Quilt Market, Day 1

Greetings from Houston! I’m here for the Fall 2011 International Quilt Market. It takes place in the George R. Brown Convention Center downtown, which occupies about six square blocks. The photo above shows it from my room in the Hilton Hotel that is connected to the Convention Center. 

Today, the main focus was Schoolhouse, a series of short sessions put on by industry people – book publishers, fabric companies, notions manufacturers, fabric designers, etc. There are 30-minute and 15-minute sessions all day. In the morning, you pick up the official program for Market, and decide what sessions you want to attend:

Groups of quilt shop owners huddle in the lobby areas of the Convention Center to confer. If quilt shops come with more than one person, they often split up to cover more ground. 

I attended a session where Alex Anderson showed off her new fabric line, which will ship in January. It is beautiful!

 

 Here is the quilt Alex designed to show off the line:

Some of the sessions were absolutely packed. Sessions where there are good door prizes or giveaways are always popular. Here are just some of the people in the crowd waiting for Lonni Rossi to talk about her new fabric lines for Andover:

Here’s Lonni:

 An assistant carries one of Lonni's quilts through the spectators:

Here’s Lonni:

Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts was completely charming, and shared many personal stories while introducing her new book.

This is just one of Edyta’s gorgeous quilts:

Susan Knapp (of The Quilt Branch) and I always try to meet up and have our photo taken together!

Not enough time to show you everything from today; I'll post more tomorrow!

Another chance to win my book

Sarah Ann Smith and friend

Sarah Ann Smith, a friend and fellow art quilter whose work is featured in the gallery section of my new book, Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art, has reviewed my book on her blog. Check it out – there’s a chance to win a copy!

You can see more of Sarah's beautiful work in the galleries on her website. 

Charlotte Guild offering great workshops open to non-members

If you live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area, here are some great quilting and fiber arts workshops you should know about! These workshops are offered by the Charlotte Quilters’ Guild, and are open to non-members of the guild. Here is information about each workshop. Prices listed are for non-members.

To register or get more information, e-mail Phyllis Tarrant at workshops@charlottequiltersguild.org, or call her at 704-545-4481.

Mary Kerr 

A Vintage Challenge – $55
plus a $20 kit fee that includes everything except batting and backing  

Thurs., Nov. 3, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sharon Towers, 5100 Sharon Rd.

Sandra Smith  

Story Quilts – $55

Thurs., Feb. 2, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sharon Towers, 5100 Sharon Rd.

Valerie Goodwin

Favorite Places – $110

Thurs. March 8 and Fri. March 9 , 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day

Location in Charlotte to be announced later

Judy Simmons 

Dimensional and off the Edge Appliqué – $55

Thurs., April 5, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Sharon Towers, 5100 Sharon Rd. 

and

Wonderful Texture – $30

Thursday, April 5, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. (evening class)
 
Linda Cantrell 

Self Portrait – $55

Thurs.,  May 3, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

and

Fantasy Flowers – $30

6:30 to 9:30 p.m. (evening class)

My friend and fellow guild member Debby Harwell will be teaching a surface design workshop in January 2012; details will be available soon. It will be a day class, and the price will be $35 (plus a small kit fee) for non-members. 

Don’t miss this opportunity to take a class with a fabulous teacher … Come and join us!

Headed to Houston!

I’m packing my bags and getting ready to head to Houston for International Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival tomorrow! Quilt Market is the trade show that comes before Festival, and it is only open to quilt shop owners and professionals in the quilting industry. It’s where everyone in the quilting industry goes to show off their new fabrics, notions, tools, sewing machines, and any product sold to quilters. I’m going to market my new book and DVD. 

My plan is to blog each night to tell you about what I’ve seen and heard. If you can’t be at Market, please come along with me on my journey! I always bring home some loot, too, and will be doing some give-aways … so you won’t want to miss it!

Please review my book on Amazon.com

Hey, if you have read my new book, Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art, would you consider writing a review on Amazon.com? I’d be mighty grateful! Here’s a link to the page with my book: http://www.amazon.com/Point-Click-Photos-Fabulous-Fabric/dp/1607052261

I’d love to know what you think!

I’m joining the artist hosts of The Sketchbook Challenge!

I am so happy to announce that I am joining a group of artists I much admire: the women of The Sketchbook Challenge! I will be one of the host artists for 2012. 

In January of 2011, Sue Bleiweiss and a group of other artists came together and started The Sketchbook Challenge as a way to encourage others to start working in a sketchbook, or revitalize their sketching, with the belief that keeping sketchbooks is extremely valuable to artists. 

Some of us are fiber artists, and some of us are mixed media artists; we all love to write about what we do! 

