Quilting Arts Blog

Go Green Quilt by Frances Holliday Alford

Opportunities Knock

Wanted! We have some very exciting publicity and publishing opportunities that I wanted you, dear blog reader, to find out about first. (Many of these aren’t even on the submissions pages yet on our website.)

1. Quilting Arts is actively seeking submissions for embellishment, mixed-media quilting, stitching, and anything related to art quilts “going green.” These could be quilts made of recycled materials, quilts related to preserving our environment, or quilts made of eco-friendly materials. If you have a submission idea and have pictures of your work, please email low-resolution GIF or JPEGs along with a query letter to us ASAP. If you are an art quilter who would like to be profiled, if you have surface design, embellishment ideas, stitching (machine, hand, long arm) to share, we also want to hear from you ASAP.

2. Have you had a chance to get your hands on the Cloth Paper Scissors Studios issue yet? (Probably not as it’s not supposed to be available on the stands until April 1st, but some stores are putting it out early.) We want to hear your thoughts on this issue—and being the nosey bunch we are—also take a peek into your studio space. If you want us to see your space, have a studio storage tip to share, ideas for studio articles, or have an extreme studio makeover story, by all means spill to us.

3. We will soon begin working on our Quilting Arts GIFTS issue available in September. We are actively seeking submissions that relate to the following: fabric art for home décor, quilted items that celebrate the season, art quilts with patterns, ideas for fabric stash and parties and quilt gatherings among friends, stitched or quilted gift ideas, stitched journals, holiday cards, needle-felted gifts, wearable art with a seasonal twist…you get the idea. If you would like to be published in our GIFTS issue, send us your ideas and pictures.

4. Watch out soon for our Cloth Paper Scissors Tea Party challenge. Okay, that was a teaser. There’s no link. I’m just checking to see if you’re still paying attention.

5. Cloth Paper Scissors is currently looking for the following: techniques for sketchbook keeping, ideas for handmade books, working with texture gels, recycling clothing and everyday items into art, thoughts on art and business, and mixed-media jewelry.

6. If you are an artist that has been published in Cloth Paper Scissors and would be interested in being a part of our Open Studios at Make It University! at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, please email Barbara Delaney. If you are a mixed-media business that wants to apply for a vendor booth at Make It University!(TM), please let Quilts Inc. know.

7. Lastly, don’t forget about our Go Green Quilt Challenge, deadline May 1st. Above is a Go Green entry we received from Frances Holliday Alford. Who knew dryer lint, candy wrappers, and Tyvek envelopes could be transformed into something so beautiful? (Frances has a knack for making beautiful things. Be sure to see her article in the June/July issue of Quilting Arts.)

If you plan on coming to Chicago for Make It University, please let me know in the comments area. You're hearing it here first, but we'll be taping segments for Quilting Arts TV on Saturday at the show. It will certainly be an exciting time, and we have some wonderful segments with guest artists planned. See you soon…

True Colors Mixed-Media Quilt Exhibit

"Illustrated Document No. 1" by Judy Coates Perez

Last year we issued a challenge to readers of Cloth Paper Scissors®, asking them to make a mixed-media paper quilt that incorporates a color or colors that reveal the true you. It's always a difficult process to select pieces for an exhibit, and with more than 200 vibrant quilts, choosing approximately 30 was very tough going.  However, we're confident we've chosen a beautiful, diverse collection of dazzling quilts for display. The following artists will have their mixed-media quilts featured in the “True Colors” exhibit at Make It University! in Chicago, Long Beach, and Houston:

Frances Holliday Alford
Flicsha Allen
Lynn Bland
Kathryn Botsford
Barb Brown
Sandra Champion
Debbi Crane
Elizabeth Dawson
Michelle Doucette
Kayla Fujimoto
Brittany Heskett
Patty Kehoe
Marcia Kerbl
Jane LaFazio
Kate Madeloso
Barb Mallon
Susan Mayfield
Jeannie Moore
Sylvia Naylor
Eva Nelander-Juntunen
Patti Pasteur
Judy Coates Perez
Gail Pierce
Ruth Rae
Suanne Reed
Christy Renken
Sarah Louise Ricketts
Deb Silva
Edie Simons
Sandra Spagnuolo
Barbara Sundeen
Terri Stegmiller
Bonnie Wedge
Beverley Wood

Congratulations to all!

