On the set at Interweave in Loveland, Colorado, to film a Quilting Arts Workshop! (Who me?!!!!)

Can you believe it?  I’ve been to Loveland, Colorado, taped a Quilting Arts DVD Workshop, come home (exhausted but elated) and I can still barely believe it.  Yes, I have been “on the set” filming this week.   Due out in September as both a download and as an actual DVD (which is wonderful for us who live in the boonies with glacial internet), the working title is “Fused Collage and Thread-Coloring,”  a Quilting Arts Workshop from Interweave Press!

The project I used for the workshop is my Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic quilt (No. 1) [there will be 3 versions before I’m done], but the workshop is to teach you how to use your own photo to make an art quilt:

Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic, No. 1, the start of what I will call my Quilting the Good Life series!

My trip to the airport was an omen–a good one–for how the trip was about to go.  I mean, look at the beginnings of sunrise as I crossed the driveway to the garage!

4:25 a.m., Tuesday: leaving for the airport in Owl’s Head (near Rockland, maine) just before dawn

It got even more dramatic just over the ridge heading to the coast, at the intersection of Route 105 (the Camden Road) and High Street in Hope:

Can you believe that sky? Makes me want to get to the dye pots!

The route in was equally stunning. Here, mist rising off the Megunticook River in Camden.

And ten minutes down the coast in Rockland:

And the sunrise over Rockland Harbor, en route to our little airport at Owl’s Head.

I flew Cape Air (maximum of 9 passengers) to Boston, then JetBlue (for the first but not the last time!) to Denver, where I caught the shuttle to Loveland directly to the Interweave studio where I met Helen Gregory and the filming crew.  There we set up my materials, hung the quilts, and went over my plans for filming the next day.  Congrats to Helen on her promotion to Vice President for Content, Interweave and Martha Pullen,  and upcoming move to Colorado!

My DVD will have five segments, so five trays to lay out my supplies which I prepped at home.

And boy did I prep.  I had about a month (shorter than usual I think) between my contract and filming date, so I pretty much did nothing but make step-outs, more step-outs, refine, video (to get used to talking to a camera and to time myself), cut/edit, cut/edit/shorten more, etc.  For a month.  Non-stop.

Make-up, first thing Wednesday!

Interweave has a make-up artist come do you up for camera, as there are special products that make you look right on camera under all those bright lights.  I shoulda shot a picture of me sitting at the table looking at the room…it was FULL of big tripods, cameras, and cables and cords EVERYWHERE.  Miraculously, I did not trip and break anything or anyone!

Reviewing my notes before getting changed for taping.

THANK YOU JANOME-America and Patty WInkelman of Quilter’s Stash in WIndsor, Colorado, for arranging a Janome 8900–the machine I sew on at home–to use along with a Janome sewing table. I’d never used the table and we were all impressed at how sturdy and stable and heavy it is. Of course the 8900 sewed flawlessly!

Then it was time to get changed and start taping.  Then we mostly forgot to take still pictures!  But here are some….

Me on the left, Helen Greghory in the green top, and I think that is Laura (webinars guru) on the right, hidden mostly by one of the cameras. We were getting ready for the concluding segment I can tell by what is on the table.

At the end, I asked to have apicture of four of us: L to R, Laura E. (webinars and more), Helen Gregory (new VP for Content), me, and Lauren our camerawoman extraordinaire. Camera dude Nick was taking the photo, and camera dude Garrett had already run off to another “gotta be there” job. Those lights were bright, but sure make things visible and looking good.

I never saw this view, but either Helen or Lauren kindly took this photo for me, which shows the jib camera shot of the table with my project and quilts on it:

The jib/overhead camera view. If you look in the center just above the right corner of the screen view, you can see the overhead camera.  Also notice in the backgorund it looks like the quilts are on an angle.  They are–that is to offset the perspective angle that happens with the big camera lenses.  Fascinating!

Then it was time to go home.  Early.

Before I arrived, Colorado hit 80 degrees (F). Wednesday, it SNOWED. When I left the hotel at 3:58 a.m. for the shuttle to the Denver Airport, it looked like this! Then by today it was supposed to be back in the 60s–that’s more insane than our weather!

I’ll spare you the tedium of a crowded plane from Denver to Philadelphia, a smaller more crowded plane from Philly to Boston, the utter hopelessness of Logan Airport (UGH UGH UGH), but flying home on Cape Air is always fun.  As we approach the mid-coast, first I’ll spot the Camden Hills:

There are two landmarks visible from the sky from a distance. I was in the seat behind the co-pilot’s seat (which is usually filled with a passenger). The first are the Camden Hills: Battie, Megunticcok, Maidencliff.

Then

The second landmark is the big white tower at Dragon Cement, visible dead ahead in the middle of this photo. I realized on this trip how massively huge the quarry is for this company.

