Quilting Arts Blog

Quilting Arts TV

For me ringing in the New Year often means a cozy night curled on the couch, TV clicker in hand, watching a frost-bitten Dick Clark countdown to midnight. However, this New Year’s is a little more thrilling… because that stroke of midnight means Quilting Arts TV will soon be making its debut around the country. Check your local PBS programming for listings, and if you don’t see it scheduled in your area, ring up your local PBS station and ask ‘em why not. (Check the new Quilting Arts TV website for more information.)

For a teaser, see the Quilting Arts TV show open (below). You may recognize some of the images of quilts—one key image is Jane Johnston’s last quilt before she passed away that she gave to the doctors and nurses that cared for her at NIH, as well as art quilts from the 2007 Quilting Arts Calendar. (Credits for these artists are given for Series 100.)

In just three weeks we’re taping our second series of Quilting Arts TV, and we have an exciting line-up of guests including Jane Davila, Judy Perez, Heidi Lund, Katie Pasquini Masopust, Wen Redmond, Ruth Rae, and drum roll…Laura and Linda Kemshall from England.

You may have noticed that the décor has changed a bit in these parts. Much more to come in the 2008 New Year. Until then, I hope you’re able to steal one last beautiful and creative day for yourself in 2007!

Warm holiday wishes from all of us at Quilting Arts

Whenever I'm in need of some holiday cheer, I pop "Love Actually" into the DVD player. I love the opening sentiment:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion love actually is all around."

This is such a heart-warming flick;I get the chills every time I watch people from all walks of life reconnecting and hugging each other in the final scene at Heathrow Airport.

Last night, while hosting our annual Quilting Arts party in my in-law's barn, John and I were overwhelmed with gratitude as we watched everyone enjoying each other's company.We are so lucky to work with such a talented, energetic, humor-loving staff, and it was wonderful to see everyone relaxing for a few hours after such an amazingly busy year...

 

Editors Barbara Delaney and Vintage Cate gladly exchange their red pens for some tasty Christmas treats...

From all of us at Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors, we wish you and yours a wonderful and beautiful holiday season.

Handmade Show & Tell

My, my...what a busy group of elves you've been this season. I was thrilled to receive so many emails with pictures of handmade gifts you've been making this year! Here's a sampling of ten gifts (randomly selected) that I hope will inspire many more of you to take The Handmade Pledge. Be sure to click the following images so they will open in a separate pop-up window.

"I made these mixed media holiday cards with Evolon in the center (imaged was stamped when Evolon was wet creating a resist) and Yupo underneath.  These were sprayed with color washes."- Joanna van Ritbergen

"This box was made from a pattern in "Embroidered Boxes" by Janet Edmonds.  I did my own thing after enlarging the pattern.  I lined it with blue satin. I used a white satin base for the outside covered with different fabrics and threads and thread painted in silver.  I then sewed it up by hand."- Jackie Russell

"This year I am making framed "Birds" for my sisters in law (all six of them!).  This series of  post card sized birds is created using  raw edge applique technique and building a collage on Timtex.  My designs are primarily from photographs and are all original, with over 30 in the series completed so far."-Vivika Hansen DeNegre

"I made this little fabric and paper piece for my sister.  It is of her son and it measures 9 inches x 11 inches.  I am just a beginner sewer and still need to figure out the hanging part for this piece."-Audrey Hernandez

"This is my original design; a quilted doll that I'm making by the bunches for the holidays.  It's quilted, beaded, and embellished with heat set crystals, and very easy to make out of a quarter of a circle."-Cheryl Sleboda

"One of my hand-made gifts is a notebook (small legal pad) cover created from brocade, a man's silk tie and raveled threads from silk dupioni, all done on an embellisher machine.  I've put the finishing touches on the notebook with some embroidery stitches, beads and the art doll face."- Julaine Lofquist-Birch

 

"This is what I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I began this three sided basket in Larkin van Horn's workshop using my printed fabrics, fibers, dryer sheets and beads. I will fill it with chocolate truffles! Merry Christmas!"- Linda Rael

"This Holiday gift is a bag made from felted wool, free motion quilted, lined with cotton, and embellished with Stewart Gill Byzantia paint. I made the handle on a Marudai. The beads are polymer clay."-Marie Johansen

"This sardine can was painted, embellished and a quote says: Godess of the frozen northland makes you glad you are a denizen of the Southwest. Made for a transplanted northern friend."-Shari Adkisson

"Here is one of my Christmas tree table ornaments. Various fabrics , some stenciled with gold paint then cut into different size circles and made into suffolk puffs. These were threaded onto dowel glued into a cotton reel. Then the trees are decorated with beads, sequins and a star on top. They are a quick, fun and my friends and students love them. Happy Christmas from sunny Australia."- Wendy Scott

Great going! For all of you artists out there, if you could receive a handmade gift, what would it be? I have bookmarked so many Etsy sites...if I get any dough for Christmas I know where I'm shopping!