Make It University!™ with Cloth Paper Scissors is one month away!

Just think: This could be you...

On November 1, 2007 from 12:00-2:00 PM,  I'll be holding a luncheon lecture entitled Surviving the Runway: The Ultimate Challenge with Cloth Paper Scissors at International Quilt Festival. It's not a lecture, exactly, but an interactive creative challenge that I promise will leave you in stitches.  There will be fantastic door prizes for those who survive the runway. No previous sewing or mixed media experience necessary, just a willingness to laugh at one self and learn a few things about mixed media along the way. There is a lot at stake: The winner will get a brand new Huskystar ER-10 needle-felting machine, courtesy of Husqvarna Viking, and there will be other fabulous prizes awarded to the runner-ups.

If you want to join us, I'm afraid the deadline is now, and here's what to do: Send a check for $29 made out to QUILT FESTIVAL, specify this is for Event # 465/Surviving the Runway luncheon and mail to:

Kim DeCoste
Education Manager
Quilts, Inc.
7660 Woodway, Ste. #550
Houston, TX 77063 USA

In other Festival news,  the Make It University!(TM) webpage is up and running. We're just a month away! If you are a mixed-media artist and will be attending Quilt Festival, please let me know. I'm very excited for what we have planned this year.

Call for Art--Two Special Exhibits

I wish I could explain my absence by saying I've been tossing back pomegranate margaritas on a Fiji beach, but alas, that remains a fantasy.

Quick blog post to let all of you clever, creative people know that we're coordinating two additional special exhibits for Make It University!™ with Cloth Paper Scissors® this April in Chicago and we want your art! You heard it here first: These two special exhibit opportunities have not been mentioned in the magazines, so please check out what we're planning and spread the news.  If your artwork is chosen, it will be prominently displayed on the show floor at the International Quilt Festival/Spring where more than 23,000 people will stop to oooh and aaaaah. It's also very likely that we'll be publishing some of the featured artwork in the July/August issue of Cloth Paper Scissors®.

The preliminary list of events at Make It University!™ can be found on this page, which will be updated with photos and more classes over the next couple of weeks.

Are you planning to come to Chicago? Post here and let us know! Cloth Paper Scissors® will be doing something new this year by hosting a virtual studios section for mixed-media artists. Virginia Spiegel will be screen printing, dyeing, stamping, stenciling, and painting fabric, and will be joined by our latest two cover artists, Debbi Crane and Cheryl Prater. More artists will be added to the line-up in the virtual studios section so I sure hope you can join us!

Countdown to MIU--Houston!

Make It University/Make It U! will be making its debut in Houston this fall November 2 - 5 at the International Quilt Festival, and I just launched the webpage with the schedule of workshops and events. I'll be updating it weekly (at the very minimum) with more information on vendors, descriptions of the workshops, and other news.

You'll see a workshop called "Surviving the Runway: The Ultimate Creative Challenge with Cloth Paper Scissors."  You can probably guess where we're going with this, and it will be a lot of fun for both those who get in the workshop and those who can watch on the sidelines! (We're howling around the conference table as we plan this.) Be sure to bring your sense of humor!

I'll also be on hand every day in the Quilting Arts/ Cloth Paper Scissors booth to answer questions, give demos, and help demystify articles and techniques that may still be a bit mysterious.

I really can't wait for Houston to surround myself with all those beautiful quilts; I look forward to this every year.

Hope you'll join us!  Be sure to tell your friends, and I'll pass along more information as soon as I have it...

Surfacing

We returned from Chicago late Sunday night/ Monday morning, and three days later we’ve finally chiseled our tired, groggy selves off the floor.