As you near Dragon Cement, we turn right and head for Owl’s Head (Knox County, RKD) airport.  The lights of home!

LOVE being able to snap out all windows of these small planes.  Landing strip is visible just to the right of the bar up the center of the windshield.

Travel was the usual crowded insanity and waiting, but I was home 16 hours later to son, hubby, cats and dog.  Two of the seven are here:

Doggie love is GOOD!

In the past month, I’ve not only prepped this, but THREE articles (more on them when they are close to being published), have a quilt to make in a week, another article to write, then teaching in North Carolina in June and southern California in July, then a quilt to make by August 5.  Then I can collapse a few weeks before school begins (how will Eli be a SOPHOMORE already?) and fall teaching in Massachusetts and at International Quilt Festival in Houston.   So I HOPE to blog more often, but at this rate can’t promise.  I have so much to catch you all up on, pictures from teaching in Florida, Vermont, and Mass….but must be mom, wife, and author first. Stay tuned!

Prologue Alert:  I’ll be lecturing for the Silver City Quilt Guild in Taunton, Mass., on Monday evening, then lecturing for the Maple Leaf quilters in Rutland, VT, on Tuesday and teaching Hawaiian applique on Wednesday.  Hope to see some of you there!  Now on to the regular blog:

The S-word stuff returned in a snit of “no I won’t go” Friday afternoon.

Goodness gracious!  First a comment about the weather:  no.  No.  NO NO NO.  NO!!!!!!!  You see when I went up the driveway yesterday, midday, we were down to a few patches of snow on the north side of the woods (ergo always in the shade).  By late afternoon, it looked like this:

Opened the dining room window (no screens up yet) to take this photo this morning at about 6:30. Say WHAT? (what I really said is not suitable for printing on a public blog LOL).  Yes, those whitespots are still itty bitty SNOWFLAKES.  Snarl!

The weather forecasters said snow first, then rain.  Right…that means the snow gets melted by the rain.  So what is THIS that I see out the dining room window this morning?   NO!

And yes, in April at least SNOW is a four letter word.  It is lovely in November, December, January, February, we tolerate it in March because that’s what it does in Maine.  On April 13th?  NO!  Now, on to quilting.

As my loyal readers will have noticed, I haven’t said much lately.  Can you say busy?  I have four things going, all kinda big and hugely big (at least for me) going, and they are due just about every two weeks from April 8 to June 1, plus add in teaching in Maine in March, Massachusetts and VT this coming week, North Carolina in mid June, and three guilds in Southern California in early to mid July, and I’m basically flat-out busy from now until July 20th!  This is good, as I have precious little on the schedule for next year and the year after, so if your guilds want a quilt teacher, my motto (said with a giggle) remains Have paycheck, will travel!  (Does anyone besides me remember the tag line from that 1960s TV show Palladin, Have Gun, Will Travel?  Daddy loved it.)

So this is what my studio–which is usually kinda tidy because I can’t function in a mess–currently looks like:

Please add the large suitcase with quilts and the small suitcase with clothes to this heap for teaching in Mass/VT next week.

The sewing machine table…with about four things going on on top of it, none of which is sewing (at the moment).  Usually the only thing on these tables is the thread in use and my Machingers gloves!

The work table and ironing board. It looks relatively clear on this side because I’m working over at the iron, but the big suitcase was on the floor over there (filled with stuff for next week).  Again, usually clear with the drop-leaf down unless a work is in process.  Clutter bugs me!

Chaos.  Busy.  And drat it all, I’m not permitted to tell you about it, at least not yet!   But it’s all good stuff, it’s got me working and creating and teaching and all that, but gosh I wish I could share the details.

The third sports season has begun. The airborne kid in red shorts is Eli doing the triple jump. And as always, someone stands up right in front of me….

And (drum roll), Track and Field Season has begun for Eli.   The first meet was Thursday at Belfast, and as usual, it was COLD.  The breeze comes in off the harbor.  The upper 40 degree temps wouldn’t have been bad except for that wind. If I had had a sleeping bag, I would have been sitting in it on the stands!   Eli had one race (great last leg, so-so first 3 1/2 laps) but was so cold he couldn’t get going.  Did fairly well at javelin despite minimal practice times–the fields have been too sloppy for the discus, shotput and javelin because they’d splash when they land.  Sigh.   Did well on his triple jump (again without much practice due to field conditions).  But he’s psyched, and that’s good!  Now I’m off to a full day of quilt guild meetings.  Hope to share pics from teaching in Florida and up in Skowhegan, Maine, soon…..

And a PS…WOW.  Just looked at my blog sitemeter, and it tells me I’ve had 250,127 visitors from 190 countries over the years!   That’s more like total visits not individual visitors, but wow!  Thank you all for reading!

My son’s music, to be precise!   If you click on this (once the tab opens click on the orange arrow to play) you can listen while you read (and yes, it does seem like the blink of an eye since he was born).  Or this, The Piano Song.  But first….

