What a thrill–another one!    Janome has featured my DVD giveaway on their blog today!   See it here (post dated September 25, 2013).

Visit Janome’s blog today to see the write up! Right click to see this larger.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to be sponsored by Janome and sew on one  of their fabulous machines for nearly a decade.  THANK YOU, Janome America!

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Vicki Welsh (blog) and thank her for participating in my bloghop and giveaway to celebrate the release of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork (available for pre-order here or as a download and pre-order here).  Please pop over to Vicki’s blog and leave a comment there to be entered in Vicki’s part of the giveaway!

Although I’m mostly about art quilts, from time to time I’ve blogged about the fact that I love ALL Quilts and Quilting—traditional, contemporary, modern, art, you name it!   Like me, Vicki crosses the lines but in a very different way:  she is all about dyeing fabric and surface design, worked into more traditionally piece quilts.

Vicki Welsh’s blog is aptly called “Field Trips in Fiber” and her Etsy shop of hand-dyes is a Visa Accident waiting to happen!  So much fun! Vicki’s quilts are clearly inspired by tradition, but they are definitely a contemporary take on the traditional.  One of her quilts that makes my heart go thumpity thump is Illuminated Blocks…all I can say is it’s a good thing I live far away because I could SO be tempted into a little larceny!

Illuminated Blocks by Vicki Welsh. WOW…just WOW. Her blogpost is here. Right click for a larger look!

This quilt, made from Paula Nadelstern’s printed fabrics, has me wondering:  what if you dyed fabric in mandalas and shibori style, using a coordinated palette of colors.   How would it look to piece an Ohio Star, as in this quilt (look carefully but also go visit her blogpost about it, link in caption), but using one’s own hand-dyed fabrics?

Two of Vicki’s recent tops are Grandmother’s Choice Shibori top (read more about it here):

Vicki Welsh’s Grandmother’s Choice quilt using her shibori and hand-dyed fabrics. Her Etsy shop is here.

And another recent top fascinates me–I’m usually all about the color, but I love the muted tones and kaleidescope effect in this quilt top, her Grandmother’s Choice Symmetry:

Vicki Welsh’s Grandmother’s Choice Symmetry quilt top. Read more about it here.

I love the play of patterns, the secondary designs.   I feel a traditional phase coming on thanks to her inspiration!
Thank you, Vicki, for being a part of my bloghop!   Here’s to meeting you in PERSON one of these days!  In the meantime, we can all go visit her on the web.

Today is the second giveaway of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design from Photo to Threadwork, and is hosted by my friend Deborah Boschert.  Her website is here, and her blog and the giveaway post are here.  Be sure to surf over and comment to enter the giveaway!

Haze and Hope by Deborah Boschert

When I moved to Maine in 2004, the first thing I did was find the quilters, especially the art quilters.  Maine has a great statewide guild with many regional/local chapters and a few statewide groups, including  Art Quilts Maine.  At the very first meeting I attended, I met Deborah, whose husband was then in the Navy and assigned to Brunswick.  I didn’t realize for quite some time that Deborah was also relatively new to Maine.  We began emailing back and forth, and within a couple of months decided to start our own mini-group, The Frayed Edges, with our dear friends Kate Cutko and Kathy Daniels.   If you click on the categories, you can see the many wonderful times we have shared over the years.

Fast forward many years:  our kids are growing rapidly, we’ve both been published in journals and books, made DVDs, exhibited at national and international venues!  I think if you had told us as we chatted in the parking lot after that meeting what we would have done in less than a decade, we would never have believed it!

Deborah is a member of the amazing group known as the “Twelves.”  You can see tons of their inspiring work, here, and find the book, Twelve by 12:  The International Art Quilt Challenge, here.

Twelve by Twelve: the International Art Quilt Challenge

The first year the challenges were by theme, then by color.  As someone who lives for color, I was surprised that one of my favorites of Deborah’s is this monochromatic beauty, In Light Of

In Light Of

Deborah has filmed the DVD workshop Contemporary Fabric Collage, been on TV segments for Quilting Arts TV, as well as done some great web seminars for them.   You can find all the QA/Interweave offerings with Deborah here, at the Interweave Store.

Thank you Deborah for being part of the bloghop and giveaway, but most especially for the gift of being my friend.

Let me introduce you to Jamie Fingal, whose colorful, whimsical quilts brings smiles! Visit Jamie’s Twisted Sister blog to read her post and enter for the giveaway for a copy of my new DVD  from her blog, but I also encourage you to surf in to Jamie Fingal Designs, her website, and take some time to really enjoy her work!   Jamie loves bright colors, metal zippers and grommets, funky shoes, the Girl Scouts and, especially, RED!

I was tickled silly when, a few days ago, I surfed in to her blog and learned that Jamie’s first fabric line is about to come out.  At long last, I can get me a little Jamie!  You better believe I’ll be lobbying my local shop to put in an order!

Jamie at Quilt Market getting a first look at her fabric line! How cool is that?

The Selvage for Jamie’s new fabric line. Don’t the colors and images just make you happy?!!!

Jamie supports many great quilt efforts including the Quilt Alliance.   She made this quilt for auction, and OH do I WISH I had that ever-elusive winning lottery ticket, because I would have outbid EVERYone for this typewriter quilt, which is one of my favorites of hers!

How I wish I could have been the winning bidder for this quilt!

Jamie also does lots with the Girls Scouts; this quilt is quintessential Jamie-style:

Jamie made this quilt for the It’s Good to be Green exhibit.

Jamie and her friend Leslie Tucker Jenison are the forces behind Dinner @ 8, which has sponsored exhibits that have debuted at International Quilt Festival in Long Beach and can also be found at IQF Houston and other venues.   I was so thrilled when they first invited me to submit a piece for one of their juried invitational exhibits.   Leslie will be participating later in this blog, so you’ll have to wait to hear more about her!

So please DO surf over to Jamie’s website and her blog, and enter the Video giveaway on her blog (and be quick, because you only have a day or two to leave a comment!).  Thank you, Jamie, for being a part of this bloghop!

Great news!   A number of wonderful artists and quilters have kindly agreed to review my new Art Quilt Design, From Photo to Threadwork DVD (or download) in a bloghop and giveaway!  The Quilting and art community has given me so much, that I wanted to do something in return and to celebrate my first DVD (and I’m still agog at how wonderfully well it turned out!).

Now available!!!!

Starting on Thursday, September 19th through Saturday, October 5th, you’ll have EIGHT chances to win a free copy of the DVD or a download, thanks to the generosity of Quilting Arts/Interweave!  Then, in November, I’ll be hosting another round, a second bloghop and giveaway!   And, for the final day of each bloghop, there will be additional prizes from Mistyfuse (thank you to Iris K and Mistyfuse!) and Havel’s Scissors (thank you Havel’s!)!  Here is the schedule for the first bloghop:

September 19:    Jamie Fingal     Twisted Sister Blog
September 21:    Deborah Boschert    Deborah’s Journal
September 24:    Vicki Welsh  Field Trips in Fiber
September 26:    Leslie Jenison  Leslie’s Blog
September 28:    Terry Grant   And Sew It Goes
October 1:          Gloria Hansen   Gloria’s Blog
October 3:          Diane Perin Hock   Going to Pieces
October 5:          Sarah Ann Smith  Right HERE!
I’ll post a reminder each day there is a blogpost and giveaway.   You get to surf over and visit their blog (and I hope explore their wonderful art and blogging) and, if you want to enter, leave a comment.   Each blogger will pick one person to win the prize, will notify me, and I’ll arrange for you to get a DVD or download.  Let the fun begin!