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Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Machine Quilting Web Seminar Tomorrow

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, tomorrow, September 5 at noon East Coast (US) time is the place!   Yesterday, the good folks at Quilting Arts and I  did a dry run of my online seminar on the Mechanics of Machine Quilting, and I’m so psyched about it!   You can order it here http://www.interweavestore.com/mechanics-of-machine-quilting; if for any reason you can’t be there (like you are sleeping because you live in Australia, or you are observing Rosh Hoshannah, or you can’t play at work), the seminar is recorded and can be played at your convenience.  As well, you can download a copy and save it to your device (laptop, iPad, etc) for listening again if you want.

Learn how to get ready to machine quilt with Sarah Ann Smith.  Set up your space and materials so they help (and don't hinder) you!

Learn how to get ready to machine quilt with Sarah Ann Smith. Set up your space and materials so they help (and don’t hinder) you!

Keeping this short and sweet!  Write if you have questions or check out my earlier blogpost, here.  Hope to “see” you there!

New Camera! Hooray for Panasonic, boo hiss for Canon

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

I’ve got a new camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ200!   I bought mine at Hunt’s Camera in South Portland in the interest of buying local, but they are also available here, at B&H Photo in NYC.  I’ve bought many cameras and equipment from B&H over the years, and highly recommend them.

My new camera (well, this is an internet photo, but mine looks like this minus the photo of the Jefferson Memorial!)

My new camera (well, this is an internet photo, but mine looks like this minus the photo of the Jefferson Memorial!)

And WHY did I buy a new camera:  Well…..

Up until this summer, 2 1/2 years after purchasing my Canon G12, I would have given this camera 4 to 4 1/2 stars out of 5. I missed my previous camera, a Panasonic Super-zoom FZ-30 that had a 12x lens; I fatally damaged that camera when I slipped on a hike and it banged into a rock and knocked the lens loose (oops). I wanted something lighter and more compact so bought the Canon G12. After 30 months, it started acting up, buttons not responding, zoom not responding.

After searching on the internet, I discovered that many others are having this problem. The short-term workaround, to eject and re-insert the memory card worked for a few weeks. Eventually, I did a total reset, removing the memory card, the battery and reformatting the memory card. Also tried a different memory card. The camera became more and more locked up, couldn’t delete photos, couldn’t zoom, couldn’t even access the set up menus to do a total re-boot.

I called Canon to see about repairs: $179 plus about $40 shipping both ways. As a “loyal customer” they would sell me a “refurbished G12” for $279 instead. So a 20 percent discount off their current price for a 4 year old refurbished camera that no one is selling that is now two generations old? They would NOT allow me buy a G15 or G1 X at discount, full price only. NO THANKS, Canon.

Instead, I’m ticked off that I paid $469 for a supposedly great camera that died in less than 3 years despite being treated with extreme care: no sand, no water, not bumped, not dropped. Took baby-tender care of the G12 and it just quit. NOT GOOD.  Sounds like Canon’s program is profit loyalty, not customer loyalty!

So yesterday I bought a Panasonic Superzoom, DMC-FZ200. It weighs about the same as the G12. The processor isn’t quite as large, but the display articulates (unlike the G15 and G16), has an optical viewfinder, and 24x zoom. For super fussy I can use my Nikon DSLR.  And so far, the shots on the Panasonic look great.

Panasonic has done a great job… I love DP reviews for an expert review on cameras, and the FZ200 is tops for the superzooms.  Here’s a link to their info, just in case anyone is interested .  Astonishingly, it weights significantly less than my old FZ30, about the same as the G12, but is a bit bulkier.  Won’t fit into a pocket but easily fits into my purse!  WOOT!  All the better for blogging!

An Exquisite Moment

Monday, July 8th, 2013

Some time ago, I shared with you “Listen to the Song in the Night,” which has been juried in to this year’s exhibit, An Exquisite Moment, curated by the Dinner @ 8 Artists, Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison.  The exhibit will debut at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, California, at the end of this month, then travel to Quilt Festival in Houston in October/November of this year.  I am so thrilled to once again be part of such a wonderful group of artists.  Jamie and Leslie have been blogging and interviewing those of us in this year’s exhibit, here.  Today, July 8th, it is my turn!   So please go visit the blog and enjoy!

Listen to the Song in the Night by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2013.  24 x 60 inches.  Artist dyed silk and cotton, a few commercial batiks (mountains).  Free motion quilted, ink with dip-pen, paint.

Listen to the Song in the Night by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2013. 24 x 60 inches. Artist dyed silk and cotton, a few commercial batiks (mountains). Free motion quilted, ink with dip-pen, paint.

Thanks to artist Loris Bogue, we have also had catalogs of the exhibit that one can purchase via Blurb (or is it Snapfish?).  When this year’s is available, I’ll share the information with you.  I so enjoy reading the answers by the other artists.  So I invite you to surf over to Jamie and Leslie’s blog and spend some wonderful lunches and afternoons–after all, it is too hot to work hard, so let’s sit and enjoy the art!–with the talented folks in this exhibit.

And if you’d like to know more about how I made this quilt and the story behind it, please visit my earlier blogpost, here.

 

Listen to the Song in the Night

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

Wow have I been busy, and I’ve woefully neglected my blog!   I’m sorry!  The good news is that a flurry of activity is nearly over.  In the past 8 weeks I have made a quilt for inclusion in a book due out next year, flown from Maine to Colorado to tape a Quilting Arts DVD workshop (more on that here), written and submitted two articles to two different magazines (more on those when they come out), and written a third but still have step-outs and photography to do on that one.  BUT–I am thrilled to share with you that Listen to the Song in The Night has been juried into the this year’s Dinner@8 exhibit, An Exquisite Moment.

