Win Diane Rusin Doran’s new Quilting Arts Workshop

My friend Diane Rusin Doran has a new Quilting Arts Workshop! It is available on DVD or as a digital download, and is called Digital Surface Design: Simple Techniques for Hand-dyedFabric Effects and More. 

To celebrate, Diane’s hosting a Blog Hop Giveaway, and I’m participating! There will be six winners. Each blog hostess will randomly select a winner from the comments on her blog. That person wins a copy of Diane’s DVD. One winner will be randomly selected from all the remaining entries to win four fat quarters of fabric that Diane designed using techniques from the workshop. 

Here’s the entire Blog Hop schedule. Leave a comment on each blogger’s post about the DVD – on that post, that day – for more chances to win! So please come back to my blog and read my post on Jan. 24, and leave a comment.
 

January 14 – Candy Glendening - http://www.candiedfabrics.com/journal/

January 16 – Sarah Ann Smith - http://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog/

January 21 – Deborah Boschert - http://deborahsjournal.blogspot.com/

January 24 – Susan Brubaker Knapp - http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/

January 28 – Diane Rusin Doran - http://oohprettycolors.blogspot.com/

“The Gift”

“The Gift” (20" x 18.5") by Susan Brubaker Knapp
Copyright 2014

“The Gift” is done. I call it “The Gift” because this is how I think about the sights and sounds I encounter on my morning walks. This piece is based on a photograph I took in the fall of a leaf on the sidewalk, when I was walking my dog. (See previous posts for a shot of this photo.) 

There are days that I feel incredibly blessed to be alive simply to experience these small gifts. It is a feeling I attempt to cultivate, because there are also many days that I can cave in and feel sorry for myself. I am a very emotional person, and feel things very intensely, as I imagine most artists do. I seek out beauty around me as a way of keeping myself sane, balanced and happy.

To me, there is something exquisite and yet breathtakingly tragic about leaves in autumn. They are going out with a bang, in an explosion of color and texture. Very soon they are completely dead, dry and brown, and then they are mulch. Like all of us, I suppose. 

Here are some detail shots:

“Every blade in the field – Every leaf in the forest –
lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.” 

– HENRY DAVID THOREAU –

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/leaf.html#3zgVKVxlX7PHFS6h.99

“The Gift,” coming along

I’ve been working a lot on my latest piece, “The Gift,” in the past few days, and I am pretty pleased with how it is turning out. It is based on a photo I took on one of morning walks in the fall. (You can see the photo in the previous post.)

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
Albert Einstein
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/gift.html#9V8DhLOI4g5RIS20.99

The photo below shows the piece partially quilted. Where you can see the dark shadows – from roughly 4 o’clock to 11 o’clock – it is not yet quilted. I’m using a wool batting on this piece (I think this is Matilda’s Own batting).

One of the great lessons the fall of the leaf teaches, is this: do your work well and then be ready to depart when God shall call.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tryonedwar391341.html#30tuv4UlGgTxUsth.99

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/leaf.html#FlS0mHpvujM969eU.99

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/leaf.html#FlS0mHpvujM969eU.

Here’s how it looked after it was painted, but not yet thread sketched or quilted:

With each piece I do, I am still amazed at how much the thread and the stitching transforms the painted fabric.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
Albert Einstein
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/gift.html#9V8DhLOI4g5RIS20.99

“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” —Albert Einstein

“The Gift,” in progress

“The Gift” ready for thread

This is a new piece I am calling “The Gift.” It is based on this photo of a red maple leaf that I took this fall on one of my morning walks:

This is a wholecloth painted quilt; it started out as white fabric, and I am using my favorite acrylic paint, ProChemical & Dye’s Transparent Textile Paint, to paint it. Here are some photos of the painting in progress:

Next comes the thread!

Quilting Arts TV Series 1300 is almost here!

“Quilting Arts TV” Series 1300 will be airing soon on PBS stations! 

The Quilting Arts TV website has previews of all the shows, a wonderful slideshow of images and projects, as well as links to sponsors, free Ebooks, and a link to the store to purchase the DVD or download the video. Downloads of the series are available today, Dec. 23. The DVD is available for preorder, and will ship Jan. 24. 

I appear in episodes #1301, 1304, 1311 and 1313. 

View a preview of episode #1301 here:

 View a preview of episode #1304 here:

See Lyric on TheQuiltShow.com!

 

My good friend Lyric Kinard was recently featured on TheQuiltShow.com with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. 

Through Dec. 8, you can watch Lyric’s episode for free! You can also enjoy all sorts of other things on TheQuiltShow.com during that time. And if you decide to join, there’s a code that gets you $5 off a year membership. Simply go to Lyric’s blog here for more information:

http://lyrickinard.com/2013/12/the-quilt-show-its-your-turn/

Lyric joined me last month to teach at my Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat. We are hoping to schedule a retreat together in 2014. If you are interested, simply go to my website, and click where it says “Click here to sign up for my e-mail newsletter.” I send one out about every two months, and it will give you information as we know it. (I’ll post news on my blog, too.)