Thanks so much to everybody who joined us in Chicago last week. We were stunned by the sheer number of people interested in taking the workshops, and we’re eager to continue this learning opportunity and expand all aspects for Make it U! with Cloth Paper Scissors in Houston. People often waited in long lines to get the opportunity to take these workshops, and given the level of enthusiasm and eagerness to learn new mixed-media techniques, we’re planning on making the workshops in Houston even more accessible for everyone. If you either took a workshop or two, have feedback, or ideas on what you’d like to see more of, please email us at editorial@quiltingartsllc.com.

Everyone who participated or observed this unique area of the show was mezmerized by the beautiful work that you, our readers, created for the "Do With Me What You Will," ATC, and Creative Self-portrait Exhibits. Thanks again for sharing your artistic talents with the greater world!

I wish I had the opportunity to take more photographs but unfortunately I was tied up the entire time.  Sally and I did, however,  sneak out of the booth to take a few of these Saturday afternoon.

ATCs submitted for the Chicago show. I have some extras that I made so if you missed out and you'd like to trade with me (two ATC limit per person please), send your ATC(s) to QUILTING ARTS LLC attn: Patricia Bolton, PO Box 685, Stow, MA, 01775, and I'll send up to two ATC's back to you. (Trade Deadline is May 15th.)

Before the show opened on Saturday morning.The crowds were mind boggling.

No quilt show is complete without Marie Osmond! Ms. Osmond is collaborating with both OESD and Bernina, and on Saturday afternoon she was signing autographs and taking pictures in the OESD booth. Security was very tight and the lines were rather long.

Shelley Stokes, author of Paintstiks on Fabric, teaching one of her Make It U! workshops. Here, students got a sample of hand-dyed fabric, a rubbing plate, and a Shiva Paintstik.

Four-year-old Emma McCoy proudly displays her ATCs she made in Jill Haglund's of Tweety Jill Publications ATC class.

Here I am teaching the brag book class with Peltex Saturday night. I was surprised the class filled; I thought on a Saturday night after walking the show all day, most everybody would be heading out for a much-needed margarita!

And lastly, my TV appearance on local ABC news to promote the show.  Here I brought a lot of art work, including several of Beryl Taylor's mixed-media pieces from the Make It U! section. The anchor was blown away by all of the intricate embellishments.

Tomorrow we’ll be posting the 2007 Quilting Arts Calendar Contest finalists both on the web site and on this blog, so stay tuned.

Setting a Shipping Record

More than 2000 pounds and 80 boxes later, we’re on our way to Chicago for the International Quilt Festival/Spring.  I don't know who's more shocked by this record-setting shipment––the dog or the UPS guy.

I will try (key word being "try") to upload pictures of Chicago while we're there, and when we return, we'll post the finalists for the "How Does Your Garden Grow?" 2007 Calendar Contest on our website (we received more than 100 beautiful entries.)

For what it's worth, I'll be making a small TV appearance on the local ABC News in Chicago, this Thursday at 11:00 AM to promote the Quilt Festival, so if you are local, tune in (and wish me luck).

Hope to see many of you in Chicago and that you'll sign up for one of our Make It U! with Cloth Paper Scissors Workshops!

Patricia

Countdown to Chicago and news on ATCs

I'm so thrilled––International Quilt Festival/Spring and Make It U! with Cloth Paper Scissors® is just three short weeks away. I recently received the floor map of where the Make It U! section will be, and it's smack in the middle of the quilt show—wonderful as it will certainly draw the crowds. If you are thinking of signing up for a Make It U! workshop, I recommend signing up promptly when you arrive at the show, as the workshops are sure to fill up quickly. If you have absolutely no idea what the heck I'm talking about, click here. 