Listen to the Song in the Night by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2013.  24 x 60 inches.  Artist dyed silk and cotton, a few commercial batiks (mountains).  Free motion quilted, ink with dip-pen, paint.

Listen to the Song in the Night by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2013. 24 x 60 inches. Artist dyed silk and cotton, a few commercial batiks (mountains). Free motion quilted, ink with dip-pen, paint.

You can read more about the exhibit, here. Last year I was really stumped.  This year it was a matter of which quilt to make:  childbirth (done discreetly–the mom’s view looking over the sheet over your knees at your newly hatched child in the doctor’s hands), Eli as a 2 year old under the blueberry bush grinning as he munched blueberries, or any of a number of other moments.  But then I remembered the whalesong.  Best of all, not only did hubby Paul, but so did the boys who were about 5 and 9 (or maybe even 4 and 8).  We lived on San Juan Island in Washington state at the time.  Our house  was about 1/3 mile up from the water and faced the Straits of Juan de Fuca with the Olympic mountains on the other side, 17 miles away.  We could see and hear the orcas from our house.  The writing on the quilt tells the story:

Cloaked in the sounds of the rustling breeze, the song drifted through the open window as I readied for bed.  Not believing my ears, I turned out the lights.  Then I began to listen.  It couldn’t be, could it?  The more I listened, the more I believed.  It was the whale song–but above water!  How could that be?  I ran to the living room and told Paul to come outside and listen.  Then we woke our young sons from a sound sleep to hear the song in the night.

We heard the orcas breathe, ripple the water, tail lob, and the thunderous splash of whales breaching.  There were so many of them, and they were singing!  The next day, still in disbelief, I called the Whale Museum researchers.  It was indeed a superpod, a family reunion of the J, K and L pods.  They told me many scientists study the whales for an entire career and never hear them sing above water.  And we four remember standing on the deck in the summer night listening to the orcas sing.

 I knew that I wanted to dye some silk for the water because of the sheen of the sandwashed satin, and found some silk I had dyed for the San Domenico Tableau quilt (here) for Mary’s dress.  I used the matte side for the sky–it’s at the top in this picture.

First round with the dye bath.  The big piece on the bottom is silk.  The others are cottons.

First round with the dye bath. The big piece on the bottom is silk. The others are cottons except for the very top piece which is a silk I dyed earlier.

Then

More fabrics dyed for the project. The cotton on the right is what I used for the back.

More fabrics dyed for the project. The cotton on the right is what I used for the back.

I used the blue on the top left in the photo immediately above, but had overdyed it to be darker and more solid, for the top and bottom panels where I would write the story.  After all, it is hard to make a picture of something you heard but didn’t really see so I though I’d best add some words!   I took some artistic license and added a full moon and lightened the scene just enough to actually make a picture not a large blotch of dark! First, however, I needed to figure out how I was going to write on the cloth.

I knew I wanted to write on the top and bottom panels of blue cotton that I had dyed, but wasn't sure what method to use.

I knew I wanted to write on the top and bottom panels of blue cotton that I had dyed, but wasn’t sure what method to use.

On the right, you can see assorted lower case “a’s” written with DeColourant (some colored) and assorted tools to apply.  I thinned the thick liquid, but then it ran.  Not the look I wanted. It’s a great product, but not the right one for this purpose.  The top “Disguised” is done in an archivally safe Sakura Jelly Roll pen, but it looks much brighter in the real than in the photo.  It was OK, but the Liquitex Ink! (acrylic ink) in white with the “crow quill” dip pen was perfect.  The variations in pressure as I wrote gave an almost italic look, so that was my choice.

Next I printed out the text at full size to make sure it would fit and to use as a guide.  I was afraid that I would get the word order wrong or space out and misspell something, so I folded the printouts and set them just above the line I was writing, covering up the  previous line so I didn’t confuse myself!  You’ll see my chalk-lines in the photo; I used SewLine by Moda with ceramic chalk lead which erased like a dream when I was done.

Above you can see how I folded the printed paper so I could follow along, line by line.

Above you can see how I folded the printed paper so I could follow along, line by line.

Next step was to over-paint some batiks for the mountains.  I had a few that worked as is, but most needed to have the batik design muted.

Batik fabric for the mountains.  In the loewr part of the photo you can see how I have already cut some of the mountains.

Batik fabric for the mountains. The cloth was over-painted with dark (not sure if I used black, blue or a combination).  In the lower part of the photo you can see how I have already cut some of the mountains. I wanted the foothills and coast to be even darker than higher up, where the moonlight hit the tops of the Olympics.

Next I auditioned various fabrics, two blacks for the whales, a gray (which needed darkening) for the thin strips separating the top and bottom panels from the center.  I free-motion stitched on the black sateen I selected for the whales with just a stabilizer underneath, then cut a slit in the silk (BIG gulp and holding of breath), then tucked the whale into the opening and hand-appliqued them down.

 

Test-driving fabrics for this and that.

Test-driving fabrics for this and that.

And finally, the quilting. It went fairly quickly, as it was all blues from palest (which appears white but is actually a pale silvery blue) to nearly black on most of the quilt, with just some gray and deep charcoal for the mountains.

Detail shot showing quilting, moon, and white ink dots for the moon glow.

Detail shot showing quilting, moon, and white ink dots for the moon glow.

The exhibit will debut at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach this coming July.  I’m thrilled to be a part of the Dinner@8 exhibit once again, and would like to thank our various sponsors over the years, especially Moore’s Sewing Centers, Havel’s Scissors and Mistyfuse (which I use a lot)!

 

 

Listen to the Music

Monday, April 1st, 2013

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!