Each month on The Sketchbook Challenge blog, we will announce a new theme and then post images from our sketchbooks related to that theme throughout the month. The idea is that by providing a look inside our sketchbooks, you’ll be inspired to keep a sketchbook of your own. You can work in any medium you want, and create as many pages as you wish.

The other component of this project is that participants are encouraged to post photos or scans of their sketchbook pages, and share them in a flickr group. If you do, you put your name in the running for some fabulous prizes by the group’s sponsors.

If you have not participated in 2011, I hope you’ll decide to turn over a new leaf in 2012 and join me on this journey! Participating host artists for 2012 are:  

Jill Berry :  blog    /  sketchbook profile

Sue Bleiweiss :  blog  /    sketchbook profile
Pam Carriker  :  blog   /   sketchbook profile

Jane Davies  :  blog    /  sketchbook profile

Jamie Fingal :  blog    /  sketchbook profile

Leslie Tucker Jenison  :  blog   /   sketchbook profile
Lyric Kinard :  blog   /   sketchbook profile

Susan Brubaker Knapp  :  blog   /   sketchbook profile

Jane LaFazio  :  blog    /  sketchbook profile

Kelli Nina Perkins :  blog  /    sketchbook profile
Carol Sloan :  blog   /   sketchbook profile  
Susan Sorrell :  blog  /    sketchbook profile

Diana Trout :  blog    /  sketchbook profile

Laura Cater Woods :  blog   /   sketchbook profile

Gift of October: Persimmons

This is a sketch I completed today. Yesterday, I went out to take photos, because I really need a nice landscape photo for a class I’m taking with Japanese fiber artist Noriko Endo at International Quilt Festival in Houston in about a week. I am really excited about this class… partly because it is so totally different from what I do, and how I do it. Noriko is a master at portraying woodland scenes, and I was hoping to get a shot of trees showing their autumn colors. 

So I headed out to a local state park on a lake near me. It was a gorgeous, clear day. I hiked a bit, took some photos and was almost back to my car when I spotted the most amazing persimmon tree, branches bare, with its golden orange orbs hanging like polka dots against the cornflower blue sky. I must have stood there for a half hour, shooting up. Here are some of the best shots:

When you take photographs, how often do you look straight up? Try it! 

I love how the depth of field on these photos draws attention (and focus) to the branches in the foreground.

They were up so high that I couldn’t pick any, and only the rotten fruit had fallen to the ground. According to Wikipedia, the American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) is native to the eastern U.S. and is higher in vitamin C and calcium than the Japanese persimmon. In the midwest, it is the key ingredient in a steamed pudding, and sometimes its lumber is used as a substitute for ebony in musical instruments.

I am not crazy about the typeface I used in my sketch. It’s a bit blocky and heavy for this subject, I think. I enjoy using type in my sketches; I want to work on better integrating it into the sketches as I do more with The Sketchbook Challenge in the next year. I also need to work on ways to handle the depth of field issue. The branches in the background are too heavy, and too well defined; they don’t recede as much as they should. 

I also think I'll try doing something more graphic with the same photo… perhaps in a more limited palate of solid black, blue and orange. The wheels are also turning while I consider ways to use this photo – and my drawing of it – in something fabric related.  

Back in the saddle

I am trying hard to get back in the habit of sketching in my sketchbook. I joined The Sketchbook Challenge at the start of the year, and was doing great until my mother died in late January. But it is something I really want to do, so I will begin again! Here is a sketch I did today. One of my goals for next year is to do more pieces of fiber art based on my sketches, rather than my photographs. This one might be really fun to do!

I sketched this in pencil, then drew the black lines with a Micron pen, then watercolored it. October is my favorite month! Here is a poem about it that I love:

October’s Bright Blue Weather

    O Suns and skies and clouds of June,
        And flowers of June together,
    Ye cannot rival for one hour
        October's bright blue weather; 

    When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
        Belated, thriftless vagrant,
    And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
        And lanes with grapes are fragrant; 

    When Gentians roll their fringes tight
        To save them for the morning,
    And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
        Without a sound of warning; 

    When on the ground red apples lie
        In piles like jewels shining,
    And redder still on old stone walls
        Are leaves of woodbine twining; 

    When all the lovely wayside things
        Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
    And in the fields, still green and fair,
        Late aftermaths are growing; 

    When springs run low, and on the brooks,
        In idle golden freighting,
    Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
        Of woods, for winter waiting; 

    When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
        By twos and twos together,
    And count like misers, hour by hour,
        October's bright blue weather. 