My road to the hot place is clearly better paved yet again!  At least I have a good excuse:  great opportunities–which I am not allowed to blab about yet–seem to have been falling out of the sky at me in mid to late March.  I have FIVE “now or sooner” deadlines–well almost:  April 8, April 26, May 1, May 15 and June 1, plus another for early August, not to mention teaching stuff for Quilt Festival Houston in Fall and travel teaching jobs to Mass/Vt, North Carolina and southern California between now and early July!  That’s a LOT of good luck falling out of the sky, involving a lot of work, writing, preparation, travel and quilting.  Quickly.  So instead of blogging I’ve been working.  A lot. Sorta bad me for not blogging!  The pressure is a bit eased today as I have sent off what needed to be sent for April  8th yesterday evening, and with almost all of April to complete the next two items, I am feeling less  under the gun.  I can’t wait until I can tell you all about it… likely in summer and again in autumn!

Now for the music:

Our son, Joshua (of the quilt, here), is a wonderful musician.  He has had the music in his head since at least 4th grade (age 10), and has been writing his own music for a number of years.  He asked if I would share his songs with you–how cool is that?   He loves heavy metal, and writes what I call “crunchy” (sometimes head-banger) songs, but I have actually come to enjoy them– Gravedigger starts crunchy and gets really cool.   And most surprisingly given this affection for heavy metal, he writes the most beautiful quiet songs!  I hope to some day make  some teaching videos–both free short clips and a longer video to go with that book on bindings and edge-finishes that I never seem to get written–and he has already said I may use his music in my teaching videos!

There is a cool site called SoundCloud where musicians can upload their songs, Joshua (a.k.a. Joshwah) among them.  Here is the link to Joshua’s SoundCloud page.   Joshua also has a good sense of humor.  He has written enough songs to make two CDs (well, he burned two for me! not available for sale at this point):  Shear Madness (with face of sheep) and Pandamonium (with a panda).  Love it when someone makes Mama laugh!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Thunder Song—there is definitely a quilt in there.  One of these days if/when I get some down time, I need to plug my iPod into the dock in my studio and blast this out loud, get in the zone, and start creating!

And he’s been doing some really interesting things with audio clips, then composing music to go with them.  Here is V for Vendetta.

Joshua has taken guitar lessons, but is self-taught on the bass, acoustic, keyboard, and drum machine.  Basically, if it has strings, he can figure out how to play it. He performs and records all instruments himself.  Amazing–it took me about 8 years of piano lessons before I could pick out Mary Had a Little Lamb by ear.  The music gene clearly went from Mama directly to Joshua, skipping me!  Hope you enjoy this musical interlude!

Hi all, I’m thrilled to share with you news that I’m included in a new book on art quilts will be out by the end of April:

You can pre-order this beautiful book , autographed, from www.marywkerr.com

Yep, I am among the lucky 51  contemporary quilt artists to be included in its 160 pages!  You can order autographed copies of the book from editor/author/curator Mary W. Kerr on her website here; scroll down just a bit and you’ll see the link to pre-order.

The “blurb” says:  “Accompanied by 270 color images, fifty-one quilters share their love of the craft and encourage others in the field of textile art by offering design and technique tips. Design processes include color play, alternative fiber, threadwork, and embellishments. This book is a great resource for quilt lovers, textile collectors, and design students.”

Mary put out a call for submissions quite some time ago (publication is a lengthy process).  I am thrilled not only to be included, but to know that this book is people who may very well not be known to your or just coming to your attention–it’s a new generation.   I’ve admired the work of many of those included some for years and am so honored to be included in their company.   I can’t WAIT to see my copy!

Just quickly popping in to share a photo ot three before another week evaporates!   After returning from teaching in Florida, I left about 16 hours later to attend the New England (High School) Wrestling Championships with Paul and Eli, and since my return from that have been slamming on multiple deadlines between now and March 15th!   But wanted to share a photo or two, let you know I haven’t disappeared, and will be back with more.  First, the eye candy:

After class Tuesday, my host Betty Jordt took me to Sharky’s on the pier for supper. Shrimp and a sunset—perfect!

And a teaser about the class:

In my quilting design class, where we brainstorm ideas for tops folks bring in. Not sure who took these photos for me, but thank you! I forgot to take photos on Tuesday, so really glad to have this one!

And what FUN…. Rebecca H. from Camden is a snow-bird, and she and her friends traveled to Venice from their Florida winter homes to come to my lecture!  SO FUN to have familiar faces in the audience!  THANK YOU for coming!

With Rebecca and her friends just before my lecture to 200+ (!!!!) people.  I’m on the far left with Rebecca next to me.  Great quilters choose good colors LOL…totally unplanned!

Let me knock off a few urgent items (like magazine submissions!) and I’ll be back!