And I have news—most of the ATCs that were sent to Cloth Paper Scissors® for the Chicago trade will be published! (I'll spill more on that very soon.) And if you missed the March 6th deadline, and still want to participate in the trade and possibly have your ATCs published, here's some information that we posted on the Make It U! web page:

ATC TRADE UPDATE! 3/15/06
In case you missed the March 6th deadline to submit ATCs for our ATC Exhibit, there will still be a chance to trade your ATCs at the show if you bring them to Chicago. Please note this is a separate trade from the ATC exhibit, and your ATCs will be traded with the editors of Quilting Arts, LLC. It's quite possible your ATCs will be published (hence why we want to keep them), so be sure to include your name, address, and email on the back of each ATC.
Rules for this CPS Editorial ATC Trade in Chicago:

- You must bring your ATCs to the show and be present in order to trade. Do not mail them to our offices in Stow, MA.
- 5 ATC limit per person.
- Trading will take place during designated trading hours (to be announced soon).
- This ATC trade will only be open to the first 200 ATCs received.
- ATCs must be traded at the quilt show.

Now for some art…

ATC by Jill Lundstrom submitted for the ATC Trade in Chicago.

Here, it looks as though Jill took a vintage photograph, and added bits of torn papers and antique buttons. Very fun!

I dug through my stash of ATCs I've made, and found this:

I can't remember exactly how I made it, but my best guess is I began with a piece of hand-dyed fabric that I stamped with gold Lumiere paint and an Indian print block. I then outlined the stamped image with free-motion quilting. For the Fleur-de-lis image, I impressed one of Dale Rollerson's Illumination stamps into Model Magic (a trick I learned from Beryl Taylor), then after I let the Model Magic dry overnight, colored it with acrylic paints and finally gilded with Treasure Gold. I then glued the Fleur-de-lis image and four fragments for the corners to the ATC background.

I will be posting more ATCs and other artwork in the near future and invite you to guess as to how they were constructed (I find this to be a fun learning exercise.)

Welcome!

I’ve always been slow to catch onto anything hip (proven by the fact that I’ve yet to watch a single episode of “Project Runway”).  Yet I’d get email after email from friends and colleagues who’d apprise me that they were journaling on the Net, and for me to come visit. Finally, I gave into curiosity when Lesley Riley told me that I absolutely must read Loretta Marvel’s expressive and inspiring tidbits of wisdom or she’d smack me with one of her fabric books. From then on, my morning ritual was forever altered as I now wake up thirty minutes earlier, sip coffee in bed, and slowly wake to the musings of others.

Hoards of artists are putting out wonderful, insightful, inspiring blogs reminiscent of “morning pages,” or warm–ups––ways for artists to work out their artistic fears and discover their dreams as they slowly, word after word, psyche themselves into a creative place. I discovered that blogs were a way to stay connected with the larger artistic community, to share works in progress (one of my favorite aspects of blogging), and to get feedback from friends.

In this blog I’ll be sharing a little bit about myself as an editor/quilter and using this informal, relaxed venue to ask you questions and share with you what we’re up to at Quilting Arts, LLC. I’ll share sneak peaks on reader challenges and updates on submissions. I’ll also post some reviews on the latest books and products that we weren’t able to fit into our magazines. Lastly, I promise to impart the latest information on calls for entries and upcoming events.

Speaking of events, I hope many of you are making your hotel reservations for the International Quilt Festival-Spring in Chicago, April 7-9.  Make It U! with Cloth Paper Scissors  is shaping up to be an exhilarating event at this spectacular quilt festival. If you’ve never been to this quilt show, you’re missing out. The quilts are mind-blowing in their creativity and sheer number—everything from traditional to art quilts with all kinds of media, and aisle after aisle of vendors, selling a myriad of fabrics and embellishments. (I spend ALL my hard-earned money at these shows.)  And you’re hearing it on this blog first: If you send in up to five ATCS for the ATC Trade that will be taking place right on the show floor, whether or not you can come to Chicago to get your trades, there is a very, very high probability that your ATCs will be published––in a book, no less. So I hope that you can sneak some time in this week to make up to five mixed-media ATCs and mail them to us to make the March 6th deadline.

Happy creating,

Patricia