This year’s issue from Quilting Arts is another good one, and I’m thrilled to say I have TWO projects in it and TWO recipes!  Yes, QA has joined the holiday mayhem with some recipes.   Editor Vivika DeNegre has kicked off a bloghop with her post to day, here!

This year’s issue of Quilting Arts Gifts. I’m thrilled to have two projects and two recipes included!  Please click here or use the Affiliate link on the left (which will get you a discount on some items) to order this issue!

I’ve been lucky to be on three episodes of Quilting Arts TV this season, sharing my tips about my Inside-Out bag, machine quilting, and sewing machine needles and thread.  The pattern for the bag and another pattern for a card carrier are in this year’s QA Holiday 2014 magazine as well. Read on to see some of the many variations on the theme that I’ve made!  I keep finding the need for “just another bag”!

Getting ready to roll tape for my first segment on Quilting Arts TV, Series 1400. I show you how to make my incredibly versatile Inside-Out Bag (lower right corner, in progress in front of me and on the left) so you can customize size, pockets, techniques for the outside (pieced, applique, surface design). The bag is quick and easy so it also makes a great special gift, and it is also included in the 2014 edition of Quilting Arts Gifts, so now you have two ways to learn how to make it.

Over the coming ten days or so, here’s where you can go to learn more about what’s in this issue.  Some of these folks I know, but others are new to me so I’m really looking forward to seeing their blogposts and blogs!

• Friday, September 12, Vivika Hansen DeNegre, http://quiltingdaily.com/
  Saturday, September 13, Lyric Kinard, http://lyrickinard.com/blog/
  Sunday, September 14, Claude Larson, http://randomactsofpiece.blogspot.com/
  Monday, September 15, Linda McLaughlin, http://notesfromstudiob.blogspot.com/ and Kathy Kerstetter, http://artndl.blogspot.com
  Tuesday, September 16, Lori Miller, http://lorimillerdesigns.wordpress.com/
  Wednesday, September 17, Melanie Testa, http://melanietesta.com/blog/, and Liz Kettle, http://www.textileevolution.com/index.php/our-journey
  Thursday, September 18, Susan Brubaker Knapp, http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/
  Friday, September 19, Lisa Chin, http://somethingcleveraboutnothing.blogspot.com/
  Saturday, September 20, Sarah Ann Smith, https://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog
  Sunday, September 21, Catherine Redford, http://catherineredford.com/

Check back here on the 20th for my part in the bloghop, but come back before then for other new posts!

No…make that a double-double drawing!  Several years ago, Susan Brubaker Knapp (website here) and I met online through the QuiltArt list and became internet friends.  We FINALLY got to meet in Houston at Market this year.

Our quilty careers have been moving forward (a good direction) on parallel tracks, and we both were published this year for the first time!   So we are having a doubly-fun giveaway:

Over on Susan’s Blue Moon River Blog, she is giving away a copy of my book ThreadWork Unraveled AND my Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul pattern, and here I’ll be doing a drawing for her beautiful Applique Petal Party pattern booklet AND her Pinata Purse pattern!   I’ll draw a winner at random from those who post by noon on Monday (oops) Wednesday, Dec. 16.  Read on for more enticing details!

Here’s Susan’s full quilt:

Applique Petal Party is an interesting new hybrid:  pattern plus booklet with detailed instructions.  Inside there are nine fold-open full sized patterns for all 16 blocks and the border, all with clear lines and notes.  There is also an 8-page booklet (8 1/2 x 11 inches) including:

• Needle-turn applique basics, with sharp photos clearly illustrating tricky bits such as getting sharp points for stars and leaves
• Making Bias Vines
• Fabric Requirements for the 73 x 73 inch quilt
• Cutting instructions
• Sashings
• Constructing the quilt
• Borders
• Finishing and Quilting
• Binding and labeling; here there are three brilliantly well done photos to illustrate how to do a double-fold bias binding on the ever-challenging scallops.  Well, they won’t be challenging any more, because they show clearly how to do them!

Here are two detail photos:

I love that on the back cover there are four small quilts made from a single block in this pattern, but in totally different colorways.  If you love the pattern but just aren’t a pink person, these will give you an idea of how versatile and beautiful this pattern is.

Susan’s publisher, C&T, is really leading the pack with innovative publishing and support options.  Even on the pattern they invite teachers to use the pattern for classes, and offer support via the C&T website.  Here’s a link to Susan’s pattern at www.ctpub.com ; click on the “google preview” for a tease of what’s inside.

Pinata Purse is a fun one to feature a favorite fabric— and you get lots of look. Just like a Mexican Pinata is covered in fringes of paper, this purse is covered in fringes of fabric.  I could see doing a rainbow thing with the fringe, or a colorwash from light to dark…LOTS of fun possibilities.  Plus it’s a great shape with a nice, useful pocket across the entire back.

