WOWIE ZOWIE!  See these?

Those are probably my two favorite magazines in quilting, ever:  Quilter’s Newsletter and Quilting Arts. And they BOTH gave my book great reviews!

When I first found quilting in 1988, I found Quilters Newsletter Magazine shortly thereafter.  I promptly subscribed, and ordered every back issue I could get, and have read ever issue since cover to cover.  That is 1984 to 2010 and still going.

Back in 2001, I went into the grocery store in Friday Harbor (San Juan Island, Wash., where I used to live) and discovered the second issue of Quilting Arts magazine.  I went home, called the phone number, ended up speaking with the editor Pokey Bolton (and discovered we both went to San Domenico School, albeit about 14 years apart, when we were kids) and subscribed.  I have read every issue of that one cover to cover.

Whooda thunk it…. BOTH my favorite magazines have not only reviewed my book, ThreadWork Unraveled, but given it GREAT reviews.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

In Quilters’ Newsletter (April 2010 issue), there is a four-page article on Staff Picks…and guess what number ONE is?  MY BOOK!

Here’s a closer picture:

To say that I am dancing a major Snoopy Dance understates things in such a major way!

And here’s p. 82, the Book Review section in Quilting Arts magazine, April/May 2010 issue:

And again, a closer view:

It is so wonderful when you worked hard to do your best, and then have others think you’ve done well.  Thanks so much… and Pippa, the managing editor of Quilting Arts, said the nicest thing… that I am at my best when encouraging others:  “the book’s most inspirational sections encourage quilters to use a needle and thread as they would a paintbrush and paint, creating fine nuances of shading and detail that can’t be captured solely with cloth.  Her advice ranges from the technical to the theoretical as she guides the reader through design considerations such as light source and coloring.  Five stitching projects are included, but Smith encourages quilters to experiment,”  Wearing my teacher hat, it doesn’t get much better than that!
WOOOOHOOOOOO….that shaking in the upper Northeast is not an earthquake, that’s me Snoopy Dancing and being happy all over again!

It has been a busy week, plus I was down and out with a miserable cold (that still lingers…not bad, just annoying in that it is keeping me from going full tilt).  The loveliest part of the week was the morning of our 27th anniversary.  I came down to make breakfast and get the tea kettle boiling, and found this:

Our anniversary dinner?  Spaghetti and meat sauce–carb loading, easy and fast–getting Eli and the rest of us packed and ready to head out the next day for more wrestling.

Then Saturday was State Wrestling tournament for Eli.   Fortunately, it was only an 80 minute drive away…some years it is held in the western part of the state (alternates year to year) and is 2-3 hours away…ugh!  Anyway, it was a challenging meet.  Eli may be in the most competitive weight class in the state—the top four kids (he was seeded 6th in the state) are all of a caliber that they could place in the top four in all-New-England tournaments.  In his first match, Eli went up against the kid who was seeded first, ended up being state champion in the weight class, and the State Tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler…that is for ALL weight classes, all middle school ages, voted by the coaches of the teams.  Here is Eli (in the red singler) doing his best to fight off the pin–none of us parents could figure out he could arch like that for so long and fight off such a strong opponent:

But he succumbed.  The 8th grade girl who beat him in his second match was good, and here they are grappling it out:

Our team didn’t fare so well, but they made it to states and tried their best.  So now, off to learn more in the coming year, come back next year (alas, all but the girl in Eli’s weight class will be back for another year in middle school!), and try again.  Good job to one and all.
Saturday morning, tho, was one of those mornings where EVERYTHING went wrong.  Discovered that Joshua’s amp had fallen over in the back of my car and cracked the inside back of the tailgate–my brand new beautiful car.  SOB.  It was really cold (high of 31) and the dog needed to stay in the garage as he would otherwise pee and poop in the house during the l ong day, so I took the plug-in radiator to the garage.  When I picked it up, the lip that I grabbed turned out to be a pull out handle, so the whole thing slipped and damaged the base/wheel.  Then the electric kettle I use about five times a day decided to die.  Then the older one was being a typical uncooperative teen and arguing, etc.  I had a meltdown before 8 a.m.  NOT a fun way to start the day.  Fortunately, despite the wrestling team losses, the rest of the day wasn’t awful.  So Sunday I read another Stephanie Plum mystery and hoped my cold would go away.  Soon.  More anon! This week can’t be worse, so it WILL be better.  And I WILL get prepped for teaching in Arizona in two (SHRIEK) weeks….

