and ends tomorrow!  So move quickly if you’d like to participate!

Four Ways to Win with Foto/Fiber 2012

A quick reminder that Foto/Fiber 2012, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, TODAY, February 15, at 10 a.m. Central.  I am honored to be part of this event and hope you will support our efforts.  Prizes are donated by many artists and will be sent directly when someone makes a set donation to the ACS.

There are 4 ways to win with this fundraiser – one of which is that 100% of the funds are donated directly to the American Cancer Society through
Fiberart For A Cause. The other three are detailed here today.

For full information go to Virginia Spiegel’s website page dedicated to this fundraiser here.  Over the past few years, Virginia’s efforts to raise cancer research funds have surpassed US $215,000….that’s all because of one woman helped by a whole lot of women and men.  She called it FFAC:  FiberArt For A Cause.  I know that every one of us has been touched by cancer in some way, and I’m proud to help.  Here’s to Daddy, Charlie, Linda W. and to my many friends who have had cancer of some sort and survived.  Even hubby Paul had a skin cancer on his face… Daddy had lots of them, they are fairly benign most of the time, but that’s what too much sun on too pale skin does…. even if you can’t afford to participate in the event by donating today, DO go take a look and pass the word to your friends! Thanks, Sarah

Hi all…great news this week:  I’ve been selected to be on the Faculty at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas…as in: I’m teaching at the best show in the world! (I taught there are few years ago, and am thrilled and considerably less terrified now return… I know I can do it!)  I will have full-day classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, will participate in the Machine Quilting Forum on Thursday morning, and may well do a 30-minute “Meet our Teachers” demo on the quilt show floor (schedules permitting)  and participate in the “Friday Sampler” from 10-Noon.  If the scheduling for the latter two works, I’ll be demo-ing my fused collage technique at the “Meet our Teachers” and on Friday will share/demonstrate free-motion quilting!  And as always, Janome-America will be able to lend me a machine for my demos…yeah and thank you Janome!

Here’s my Festival schedule:

• Monday, October 29:  Fine Finishes–edge finish techniques; full day class
• Tuesday, October 30:  Birch Pond Seasons–fused collage landscape; full day class
• Wednesday, October 31:  Decorative Stitch Applique–learn to use all those fun stitches on your machine! Full day class
• Thursday, November 1:  Fun with Fancy Threads–the trick to metallics, holographics an other fussy thread; 9-Noon
• Friday, November 2 (tentative): Friday Sampler–free-motion quilting; 10-Noon
• Thursday afternoon or Friday afternoon (tentative)–a 30 minute demo at the Meet the Teacher area on the show floor
• Thursday afternoon or Friday afternoon (likely)–demo(s) at the MistyFuse booth again… love MF and Iris (the owner)!
• Saturday:  PLAYTIME!

Not sure yet if I’ll stay and see the show on Sunday, too… I just may given how busy my schedule has become!

I sure hope to see some of you in Houston and, even better, in my classes! When the show/class catalog comes out, I’ll post to the blog with pictures from the classes and links to previous classes I’ve taught so you can see student work.  FUN!

AND….. drum roll…. the portrait of my son, Joshua, has been juried into the AQS Lancaster show (March 14-17)!

The quilt is too small to fit into the categories for Paducah (must be 40 inches wide, and this one is 36 inches wide by 48 long), so this is the show for which it fits into a category.  I’m thrilled, as I think this is probably the best quilt I’ve ever made.

The Quilters Heritage Celebration show (now defunct) used to take place in Lancaster in March, and it was the first major quilt show I ever attended, driving up from when we lived in the metro DC area.  I love going there and hope some day to be able to teach at AQS Lancaster (which picked up the show-in-Lancaster after QHC ended/retire).  If I can just get my schedule clear for March then I can apply (currently there is a conflict with son’s wrestling season!).  Anyway, it’s been a good quilty start to the year!

The two most recent additions to my small collection of books on Welsh Quilts came from the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre.  Jen Jones, by the way, is an expat American who moved to Wales, married and has made her life there.  The first is A Towy Guide (according to the acknowledgements, the idea is/was a series of guides covering various aspects of Welsh heritage) called Welsh Quilts by Jen Jones.

Jen Jones' 1997 book on Welsh Quilts

Sixty-six pages and about 7×9 inches, this small book has a LOT of great information.  I just checked Amazon.com, but the price is a ridiculous $68 (US) and up, and you can get it for a reasonable price even with postage from the UK and a foreign transaction fee!  The chapters include:

• Introduction
• History
• Making a Quilt
• Method
• Types of Quilts
• Joining and Finishing
• Provenance
• Buying a Welsh Quilt
• Caring for Quilts
• Conclusion
• Blankets
• Types of Blankets
• Public Collections of Quilts and Blankets
• Bibliography

As an aside, I’ll note that Wales also has a wonderful weaving tradition, and for EONS I carried a Welsh tapestry (woolen cloth) coin purse that I think I bought in the UK in 1978; I recently found the little mousie made of the same cloth, and he’s now sitting on the small table on our stair landing.  Photos in the Towy Guide are both color and some black and white, but in all cases the detail of the stitching is wonderful, as is seeing the old implements used.  Antique quilts in the photos date back as far back as 1830.

