Thanks to Bill Reker, the Traveling Exhibit Coordinator, for forwarding these images of the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) exhibit Food for Thought on display in Australia, and thanks to the person who sent him the pictures.  The exhibit was on display in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.  The AQC, Australian Quilt Convention (Conference?) is held in a building of breathtaking beauty.  I’ve decided that whenever I finally in this life ever get to Australia, I have to go during AQC just so I can see this building!

My “tomatoes” quilt, Insalata, on display at the AQC. LOVE that it is facing the center in a prime spot, and love the black walls on which the works are displayed.

Here’s another shot of the overall exhibit:

Don’t you just want to BE in this space? Insalata and other works in the Food for Thought exhibit are visible at the far end.

And one more…some day I really must get to Australia and New Zealand!

The best shots, for me, of my quilts when traveling are “neighborhood” shots–not just *my* quilt, since I already know what it looks like, but ones that show the context. Even better, when someone likes my work enough to get up and look at it closely–like the lady taking a detail photo! Woot!

A snuggle quilt

I honestly don’t know how long I had the fabric for the two lap quilts I just made.  Maybe 18 months ago (?) Joshua’s sweetie Ashley asked if I could make a lap quilt from some of her Grandmother’s clothes.  Of course I said yes!   Her gramma had died recently, and Ashley’s mom, Sue, was really missing her.  I looked up some quilts on the internet, hoping for a pieced pattern that would work for a scrappy quilt, look good, yet not take a ton of time to assemble.

When Thanksgiving rolled around and her mom came up to Maine for the holiday, she brought with her….gulp…three white kitchen garbage bags FULL of clothes:  turtlenecks, sweatshirts, fleece tops, a fleece bathrobe and a couple of nighties.   Oh.  My.  Not a single woven anything.  Wish I had taken pictures before I began the deconstruction process!

These are just a few of the leftovers!!!! Yes, that is one of those huge IKEA bags. I started with the equivalent of three of those!

And Sue asked if I could make two quilts, not one–one for her and one for her brother.  Sure!   I showed Sue the images of quilts I’d found and she picked the square in a square design you see above.   The original was quite scrappy, and went from lights in the center to mediums to darks, with a half-drop on the columns.  Alas, I seem to have deleted the original photo, plus I don’t know where I saw it anyway!

The second quit, on my sewing table. It is about 60×66 inches finished.

Well, let me tell you–the lesson is to make sure FIRST what the fabrics are.   Then see if you can ask (I didn’t) if you could buy and use something woven for the back.   I didn’t fully realize how much time it was going to take to prepare the fabrics.  First I had to cut apart the shirts and sweatshirts and nighties.   Then I figured out how I could maximize the fabric in the body and sleeves.   I cut those bits a bit oversized and, having made a trip to Joann’s Fabrics with a fifty percent off coupon to buy a bolt of tricot interfacing, I starting fusing the interfacing to the stretchy turtleneck fabric. Then I made another trip to Joann’s and bought another bolt (almost used up).

FINALLY, I could start cutting out the pieces.  I decided given the fabric, it would be best if I used a 3/8″ seam (from needle to edge of walking foot) and pressed the seams open.  And I decided to use only turtlenecks and nighties for the top, leaving the sweatshirts I had deconstructed for the backs.   I sorted and stacked.  I sewed blocks, trying not to duplicate any pairing of fabric.   I realized that I had lights and darks, but no mediums.  OK, the point of this quilt is love and family, not duplicating a picture from the internet.  Mental adjustment.

Once I got to sewing, it went fairly quickly:  sewing the blocks for and assembling the two tops took less time (by quite a bit) than prepping the fabric!   I divided the blocks into two pretty equal piles and started plopping them on the design wall.  Turned out I had enough for two very similar quilt tops six by seven blocks (they are about 9.5 inches finished).