Win Sarah Ann Smith’s great new DVD!

 

My friend and fellow fiber artist Sarah Ann Smith has a fabulous new Quilting Arts Workshop available on DVD or download. It’s called Art Quilt Design from Photo to Threadwork, with Fabric Collage & Machine Quilting.

When I watched Sarah’s Workshop, I was struck by how different Sarah’s techniques and preferred materials are from mine, even though our work is fairly similar. So even if you have viewed and enjoyed my thread sketching Workshop (Master Machine Stitching: Thread Sketching Beyond the Basics), you can learn a lot from Sarah’s. I know there are things I’ll be trying out, based on her suggestions, and I’ve already ordered an iron with a Titanium nonstick soleplate!

In Sarah’s typical practical, detailed fashion, she shares her process for fabric collage and “thread coloring” (using thread to add color, details and texture — what I call “thread sketching”). She starts with a photo that has good contrast and lighting. In the workshop, she demonstrates how she determine values in the photo, creates a pattern on a piece of plastic, enlarges the pattern to the size she needs, selects fabrics and enhances them with paint or Derwent Inktense pencils. Then she shows how she collages fabrics she’s fused with MistyFuse, and shares her thought process on selecting threads. After that, she goes into great detail as she demonstrates how she free-motion quilts.

Along the way, she offers tons of wonderful tips, problem-solving solutions, and her thoughts on “good fusing hygiene” and why she loves those tiny rotary cutters (she calls them “the sexy little Italian sportscars” of the rotary cutter world). Fun! 

You can order the DVD from Sarah’s website, or get the digital download from Quilting Arts. I highly recommend Sarah’s book, Thread Work Unraveled (also available in the store on her website). It offers a wealth of information on thread, needles and threadwork; I have a copy in my personal library that gets lots of use.

GIVE-AWAY!

I’m giving away a DVD download of Sarah’s Workshop. Leave a comment after this post and tell me a little bit about why you’d like to win. Please leave me a way to contact you! I’ll pull one name at random at noon, Tuesday, Nov. 26. The winner will be announced at the end of this post on that day.  

Note: If your comment does not show up right away, please don’t freak out. Please post only one comment. I now have to moderate/approve all comments, because I was getting a ton of Japanese porn spammers leaving comments on my blog! 

WE HAVE A WINNER! Christel (Chriss-Cross) from Noord Brabant, Netherlands, has won the download!

After my post, there are still a few more chances to win Sarah’s Workshop. Check out the last few stops on the Blog Hop here:

Nov. 27: Daphne Greig: http://daphnegreig.blogspot.com/
Nov. 30: Lisa Walton: http://www.fibreinspirations.blogspot.com/
Dec. 3: Sarah Ann Smith: http://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog/

Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat 2013

We had such fun this week at my Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat in Blowing Rock, NC! Lyric Montgomery Kinard and I taught two-and-a-half days of classes – wholecloth painting, beading, embroidery, thread sketching, surface design, and elements of art. This is the second retreat I’ve held, and I’m hoping to make it an annual event. Lyric and I are already trying to find a date for next year’s event. Here are a few photos:

We had a great bunch of women attending this year. They came from North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, and even Arizona!

On Friday night, Lyric and I packed up our stuff and headed home… we were able to fit our stuff on one cart (it took two to get our stuff in!)

Blowing Rock is a gorgeous spot in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is filled with wonderful shops and restaurants. A forest fire near Table Rock in Pisgah National Forest brought in some smoke on Friday. You could smell it in the air, and from a high spot at lunch, it made the mountains look like they were cloaked in heavy fog:

If you are interested in hearing about future events, please let me know, and I can add you to my mailing list.

A spectacular fall

Well, I’m back from International Quilt Festival in Houston, and I have a ton of photos to share with you, but not much time to write and post. So for now, I am sharing some photos of the wonderful fall color we are having here near Charlotte. I took most of these photos in my yard (that’s my house, above), and a few in my neighborhood. I am in love with the beautiful light, and the spectacular color! Wish I had time to start making some of these images into art quilts. I’ll try to post all of my Houston photos later this week, so stay tuned.

Why I don’t just paint

I’ve been asked a lot lately why I don’t just paint. It usually happens when I show people my wholecloth painted quilts before I threadsketch or quilt them. Believe me, I’ve thought the same thing myself. “Gee, it would be a lot faster if I just did this on canvas, and called it a day!”

I do think they are great in their unstitched form. Here’s an example of a small piece (about 7" square), called Suffolk Sheep #1, which I painted last month but have not yet stitched:

And here is a similar small piece, Suffolk Sheep #2, that I have just finished quilting:

For me, the stitching is where the real magic happens! Here is another version, Suffolk Sheep #4, which is much larger, about 20" square:

So that’s why I’m a fiber artist, and not a painter!