At long last!  There has been precious little time for making art quilts over the past few years.  What with family chaos, the hurly burly of every-day-life, writing a book and making all the samples, marketing the book, travel-teaching and whatnot, I’ve can scarcely recall the last large art quilt I made just for the sake of making it. Here’s a detail (you’ll have to keep reading to see the rest!  yes, I’m evil <GRIN>):

Last autumn, Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison of Dinner at Eight Artists invited me to submit a quilt for consideration in a juried invitational show called “Beneath the Surface.”  (Note:  a list of accepted artists is on their blogpost dated March 22…what fine company!) That means you make a quilt to theme and size (36 wide by 48 tall), and it still might not get in.  My first thought was…I have too much on my plate.  Then I realized the due-date (which always gets me in gear) was early enough in the year that I might actually have time to do it!

My first thoughts were underground waterways, roots, rocks, critters that burrow.  Then, thanks to the influence of my friend Kathy who loves the sea, I thought about under the sea.   But then I thought, no, everyone will do that…. I want to do a portrait!  Then I realized, it could fit the theme:  What is under the surface of a teenage American male?

I took about 65 photos one evening of my older son playing guitar, which is such an elemental part of who he is.  I selected two:  one for the overall body position, another for the face (angle of head, mouth closed, eyes looking down).  I ended up using a third picture because the proportions of the first two didn’t give me enough of the room for the measurements of the quilt.   Luckily, I finished on time and got in!!!

I’ll share the construction process (I’m always fascinated by how a quilt comes to life, but decided I’d show the results here, THEN show the process because, well, I’m impatient and want to share!) in future blogposts. So, here it is!

I think this may be one of the best quilts I’ve ever done; best of all, Joshua likes it too.  I was worried about the funky batik I used for the guitar neck, but when he saw it he said “If I could find a guitar like that in real life I’d BUY IT!” How cool is that?

My original statement for the quilt was (big surprise) a bit too long, so I’ll repeat all of it here:

What is beneath the surface of a 16 year-old male?  Some things are obvious:  music, food, girls, friends, food, school, guitar, food, video games, movies, girls, friends, food. Others are not so obvious.  There is the man he is becoming:  kind, compassionate, interesting, funny, breathing music in his soul, argumentative, loyal, passionate, tolerant, stubborn, smart, gregarious, curious, honest, loving and loved.   “Mom?  Can you fix me something to eat?”

Thanks to Moore’s Sewing Center (in southern California and online) and Brother International, who are sponsoring the exhibit at the IQA show in Long Beach, California; we are hoping the exhibit will continue on to the big IQA show in Houston in Fall 2010.  Thanks also from me to Iris Karp of MistyFuse for her generous support.  This entire quilt top was made with fused applique…MistyFuse ROCKS!

So far I know these artists have blogged about their quilts in the exhibit:

• Deborah Boschert
• Terry Grant
• Karen Rips
• Gerrie Congdon

Those of you who can, I hope you can take pics at Long Beach!  Enjoy, and again thanks to Jamie, Leslie and our sponsors!

In my last post, I shared the carving of the 12 x 12 inch sunflower block, and a while ago the first attempt to print with the owl block (about 4×6 inches).  Well, the Speedball water-based printing ink arrived.  I only ordered one tube, copper metallic, to test it.  Shoulda ordered more!  It prints MUCH sharper, cleaner prints–I’ll put side by side of the owl in textile paint and ink below.   But first…the sunflower…..Oooooh la la!

