisfied with either. Your method, with a double layer of firm stabilizer, was much easier. I used a variety of rayon threads to get the colours I wanted. I plan on donating Let’s Colour to the mini raffle at my guild's quilt show in 2011. The label includes a credit to you and QA.

I'm going to use this method for a piece I’ve been wanting to make from a photo I took of sumac. And maybe one of my favourite tree, or flowers in the garden, or my cats ....

Looking forward to the next installment in QA.

Cathy Willoughby
Brampton ON

I love Cathy’s version, and I’m so glad my technique helped her achieve what she wanted. It’s funny… when I took one of those tests in junior high where they identify careers or fields in which you’d excel, teaching was one of them. I brushed it off, because I didn’t think I’d like it, be good at it, or have enough patience for it. And I’m still pretty sure I wouldn’t be much good at teaching groups of children. 

But I don’t think I realized then that there are many ways to teach. 
 

May: Brought to you by the color GREEN

If May has an official color, it simply has to be green. Green in all its glorious permutations:

Moss

 Hydrangea

Foxglove

Fern

Hosta

Boxwood

Climbing Hydrangea

Prickly pear (and yes, that is a rusty spatula)

Rose

(Okay, this is not green. But it was so lovely, I had to include it.)

I took all these photos in my garden yesterday, after the rain had gone, and everything was lush and fresh with new growth. 

Green symbolizes life, tranquility, health, nature, fertility, growth, renewal, good luck, restfulness. Or jealousy and inexperience.

Words and phrases associated with green: Greenback, Green light, greener pastures, green room, green around the gills, green thumb, greenhorn, green with envy.

National color of Ireland; associated with Islam. 

Words that describe tints and shades of green: Emerald, sea green, seafoam, olive, olive drab, pea green, grass green, apple, mint, forest, lawn green, lime, spring green, leaf green, aquamarine, beryl, chartreuse, fir, kelly green, pine, moss, jade, sage, sap, viridian. 

Reported to be the favorite color of most geniuses.

A coleus… NOT!

Today, I got an e-mail from Pokey Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts magazine, telling me that she had received an e-mail from a woman in Alabama who pointed out that my piece featured on Quilting Arts TV, which I had based on a photo I took at a botanical garden and identified as a coleus was not, indeed, a coleus.

Apparently it is Persian Shield, or Strobilanthes dyerianus. “This unusual plant displays bright highlights on shimmering silvery-purple to metallic mid-blue leaves,” according to the Alabama Grown website. You can see a photo of the plant here. It does look exactly like the plant I photographed, and as the woman from Plantersville, Alabama, pointed out, it is not a coleus!

So now, here’s my quandary: I’ve already named the piece “Coleus.” It is headed to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England as part of a SAQA exhibition this summer. Should I rename it? Is this feasible at this point? Or should I just claim artistic license and vow to be more careful in my species identification in the future?

I’m pretty certain that the coleus in my Red Coleus piece (below) actually is a coleus. Whew!

A special gift

Look at what my mom made me! Isn’t this the sweetest little scissors case? And isn’t she the sweetest mom for stitching it up for me? 

Actually, she made me a similar case years ago, and when Sophie was a puppy, she found it and chewed it to bits one night. It was one of the few things she destroyed when she was in her chewing stage, but she managed to find one of my most precious possessions to grind to bits. I was heartbroken, and had a hard time telling my mother. She kindly offered to replace it, and has been working on this case on and off for the past two years. It is the tiniest needlepoint you can do, I think, and it is stitched in silk, so it is lovely and soft.  

Together, we made the twisted cording for the scissors, when we were together in Paducah last weekend.

I know it is a week until Mother’s Day, but I want to tell my mom thanks, and that I feel so lucky that she is my mine. Love you, Mom!

AQS Show in Paducah, Kentucky

I just got home from the American Quilter’s Society’s Quilt Show & Contest in Paducah, Kentucky. Whew! What a whirlwind. My mom and I managed to see a lot in the two days were were there, had a blast, and then slipped by several tornadoes in our path on the way home last night. (More about that later.)

Paducah is a such a great town. It feels like all the townspeople are out and about helping, working, and welcoming the quilters. One told us that the show brings $8-10 million to the local economy each year. It is very charming, with boutiques, gift shops, antique stores, restaurants and galleries everywhere near the convention center where the show is held. You can tell that the economic conditions have hit the town hard, but they are fighting back.

The red brick building above is Caryl Bryer Fallert’s studio. I was told by several people who live in town that the town has some generous programs to help artists who set up their studios in the historic homes in downtown, many of which still await renovation. It is already a thriving artists’ community, and I think it will continue to grow.

Kirchhoff’s Bakery was doing a brisk lunch business and selling lots of goodies, including cookies frosted like quilts, to all quilters attending the show. That’s my mom and me posing with their vintage delivery truck, after enjoying mocha chocolate chip cookies and sour cream scones. Mmmmm...