Next:  backing.  I laid out the sweatshirt fabric:  enough for one backing.  So I also cut apart the fleece tops.  I decided to make one quilt with only sweatshirt fabric, the other with only fleece, to avoid “bad behavior” on the part of the fabrics.

Laying out the fleece for the second backing

I cut batting (poly needle punched from Quilters Dream) a little larger than I needed.  Then I sewed the larger squares to the batting batting by overlapping the edges and using a zigzag to join the “seam” and attach it to the more stable batting.  Regular seams would have been ridiculously bulky and stiff.  I didn’t interface the backing as the quilt was going to weigh a ton already, plus I didn’t think the interfacing would stay stuck long enough to do any good.

I used the walking foot (thank heavens) on my Janome 15000 (thank you again to Janome America for their support and the loan of this phenomenal machine) to quilt a spiral from the center out, then switching to straight lines in the dark border.  I used a variegated light color for the center, and a purplish variegated for the outside (Superior Threads).

Quilting in progress….it was a workout

The two lap quilts, the one with the sweatshirts on the back is on the right, back side up. Can I just say it weighs a flipping TON!

The two quilts, the one with fleece on the back folded and on top of the other one.

The only thing from those three big bags I did not use was the green fleece bathrobe!  I have a few sorta larger pieces of fleece left, and then stuff like the cuffs and top of shirts left.  And oh….I used a dark blue solid for the binding.   Done!

The slivery bits too small to use for anything else–yes, my garbage in my studio is one of those big garden tubs!

I’m so glad they are done, and so glad I was able to make them.   It will be a while, though, until I do another something like this–I may need to lift weights to be ready for the quilting process!  Eli may want a t-shirt quilt for college, but I’ve already told him, it must have woven cotton sashing on the front and a regular quilting cotton on the back!   I’m really looking forward to being able to give these to Sue (or have the kids take them down to Connecticut to her) and really, really hope she and her brother like them and enjoy being snuggled in a “hug” from their mom / mom’s quilt!

That great Whooshing sound is, once again, time evaporating…which is most appropriate because the WHEE is about an exhibit called “A Matter of Time.”  Curated by Brenda Gael Smith of Copacabana, Australia, it is going to be as wonderful as her previous exhibit (that I was also most fortunate to be in) called Living Colour Textiles.

A detail of my quilt, Milkweed No. 2. To see the blog for the exhibit, visit http://www.amatteroftimetextiles.com

Brenda has given a sneak peek in her blogpost, here.  I’ve been fortunate to see a draft of the catalog for this exhibit, and I am fascinated and inspired by the many interpretations on the theme.  I wish I could post myself off to Australia to see it in person.  The exhibit will debut at the Stitches & Craft Show in Sydney: 3-6 March 2016.  Sigh……

In the meantime, I have been insanely busy with good and sad.  For the past 18 months or so I’ve been working on a granny quilt for Joshua’s sweetie’s mom.  Ashley’s gramma died rather young (all things considered), so Ashley’s mom asked if I would make a lap quilt of her clothes.  Of course I said yes!  Then I discovered it was all turtlenecks, sweatshirts and fleece.  Oh.  My.  I’ll blog about that in a couple days.

This past week, my dear tiger tabby cat, Tyger Dumpster Smith, finally succumbed to what had been ailing him for the past year or two.

Tyger, a shadow of his former sleek and handsome self, in his last minutes on earth

You might wonder about his name.  When I was very little, about 3-4, I stayed for several months with my gramma and mom.  Down the street lived an orange tabby named Tiger, which I pronounced Tigah.  I always wanted a tiger cat.  In October 2000, I got my chance.  We were living on San Juan Island.  At the time we wanted to be adopted by another cat, the on-island shelter couldn’t adopt out cats due to a kitty-flu amongst their animals, so I went to the Skagit Valley animal shelter on the mainland.   Someone had rescued him two days previously; he was found tied up inside a plastic bag, under a tarp, in a dumpster (there is a special place in hell for the person who put him there).  Well, obviously he selected me.   The spelling of Tyger comes from the William Blake poem

And his middle name reminds us how lucky we all were that someone heard his tiny kitten squeaks and rescued him. He purred until his very last, calm breath.  Sniff.  Now I need another tissue.