Susan is a quilter and graphic designer who lives in North Carolina with her husband and children. You can purchase Applique Petal Party, or any of her wonderful patterns (be sure to check out the Round Red Barn!), at Susan’s website.

To be entered in the drawing to win Susan’s Applique Petal Party OR her Pinata Purse pattern, visit Susan’s website and blog.  THEN Come back here and leave a comment here on my blog telling me something you like over at Susan’s!   On December 16th, we’ll both do drawings:  Over here, the first number (comment number) drawn will win Susan’s Applique Petal Party , the second her pinata purse pattern!  Thanks for joining in the fun,

Cheers, Sarah

Sheesh….. the week has evaporated yet again! This week started with a glorious Frayed Edges (my mini-group) day, so I’m going to break it into two posts. Then I got swamped when I realized entries for Houston (IQA) are due June 12th, and my quilt isn’t done let alone photographed and forms completed, so I’ve been quilting like a madwoman all week. I finished the quilt (well, except for the hanging sleeve and label, and they don’t have to be done to photo the front) last night, and will put entry in the mail on Monday. In the meantime… I get to share the wonderful day we had on Monday…

Hannah Beattie, the youngest of us, now lives in Harpswell, which is south of Brunswick, Maine, on a peninsula that has to be one of the most beautiful in Maine, and that is saying a LOT. I believe that Hannah must know and be friends with every amazing artist between New Hampshire and the mid-coast…see she’s one of those people that everyone love! So anyway, over the weekend Hannah writes to ask, would we like to go visit Natasha at her home and studio? Heck YES! As you can see f rom the photo above, when you drive up to the house you know you are in for a major treat… I mean, don’t you want shutters like these? I do! And in the vegetable patch to the left of the drive, look at these awesome garden people (which Natasha makes on commission, too)–that’s Kathy, Hannah and (in her arms) Nina:

For those of you who have come to art quilting lately, Natasha was one of the trail blazers, and has been at the forefront of the art quilt movement for longer than she probably wants to remember (and it also means she started young!). Here’s her website…I encourage you to go look and enjoy (and shop?). Anyway, there was plenty of color and creativity in her home… both in her studio and in the other rooms. Here’s Natasha with one of her works in progress…she began with white cloth, used lots of Shiva paintsticks and more:

and her studio (PS…please don’t blame me for the studio lust you’ll feel)

Repetition was a theme which I enjoyed… her yarn baskets:

Pencils and pens:

The pillows for sale on one table: (Kathy bought one!)

The broken-ceramics tiling she did on the woodstove chimney in the living room:

and close up:

Then there is the jewelry for sale (does natasha ever sleep????):

And tho it isn’t repetition in the same way, I LUST after this bathroom mirror:

OK..I also lust for color, and the time to create….

.

Doesn’t that piece just make you want to RUN to the studio and play?

And finally, on the way out….

Next post (or maybe the one after), what we did with the rest of our day….

Well it has been a busy week, or three, but Mom is now moved to MAINE! WOOOT! I’ll post some pics in a while, but just a bit of internet surfing for your entertainment today. To make a long story short, my dear 89-year old Mom has just made what we all hope, for her sake, will be her last major move….since she’s gone from Wyoming (birth), to West Virginia, to Japan, all over the Orient, South America, Europe, back to South America and finally to California in 1964. Anyway, now she’s here and we are all starting to de-stress. On our last day in Marin, we went to lunch at Insalata, in San Anselmo (the town I lived in from 7th through 12th grade). My beloved sister in law Joyce came up to help with the moving days… the first photo is of Mom and Joyce, the second of me with Ma.

One good way to de-stress is by surfing the internet, so here are some tidbits for you which I’ve visited in the past few days:

Alicia Merrett is an art quilter in the UK. I particularly like her Shakespeare and Sonnet 18 series–click on her Gallery tab, then scroll down and click on the link for that gallery.

Color Chart: Reinventing Color Since 1950 is on the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) site, and I’m putting the link here in this blogpost so I don’t lose it… I want to go fritter some time away playing with it!

I also got myself on the e-mail list for Folkwear Patterns... I’ve been a fan for 25 years plus (as in from the beginning!). I’m so thrilled they still exist and have expanded their line. I must have at least a dozen of the patterns, and have made and worn most of them. They don’t have to look costume-y or outlandish… it all depends on how you select your fabric and wear them…. you can go funky, hippie, or just artsy chic! Anyway, the Photo Gallery I hadn’t seen before, and there is some real inspiration here.

More anon… it is REALLY good to be home!