Weather was perfect on Friday, but by Friday night and Saturday morning, fierce storms had arrived. This is the same front that spawned deadly tornadoes in Mississippi. The clouds were dense and moving fast. You can see them in the photo above, which shows the tent set up to hold many of the vendors this year, since the large hotel adjacent to the convention center has been shut down for renovations.

Mom and I hit the domed tent (referred to as “the marshmallow” by many of the attendees) first thing Saturday morning, fearing that the weather would get worse and it would go airborne. We were inside when the first rash of thunder and lightning hit, so loud at times that you could barely hear anyone talk. We were assured that the tent was guaranteed to stay put in 90 mph winds. Inside, it was very spacious and cool.

My quilt was in the main building. Even though I did not win a ribbon, I was so proud just to have gotten into the show after seeing all the exquisite entries, especially the traditional and appliqué quilts.

The National Quilt Museum is fabulous, and not to be missed. We were particularly moved by Hollis Chatelain’s Imagine Hope exhibition, which “strives to touch its viewers, inspiring them to get involved and make a change in the world.” It includes 12 monochromatic pieces of fiber art by Hollis, and thought-provoking photos by Michael Freeman, Edward Linsmier and Koos van der Lende. The goal is to create a public dialogue about important world issues, including the preservation of cultures, environments and natural resources.

I know Pat LaPierre through Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), and was pleased to finally meet her in person, demonstrating how to use a product she developed, the Supreme Free-Motion Slider, in combination with Sharon Schamber’s red Quilt Halo:

The top surface of made of Teflon. The bottom surface sticks to the bed of your machine. The result is that your quilt glides smoothly as you free-motion stitch. There’s no friction to make you tense, so you can thread sketch and quilt much more easily, and with better results.

I was excited to learn about a product new to me, Salem cutting mats. I needed a new cutting mat, and was initially attracted to their display because the mats were red and white, which would match my studio better than the green cutting mat I have now.

When I asked them to tell me about their products, they told me that Salem mats do not warp in extreme temperatures, and that they are soft enough to pin into. They also flatten right out after they are rolled up for travel or storage. And they are made in the United States. I was sold! I purchased the 24 x 36" size that was already sold out, so they are shipping it to me.

It was nice to see Betty Blais again. I took a class from her a few years ago, and learned a lot about different surface design materials. Betty is the owner of Embellishment Village, an online store that carries a wide range of products, including Angelina, foils and foiling glues, glitters, stencils (really cools ones like the ones behind her in the photo above) beads, yarns, charms and more. I stocked up on Angelina and stencils in her booth!

I found Pat Sloan (left) and Heidi Kaisland, the national sales manager for American Professional Quilting Systems (APQS) (right) in the APQS booth, and drooled over their wonderful longarm machines. It is such fun to meet up with people I’ve gotten to know through their blogs, websites and Facebook pages. 

By Saturday afternoon, Mom and I were completely exhausted, and had decided to call it a day. We headed for home.

About an hour outside Nashville, the skies starting looking pretty ominous, with a heavy ceiling of unusual looking dark gray clouds moving at an alarming rate. We stopped for dinner and considered stopping overnight at a hotel before proceeding home, but in the end, decided that was not such a great choice, either. The storms were still coming through. 

We kept going, drove through some greenish skies, then heavy wind and pounding rain in the dark, for about two hours, and came out on the other side, where the winds were high but things were generally better. We got to my parents’ house near Knoxville by about midnight, white knuckled and very stressed, but safe.

Inspired! Creativity Cards

Stuck in a rut? Discouraged? Need something to spur some new ideas? Try C&T Publishing’s new deck of 36 cards with motivating thoughts and beautiful quilt images called Inspired! Creativity Cards. One side of the cards contain little pearls of wisdom from some of C&T’s authors, including me!

The other side has detail shots of gorgeous quilts, both traditional and contemporary. Retail price: $9.95.

Quilt & Fiber Art Emporium 2010 coming up!

Marianne Fons (left) from Love of Quilting magazine and TV show is the keynote speaker at the Quilt & Fiber Art Emporium 2010, to be held in Hickory, NC, April 30 through May 2. Bernina of America is a show sponsor.

The event includes classes, lectures, demonstrations, a vendor mall and a large display area of quilts and crafts. 

Want to go?

Hickory Metro Convention Center

Hickory, NC

Friday, April 30: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Saturday, May 1: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sunday, May 2: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
PRICE: One day admission: $7.50
INFO: http://www.quiltandfiberart.com/

My friend, Rene Crowder (left), who owns Rene’s Quilt Shop in Mooresville, is teaching her famous “Mile a Minute” Quilt on Sunday from 10 to 1:30. 

Another friend, Judy Whitehead of Goneaway Quilting, will be a vendor. Judy is a long-arm quilter who also creates fabulous hand-dyed fabrics, and will be carrying some of my patterns. You can see more about Judy in this previous post.