    O suns and skies and flowers of June,
        Count all your boasts together,
    Love loveth best of all the year
        October's bright blue weather. 

– Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

Hudson River Valley Art Workshops

I’m really excited to announce that in December 2012, I’ll be teaching five days at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops, a unique art center in New York’s inspiring Hudson River Valley in the Catskill Mountains. Since 1982, fiber artist Kim LaPolla and her husband Mark (Chef de Cuisine and Chocolatier) have been holding art workshops in the gorgeous 1889 inn, The Greenville Arms. USA Today named their program “one of the ten best learning vacations.”

My workshop will take place Dec. 9-15, 2012. Treat yourself to an early holiday gift and join me! This five-day format will give me the opportunity to work with students on pieces based on their own photos, something there is simply not time for in a one-day class. I’ll cover fusible applique, wholecloth painting, thread sketching and free-motion quilting. Beyond the six hours of class time each day, I am sure we will be spending time in the studio in our pajamas, with lots of laughter and fun.

The lineup of teachers for 2012 is impressive: Pat Pauly, Gloria Loughman, Katie Pasquini Masopust, Sue Nickels, Melinda Bula, Paula Nadelstern, Carol Taylor, Laura Wasilowski, Esterita Austin, Susan Shie, Hollis Chatelain, Jane Sassaman, Kathyanne White, Valerie Goodwin, Charlotte Warr Anderson, Rosalie Dace, Jane Davila, Larkin Van Horn, and Sue Benner. You can see when and what they are teaching here. Information about my workshop is here.

Getting ready for International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston

What does this have to do with Market and Festival, you ask? Read on!

This past week, I have been busy packing up my class supplies and organizing to speak and teach at International Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival in Houston. Today, my life took a little detour because of the cutie in the photo above. (If you are interested in Quilt Market and Quilt Festival more than you are interested in kittens, kindly skip to the bottom of this post now.) 

I was on my way in to have my hair cut at my local salon, and when I got out of my car, I heard a tremendous meowing noise. My first thought was that someone had their cat in their car, so I started looking around. I saw a black-and-white kitten streak across the parking lot, and poke around a dumpster in the parking lot, so I followed. 


The kitten continued to meow incessantly – and extremely loudly! — like a little kitty banshee, and when I was able to lure it close enough, I grabbed it, went into my hair stylist, and asked her if I could come back after I had taken the kitten to my vet. She graciously agreed, I took the kitten to the vet and had her checked out, and she is now living the good life in the front room of our house. (While she was cleared for feline leukemia, she did turn up having hookworm, a common ailment of feral cats, so she has to be quarantined from our other animals for several weeks.)

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may know that our beloved cat Max was hit by a car and killed last summer. (You can read all about the amazing Max here in my husband’s tribute, but I’m warning you now: get your hankie ready.) Since then, we’ve been offered other kittens, but did not feel ready to adopt a new one quite yet. And our house felt very full with two busy children, a dog (Sophie) and another cat (Trouble). Today, fate decided it was time.

So now, while this new kitten – whom I have named “Wicked,” which my children both think is a horrid name — eats her weight in cat chow putting some flesh on her bony body, I will resume preparations for Market and Festival. If you are going to be there, I would love to meet you! Here is where I’ll be appearing:

Friday, Oct. 28:

12:10 p.m. – Schoolhouse session for C&T Publishing to promote my new book

1:55 p.m. – Schoolhouse session for Studioe Fabrics on attracting art quilters

Saturday, Oct. 29:
10-11 a.m., and possibly on and off throughout that day – working in Dolce Amico Pet Portraits booth with my friend Faith Cleary

Sunday, Oct. 30:
11 a.m. to noon – book signing in Moda/United Notions’ booth


Monday, Oct. 31:
All day — “Crazy Beading” class with Nancy Eha (!!!)


Tuesday, Nov. 1:
All day – “Confetti Naturescapes” class with Noriko Endo (!!!)
6-8 p.m. – IQA Winners’ Circle Celebration


Wednesday, Nov. 2
8:30 to noon – IQA Board Meeting 
noon to 2 p.m. – Winners’ Circle Luncheon
2  to 4 p.m. – IQA Board Meeting
5:15 to 6:15 p.m. – IQA  General Meeting
6:30 to 8:30 – Quiltapalooza

Thursday, Nov. 3:
All day – teaching “Wholecloth Painting” class (class is full!)

Friday, Nov. 4:
All day – teaching “Start With a Photo” class (class is full!)