The second book, Welsh Quilting Pattern and Design Handbook by Marjorie Horton,  is one that covers what I had most  hoped to find:  information about the most typical motifs and designs of the quilting.

Marjorie Horton's book on design for Welsh quilts

To my utter surprise, when I opened it up, Marjorie Horton lives in Rainier, Washington!   I googled her and found several mentions, and it appears she is still active in the Pacific Northwest and  giving lectures and teaching, but could not find a website or blog for her.   Although there is an Amazon listing, it says the book is currently unavailable.  Not quite–I bought mine a month ago, albeit from Wales.

Table of Contents and inside cover

This book, at least the incarnation that I have, is published by the Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre.  From what I’ve been able to gather, the book was originally self-published with a comb/spiral type binding.  All black and white, the illustrations are hand-drawn, which I find refreshing after all the slick graphics you see.  I love seeing the designs in Marjorie’s hand!  There is a TON of good information about designing your own, special things to note (like parallel lines to define segments), and a lot of visual imagery for various widely used motifs.

Sample pages from Welsh Quilting Pattern and Design Handbook

If you want to design your own Welsh-inspired quilt, as I do,this book is JUST what you need.  Now I realize that this may be a niche of a niche within a niche of a small corner of quilting, but oh what a find!  And if you love the quilting and traditional Amish-style quilting, I’m guessing you will find LOTS of inspiration in this book.

So I guess I might be well advised to read these books carefully, take notes, and start sketching, eh?  And oh yeah…dye that fabric so I have a 105 x 105 inch (about 3 metres to a side) top to quilt…EEEK!   On a sit down machine?  Am I nuts?  Clearly the answer is yes.  A hazelnut, please.

Another subject that is dear to my heart is storytelling, both in words/literature and in pictures/art.  Hockney touches on this in True to Life:  Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney, by Lawrence Weschler, p. 47 (also from Cameraworks chapter, 1983).

“recently I’ve been trying to figure out ways of telling stories in which the viewer can set his own pace, moving forward and back, in and out, at his own discretion.”

Later, on p. 50, Hockney continues:

“I mean, the urge to depict and the longing to see depictions is very strong and very deep within us.  It’s a five-thousand-year-old longing —- you see it all the way back to the cave paintings, this need to render the real world.  We don’t create the world.  It’s God’s world, he made it.  We depict it, we try to understand it.  And a longing like that doesn’t just disappear in one generation. Art is about correspondences—-making connections with the world and to each other.  It’s about love in that sense–that is the origin of the erotic quality of art.  We love to study images of the world, and especially images of people, our fellow creatures.  And the problem with abstraction, finally, is that it goes too far inwards and the links become tenuous, or dissolve, and it becomes too hard to make those connections.  You end up getting these claims by some of the formalist critics that art just isn’t for everybody—-but that’s ridiculous.

  “The revival of the figure with many of the young painters today testifies to the enduring longing for depiction, although the crude character of much of this s o-called neo-expressionist drawing testifies to the deterioration in basic  training which we’ve seen during the last couple generations.  I mean, training people to draw is basically training them to look.”

WOOOO HOOOOO HOOOO!   YES!  we can all be trained to LOOK by training ourselves to draw! I’ve been saying that for some years now–so nice to see it confirmed by someone like Hockney!  Folks in the 19th century, before the advent of the camera and/or before photography became widespread, could draw passably.  No, not everyone was brilliant, but this is a skill that CAN be learned!  (and a plug for a great book…The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards... I’ve done that through self study and hopefully will get back to going through it for a second time…yes, you can even teach yourself!)

And I love how Hockney doesn’t pussyfoot around—I too just don’t get the appeal of non-representational  art.  It just leaves me wondering “OK, what’s next?”  I know some folks love it, are inspired and create that way.  But I just don’t get it.  I like the story, the connection to someone.  Think about it…what would National Geographic be like without the photos?

At long last we got a light dusting of snow yesterday—it has been a balmy, mild winter here in the far northeast corner of the US.  Until yesterday afternoon (January 31st for heaven’s sake!) we could see bare ground in way too many places.  Better today…. though I am mystified how it can be 95 percent humidity when it is 23 degrees F (below freezing for those of you on C. scale).  But, that meant we woke up to this:

I love it when the branches are all white.....

So this morning when I went out to do this,

Mom! STOP taking pictures, I wanna GO! I smell critters!

I took the camera!  Since the snow barely covers the ground and walking is easy, I went up behind the house and took this shot:

From behind the house, the view obscured by white fog

By this time last year we had about 18 inches, not two, of snow!  But I love how sometimes crystals grow on the branches and dried grasses:

Isn't that just spectacular, those shards of gentle ice?

And the pine grew the crystals too

And I’m still obsessed with milkweed pods and Queen Anne’s lace… this shot could so easily be turned into a great graphic design for fabric:

Queen Anne's Lace stalks that didn't get mowed before winter set in

I may have to go try this photo again…. it is a bit hard to see the ice crystals against the background of snow, but I love the crystals and how the dried flower pot makes a cup or nest of snow:

A nest of snow

Here’s to hoping we get at least one good blizzard this winter.  I love staying home, snug and warm, reading and (if the power doesn’t go out) quilting!   Now, to get down to the studio.  Nope, breakfast first, THEN studio!