Last scritchesSo it was a sad week last week.  

Tyger’s collar

And in the meantime, I’ve been doing our taxes early so we could get all of Eli’s financial aid applications in (which followed getting in all of his college applications).  The system is better than when I applied–you do it online and most schools used a standardized form so you don’t have to write 70,000 different things, but it is still a beast and a burden to do.

Those lovely chores were completed this morning!  UGH!

So….drum roll….I got to mess with my weekly photo challenge and work on some designs for thermofax screens for a couple new art quilts.  At long LAST!   So I’ll share more as I can.  For now, please do visit A Matter of Time Textiles blog and enjoy!

A few days ago, I shared with you the happy news that Milkweed No. 2 is heading to Australia and New Zealand to be a part of “A Matter of Time,” and exhibit curated by Brenda Gael Smith.  Brenda is blogging sneak peeks on the blog.

Milkweed pod, seeds and silks detail

I thought I’d share a few more bits of my process, especially because I will be demoing and teaching a class at Houston that incorporate these techniques.

In an effort to reduce the labor-intensive process of quilting the surface of my works at 1/8″ apart over nearly the entire surface, I’ve started adding some surface design.

A couple years ago, I designed some Thermofax screens and had them made by Jan and Kristen at Fiber on a Whim.  They asked if I would be interested in selling the designs, and I quickly said Yes!   Here are three of my favorites:

On the photo above, I have used textile paint and my “celery” screen to help blend the collaged batiks and hand-dyes.

My alphabet screen was used on some rather plain brown hand-dyed (by me) fabric then cut into bits to use in the quilt in addition to using batiks.

I mixed up some transparent textile paints–I use Versatex, Jacquard and ProFab–to screen print over the already collaged/fused background pieces.

Next came the second round of screen printing, using my Squiggles screen, putting a darker green over the yellow-green I used for the celery.

I simply adore this screen. Add this to the top of any fabric–a plain tone on tone, hand-dye or batik and you’ve got great texture that can be blend or contrasty as you need.

I’ll be teaching some of this process in the Saturday Sampler where I will demonstrate working on your own personalized cloth as well as in my “Nest” class (you can see a bit about that here).

I also did a bit of stenciling using freezer paper and two colors of white.

If you’d like to order those screens, visit Fiber on a Whim! Better yet, if you can come play with me in my classes at Quilt Festival in Houston this coming autumn!

A student learning to Thread-Color the Garden  (class listed at Sarah Ann Smith Classes just scroll down)

It is so heartwarming to receive feedback such as this from your students:

“Sarah, Your class was really great and I learned a lot. You are an engaging teacher with down to earth instructions and entertaining anecdotes. Thank you so much for traveling all the way to Greenville! – Joanna”

and from Emily who organized the class, “I want to share that I’ve heard wonderful reviews of the technique along with praise for your teaching style from lots of the women.  “Very informative”, “Encouraging”, “Addictive,”  “Practical,” and “Approachable” are just a few of the accolades!  I personally want to thank you for making the journey north and sharing with all of us.”

Comments like these are the greatest reward of teaching!  Thank you Emily G., Joanna and all my students in Greenville!   I’d love to return–and as long as it isn’t sports season for Eli I’ll bring chocolate chip cookies for all (one of the benefits of teaching in driving distance from home–more quilts and food!).

Class in a church basement in Greenville (southern edge of Moosehead Lake in northern Maine)

A student ironing behind the “goodies” table

a Practice snippet before students worked on the main image for learning to thread color

Learning how to blend thread colors. Instead of worrying about messing up a quilt top, work on a printed photo!