Saturday, Nov. 5:
All day – teaching “Thread Sketching–Dragonfly” (class is full!)
7 to 9:30 p.m. – Gala on the Green

Sunday, Nov. 6:
11:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Open Studios (near Make It University)

I have four pieces at Quilt Market and Quilt Festival:

“Maximum Cat Nap” is in the Art Quilt – Miniature division

“Hope is the Thing” is in The Space Between exhibition

“Freckles” is in the Art – Painted Surfaces division

“Psychedelic Peacock” will be in Studioe Fabrics/Fabric Editions’ booth at Market

Win a “Modern Blocks” book!

Exuberant (page 62) by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Modern Blocks, a new book of blocks compiled by Susanne Woods of Stash Books (an imprint of C&T Publishing), will be out soon! This book features 99 quilt blocks from well-known designers — including me! That’s my Exuberant block above. Want to win a copy? Check out the blocks below, and read my note at the bottom of the post!

This book is chock full of some darling, sophisticated, cute, and modern blocks! All finish to 12" square. Here are some of my favorites:

April Showers (page 16) by Kirsti Underwood

Birdsong (page 24) by Rachel Roxburgh

Russell the Robot (page 156) by Sonja Callaghan

Missing Your Kiss (page 114) by Penny Michelle Layman

Binary (page 22) by Angela Pingela

Garden Lattice (page 80) by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr

All or Nothing (page 12) by Angela Pingel

Feathered Friends (page 64) by Melissa Crow

Windmill (page 198) by Lynne Goldsworthy

Leave me a comment after this post, telling me which block you like best, and why (and don’t try to butter me up by saying you like mine best!). I’ll pick one name at random at noon EST on November 9, and send you the book. Please note: If your comment doesn't show up right away, don't worry… it will! I now have to “moderate the comments” (read and say if they can post) because I had some very unpleasant pornography links showing up in my comments before I started moderating them!! WE HAVE A WINNER! Tonya won the book! Thanks, everyone!

Marianne Byrne-Goarin is the Aurifil Designer of the Month

Marianne’s free pattern

Allow me to introduce you to Marianne Byrne-Goarin of The Cinnamon Patch; she is Aurifil's Designer of the Month for October.  Marianne designs the most charming projects using Aurifil’s Lana wool thread. (This thread is a wool/acrylic mix in 12 weight. I have used it in wool handwork, and it is fabulous.)

I met Marianne several years ago at International Quilt Market, when I was oooohing and aaaaahing over her beautiful designs. In person, she is as lovely – inside and out – as her projects. Marianne is Irish, but has spent most of her adult life living in France. She is married and has three sons.

Pat Sloan has interviewed Marianne on the Aurifil blog. (You can download the pattern for her free project there, too!) 

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 tried working with wool in quilts or stitchery projects. I'll pull a name at random on Saturday, November 13 at noon EST. The sampler pack includes great colors in different weights. I’ll throw in a spool of Aurifil’s wool Lana thread, too!

“Psychedelic Peacock” is done!

It is done! I don’t know when I’ve been happier to say that about a piece. This one was a bear. Partly because I ran out of my favorite fusible adhesive – Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 – and had to use a heavier one, and partly because I underestimated how much threadwork I’d need to do to achieve the proper look for the feathers, and partly because of the size. It is 48" square, and has my favorite stabilizer — Pellon 910 interfacing — under the whole surface. I have stitched king-sized bed quilts on my home sewing machine that have been easier to wrangle under the needle than this one was!

I estimate that I spent at least 100 hours working on this piece!

I made it to showcase collections of fabric by StudioeFabrics, a wholesale division of Fabric Editions, a company in Greenville, SC, for whom I have done design work. It will hang in their booth – with other art quilts by some fabulous fiber artists I know! — at International Quilt Market in Houston, Oct. 28-31. Fabric Editions has been in business since 1996, specializing in packaged fabrics known as “pre-cuts” and “kits” which are sold into the mass specialty markets. They offer fabric collections, pre-cuts, patterns and kits to independent fabric retailers only.

Here are some detail photos:

This piece is based on a photo I took this summer of a peacock of a zoo in Colorado. (See earlier posts for more information on how I started this project.) I changed the colors of the tail feathers to showcase the fabric line. After tracing my photo, and blowing up the line drawing, I created pattern pieces for each element using paper-backed fusible adhesive. 

After fusing down the fabrics, I backed the quilt top with Pellon 910, and then thread-sketched the lines in the feathers using 50-weight Aurifil Cotton Mako thread. Once I added the batting and backing, I quilted the piece, going back over some of the lines in the feathers with quilting thread (mostly 40-weight Aurifil Cotton Mako) to make them stand out more.

I wish I had kept track of how much thread I used in this piece! I do know that I emptied more than 10 small spools of 50-weight thread I used in the bobbins alone.