Here are the two prints I’ve made so far:

The one on the left is the first attempt.  Since the copper color of the ink is about the same color as the linoleum, it is almost impossible to tell visually by color if you have enough ink.  Clearly not.  The second print on the right is much better.  Oddly, thought the ink appears metallic in the tube, it doesn’t look metallic on the cloth.  Still, I really like it.

I ADORE this block. I was thinking of cutting it apart into three sections:  the center, the petals and the outside.  But what if I mess it up?  So I think I’ll keep this one as is, then carve another center and another ring of petals separately, so that I can print the block in different colors for each segment.  My mind is already racing on how I can use this to create new cloth, made a t-shirt, and basically have a ball. Here are closeups, first of the too-pale version.

This one will make a good candidate for overprinting with a different stamp in darker ink.  The darker print is much better, but I have to work on getting an unwrinkled “underneath”…I protected my padded surface with a plastic garbage bag that has fold marks in it, and they showwed up in the print:

In my earlier post about the owl, I mentioned that I didn’t care for the heaviness of the lines to the owl’s left:

So I removed some of the lines and tried printing again.  On this one also I had the same issue with guessing how much was enough ink, the first one being too pale, the second and third better:

Here’s a closer view of one of the better prints:

There is a learning curve, but I am moving along it, and this is GOOD.  And I can see having a lot of fun with this technique.

While watching the Winter Olympics one nippy Sunday, I decided to work on my lino-cutting class.  Our lesson was textures.  I thought and thought and didn’t want to do something like the teacher.  A friend of my older son LOVES sunflowers, so I thought hmmm….   love the seed-pod texture

of the center, the silky smoothness of the petals, so I decided to do a jumbo life-sized sunflower.  The linoleum square is 12 x 12 inches; i think the center measures about 6 inches or so across.  In the photo above you can see my pencil marks and the beginnings of cutting away the spaces around the seeds/circles.  I actually like this amorphous, amoeba-like shape so much I may make a few printing blocks that are similar to this one…like water seeping through the mud finding the path of least resistance.

And an angled view–by the way, I used a medium or small “U” shaped gouge for this part:

You can see in this photo the size of the block, and that I used some of my plastic quilting circle templates to mark the perimeters for the seeds and petals.

In this shot, I’ve begun carving the petals using a medium “V” shaped gouge for the outside, and a small “V” for the inner lines:

And again, an angled view (somehow the lighting shows up the carved bits better)–I just LOVE that center!:

In the next photo, you can see the carving jig I made.  Woodblock carvers use something similar, with a lip on the close-to-the-body edge so it snugs against the table.  My jig is larger (to accommodate the large lino blocks) and lacks the lip… I find I like to angle the block, so wanted to be able to turn the jig.  Since doing this one, tho, I discovered I can take an extra strip of the molding I used to make the edge/frame and put it at an angle on the inside, so I may add a lip after all.  Having cut myself on my first effort, I now have a wary respect for how sharp the carving tools are! The safety from using a well-made, well-designed jig are well worth the minimal cost (about $10 for the supplies, tho still need to buy some felt to glue to the bottom).

In the photo above, you can also see that I have begun carving away the outside in a flame-like pattern.  By this time I’d been cutting for several hours, and my hands began to ache, so I took a break and finished it the next day (which was also Spring Break and more of the Olympics television marathon). Finally, carving DONE!

And the angle view:

Can you tell I’m having fun?  Then I had to wait for an order with some Speedball ink to arrive.  My textile paints aren’t working as I would like  for the printing, so we’ll see if the Speedball water-soluble ink works any better.  It can apparently be heat-set and made permanent….. time for more testing?

If you think you’d be interested in taking this class online,  contact Dijanne Cevaal who is (I mentioned this earlier, forgive me for repeating it here) originally from the Netherlands, immigrated to Australia and lived there most of her adult life, travelled to the middle East and is currently living, at least for a while, back in Europe.  Consequently, we have a glorious around-the-world group in our class.  You can contact her by using the link in the sidebar (to the left) which will take you to her blog.