First: THANK YOU to Katherine McNeese for purchasing A Sense of Place: The Tree (see previous posts) on the first day of the FiberArts for A Cause Reverse Auction at the premium Gold Donor level. I am so totally blown away! Thanks to her generosity in purchasing my quilt and one by Scott Murkin, the FFAC has raised nearly $3000 for cancer research already. I just hoped my quilt would sell, let alone on the first day! WOW. Thanks to Virginia for giving us all this opportunity, and to Katherine for her generosity in including my quilt in her collection.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging!

In this excerpt from Aimone’s “Design!” book, he discusses Visual Elements:

“Think of visual elements as the raw materials you use in design. As you select and position them in a design space, they join with others to form a group or community of elements that relate to one another. These relationships create your finished design. Visual elements fall roughly into five categories: line, mark, shape or form, and color.” )p. 32

and

“A line is the recorded movement of a dot on its journey from one point to another.” p. 33

More on line in the next post from this book……

Just a friendly reminder: the Fiberart For A Cause, fundraising for the American Cancer Society, is back
in action with the 2007 Invitational Reverse Auction and begins tomorrow, Friday, March 9th! The quilt below (shown hanging on a black drape) is my contribution to the cause.

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACS/ReverseAuction2007.html

Featuring fiber art donated by Jane Davila, Jamie Fingal, Mary Beth Frezon,
Lynn Krawczyk, Heidi Miracle-McMahill, Carol Moore, Scott Murkin,
Cynthia St. Charles, Sarah Ann Smith and Elin Waterston, the Reverse Auction
runs March 12-16. The quilt above is my donation to the cause. Surf in to the link above to see all the fabulous pieces!

Artwork begins at a fixed price and is reduced by a fixed percentage each
day. Wait too long and the artwork you want will be gone. 100% of the
proceeds are donated to the American Cancer Society.

Wow…that was fast! The class at Mystic Maine Quilts in Gardiner in late April is full! So we have added another Machine quilting class tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 10. If the students are able to meet on a weekday, however, we will switch that to a mid-week day.

Wrestling update: Joshua “won” one match tonight by default (no one on the opposing team in his weight class) and “lost” one, on points. However, this was an awesome feat: His opponent, Brandon Rich from the Hope-Appleton-Lincolnville team is the State champion in his weight class last year, and took second place in the all-New Englands (SIX states!) last April! The fact that Joshua was able to avoid being pinned is really something. I think if Joshua had had to wrestle Brandon last year he would have been pinned before he realized the buzzer had finished sounding.

Weather update: It warmed up today, to two digits…we hit a high of 18! Tonight, a low of about 2, and tomorrow back to single digit highs and below zero night temps. Then, 48 hours later, we’re supposed to be highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s for the next week. Crazy! At least the ice rink on our driveway should finally melt….

Hi all! March will be a busy month with Joshua in wrestling meets every Saturday and Eli in a karate tournament at the end of the month, so my next classes will be in April, which is going to get VERY busy! This is a good thing!

I’m happy to say my venues for teaching have increased by one to include Mystic Maine Quilts in Gardiner, near Augusta. For all of these stores, please contact the store directly to reserve and pay for a spot in the class. Nobleboro classes (207-563-8445) are usually 10-4, Cote Brothers/Auburn classes are 9:30-3:30 (207-782- 5922, and the one at Mystic Maine Quilts (207-582-0312) in Gardiner is from :30 to 3:30 also (Bring a bag lunch if you’d like…I usually stay in the class area to help students work as much as they wish).

April 21, Saturday: Machine Quilting at Maine-ly Sewing, Nobleboro
April 22, Sunday: Machine Quilting at Mystic Maine Quilts, Gardiner
April 28, Saturday: Postcards at Cote Brothers, Auburn
May 19, Saturday: Machine Quilting at Maine-ly Sewing, Nobleboro
May 20, Sunday: More Machine Quilting with Decorative Threads at Cote Brothers, Auburn
June 16, Saturday: demonstrating machine quilting at the Saco Art Museum, part of the Art Quilts Maine exhibit
June 23, Saturday: Decorative Stitch Machine Applique at Cote Brothers, Auburn
to see the sampler I made for this class, click here . It is a great way to learn how to use all those fun stitches on your machine!

summer highlight:
August 2-29: The Frayed Edges group show at the Camden Public Library, at the corner of Main Street (Hwy. 1) and Atlantic Street in downtown Camden, Picker Room.
August 11: Meet the artists reception, 1-4 p.m.

and in fall:
October 19, Friday evening: “With a Dash of Color,” trunk show and color lecture at the Amoskeag Quilters Guild, Manchester, NH
October 20, Saturday: Class for Amoskeag Quilters

Last Wednesday I had the good fortune to be invited to give my trunk show, “With a Dash of Color,” to the Island Quilters of Southwest Island, Mount Desert Island, Maine. Many of you may have heard of Acadia National Park, which takes up a good portion of the island, and Bar Harbor, the more well-known town there. Even in the tail end of winter, it is beautiful up there!

On the way up Highway 1 (the old Atlantic Coast Highway), I was able to cross the new “Narrows” bridge at Bucksport. It is the awesome new structure in this photo, with the old bridge (which will come down eventually) behind it. Unlike other suspension bridges I’ve been on where the cables are on the outside edges of the bridge, here the cables are in the center, with a lane of traffic on either side (leaving me feeling exposed and skittish driving across!).

For once, I remembered to take pictures of my set-up before the talk, with my quilts laid out on the tables, and for-sale items on the right along with my journal quilts.

Have I said recently how I love the internet? Turns out I was invited to speak because Maggie…in this picture in the red shirt taking a picture of me taking a picture of her!….has a friend in Florida who knows me and my work from being on the Janome 6500/6600 yahoo group! So here I am, just under 100 miles away from Southwest Harbor, connected by someone well over a thousand miles away!

The trunk show is just that: my life in quilts, from my earliest pieces to my most recent. But, I thought if I’m going to be paid for talking about my own work, the least I can do is teach folks a little something while I’m at it. So, I incorporated a lesson on working with color into it. Instead of sorting the quilts chronologically, I have sorted them by color schemes: achromatic (black-white-gray), monochromatic (one color), analogous (next to each other on the color wheel), triadics (red-yellow-blue or orange-green-purple), double complementary and polychromatic / rainbow.

Long-time visitors to this blog may remember that I did a tutorial series on color a while back; if you’d like to look at it, visit the February 2007 archive. Scroll down to February 17 and work your way forward in time!

After the talk, folks were able to come up and get a good, close look at my work:

And at my patterns for sale and quilts:

On the way home I stopped at the Quilters Cabin in Orland, Maine, which had this beautiful scene at the edge of the parking area:

Isn’t Maine just beautiful?

And further south, I took pictures of the Narrows bridge from the Bucksport (north) side:

I’m happy to say that my teaching schedule is set for the next few months, so my next post will include my schedule for now through the end of May! Hope to have a tidbit for you, too. Back soon and happy sewing, Sarah