Fa La La

On Saturday night I found myself with a free evening (yeehaa!) and made a set of fabric coasters to give my mom for Christmas.

I was inspired by Julie Hirota's article in Quilting Arts Gifts for fabric coasters and how Julie manipulates her photos in Photoshop, then prints them on fabric. I adapted Julie's technique a tad, and started out with a hand-dyed graphic print I bought from Wendy Richardson. I wanted to add more color to the fabric, and thought to fuse a sheer fabric on top with a print on it. Knowing my mom has a love affair with butterflies, I used Photoshop to manipulate a picture I'd taken last January of a butterfly.

After I played in Photoshop:

I printed the new image on ExtravOrganza, fused to the hand-dyed print, a piece of felt, and a backing fabric.  I then free-motion stitched parts of with gold metallic threads and sealed the edges with Lumiere gold metallic paint.

Hopefully she likes 'em.

 

Quilting Arts Giveaway

If you've made handmade gifts for the holidays, I'd love to post some of them to this blog. Please email me a low-resolution jpeg or gif file of one of your handmade gifts, explain in one to two sentences (max) what it is, and I'll randomly select 10 gifts to post to the blog and also give those ten artists a plastic bag of fabrics and bits of yarns I'm giving away as I clean out my studio. (Warning, most of these discarded bits are in a sad state and could use a little TLC in the form of stamping, screenprinting... you get the idea!)

What to do:
-Email me one picture of a handmade gift you are gifting for the holidays.
-In the subject write QA BLOG.
-Give a 1-2 sentence description.
-Give me your full name and mailing address in case you are one of the lucky 10.
-Attach one low-resolution (72 DPI) image of your piece.
-Deadline to email me the above is Wednesday, December 12th, 12:00PM EST.
-Check the blog next Sunday, to see if your handmade project is posted and to see if you get a bag of goodies.

Lastly, we're conducting a little research at Quilting Arts on sewing and long arm machines, and would love your feedback in the comment area. What type/ brand sewing machine do you own, and what are the top tasks you use it for? (i.e. Free-motion stitching, digital embroidery, straight stitch, etc.) If you have a long arm machine, please share what brand/model you have and what you love about it.

Great Finds

I love snowmen, particularly ones who get into the spirit of the holidays, and this one's complete with his very own party hat!

Isn't he cute? Sue Pelletier, a local Massachusetts artist dropped him off at Quilting Arts last week as a gift. Sue outfitted this little guy with a vintage tin pastry tip (the kind that decorates cakes) for his hat. His body consists of a glass jar lightly dusted with glitter spray and filled with baubles, his neck adorned with vintage letters (CPS) and a lei made of tinsel. We found out about Sue when she emailed us a submission earlier this fall for whimsical houses assemblages (which will be featured in the January/February issue of Cloth Paper Scissors––a peak at her opening spread is below). Sue is what we call in editorial land, a Great Find.

Speaking of great finds, I purchased something a couple of weeks ago on eBay for my renovated studio and I needed to pick the item up personally––near New York City. Since I had to make the three-hour trek to NYC, why not make a night of it? (As they say, when in Rome...)

First stop was Rockefeller Plaza to see the improved, eco-friendly Christmas tree.

Where we took a geeky picture...

And then I left John at the ESPN Zone to watch the B.C./ Virginia Tech game so I could hightail it to... you guessed it...Tinsel Trading.

Oh my Gosh...

I mean...oh my Gosh!

Card catalogs filled with buttons and beads in every drawer, towering walls jammed with trims, cords, fringes, and velvet leaves, every nook and cranny adorned with trinkets of art, tea-dyed tags, packages of vintage metallic threads from France, among other finds. I had less than 45 minutes before closing time, and with a racing pulse, I tried to make sensible purchases, but it was tough going. (I can't imagine what would have happened if I actually had an entire afternoon to explore this place.)

Later, we strolled through the Holiday Shops at Bryant Park, where handmade gifts from around the world were on display. (Being this was Bryant Park I had my eyes peeled for a Tim Gunn sighting, but no such luck.) The place was packed with mosaic glass furniture, hand-dyed silk scarves, knitted gloves of alpaca fibers, blown glass and soldered jewelry, hand-stitched leather satchels...you name it.

 

This was what I went to New York for in the first place:

I can't wait to get her all dolled up for my studio. Speaking of which, I'm in pitching mode and have a number of fabrics and books I'll be giving away. If interested in a holiday treat, check back soon as I'll be running a little holiday contest on the blog. (Hint: I'll be interested in seeing any handmade gifts you've been making this season.)