As with many of the participants in this bloghop, I first met Daphne Greig online (through the QuiltArt list tho it has been so long now I forget!).  She lives in one of the most beautiful places on the planet:  Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, and it shows in her work.  Thank you, Daphne, for being part of the final Holiday Giveaway to celebrate the release of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork!  You can see her review of the video workshop here.

To order a DVD, visit my Store page here.

Or to order either the DVD or a digital download, visit Quilting Arts’ Interweave Store, here    and see all my products there here.  And, of course, you can enter the various giveaways thanks to the generous quilt artists who are helping me give away copies!

Blue Ocean, Turquoise Sea, by Daphne Greig. It is no surprise that I love this quilt–the colors are SO me, but they are also so representative of the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada.

Daphne’s work ranges widely from pictorial, to applique, to pieced, to abstract!  She has an astonishing five (yes, 5!!!) books to her credit, and she still finds time to make art and teach!  I’m tired just thinking about it! You can find her books and patterns for sale here (and <blush> thank you for including my book on your sale page, Daphne!).  Daphne’s most recent book, Give and Take Applique, also has a companion DVD to help you create a class right in your own home!

Daphne’s Give and Take bundle with the book, DVD and supplies!

I’ve had the good fortune to run into Daphne several times at various shows where we have both been teaching.  Ironically, although I used to live less than 40 miles from her as the crow flies when we lived in Friday Harbor, Washington, and I had “met” her online, I didn’t actually meet her in person until after I moved to Maine!

Daphne also has a book on stained glass window quilts. The two on the top left look so much like the lush gardens you find on Vancouver Island!

And of course, anyone who has ever lived in or visited the Pacific Northwest can’t help but love the enormous cedar and fir trees that define the region.  Daphne captured it perfectly here:

Daphne Greig’s “Looking West.”

I love quilts that incorporate traditional with contemporary, as with the on-point squares that create the beautifully backlit sky and sea in this piece.

And what tour of the West Coast would be complete without Kelp!

Daphne Greig’s Kelp I. Aren’t the beads PERFECT?

So please surf on over to Daphne’s website, here, and leave a comment to win a video download of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork.

THANK YOU so much, Daphne, for being part of this giveaway!

Next up is Lisa Walton of Australia, then the final grand giveaway will happen right here!

Hi all!   Guess what?  The first bloghop and giveaway was so much fun, I’m doing another with the help of some internet friends!   The schedule this time will be a bit flexible due to travel for Lisa, an extended internet outage for Marie, and U.S. Thanksgiving in late November.  On the appointed day, I’ll post a bit about each of these wonderful, creative women, and they’ll do a quick review of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design:  From Photo to Threadwork with Fusible Applique and Machine Quilting.

To order a DVD, visit my Store page here.

You can also order either the DVD or a digital download, visit Quilting Arts’ Interweave Store, here. And, of course, you can enter the various giveaways thanks to the generous quilt artists who are helping me give away copies!

Here’s a tentative schedule:

• November 14:       Marie Johansen 
• November 16:       Brenda Gael Smith
• November  19:      Jaye Lapachet   
• November 23:      Susan Brubaker Knapp
• November 27:      Daphne Greig 
• November later:   Lisa Walton  
• Early December:     me! with the Grand Finale including goodies from MistyFuse and Havel’s Scissors!

Thanks to Quilting Arts/Interweave for donating review copies as well as some DVDs and downloads.   For the three reviews done outside the US (Brenda in Australia, Daphne in Canada and Lisa in Australia), they’ll be offering a free high def download.  The three reviewers in the US will offer a DVD to be mailed (by me).  And for the Grand Finale I’ll do the same as I did last time:  anyone around the world is free to join in, but I might ask for a bit of help on postage if the winner is outside the US.

In between all this fun, I’ll continue to share the fun I had in Houston and blogging about what I’m up to now that this year’s teaching is done!

To cap a wonderful bloghop, I would first and foremost like to thank the amazing artists and bloggers who made this possible:  Jamie Fingal, Deborah Boschert, Vicki Welsh, Leslie Tucker Jenison, Terry Grant, Gloria Hansen and Diane Perin Hock.  To all of you who left comments, THANK YOU!  And to Quilting Arts/Interweave, Mistyfuse and Havel’s Scissors, thank you for your generous donations that make this grand prize possible!  Here is one more chance to win, and read to the bottom for a bit more news!  Please note, this giveaway is for those residing in the United States only due to postage costs.  However, if you live outside the US and win and are willing to share postage costs, you can enter also. Leave comments before 8 a.m. Eastern Time, October 10th.  I’ll do the drawing that morning and post/contact the winner.DRUM ROLL please:  the Winner is number 42, Gail Myrhodosky!  I’ve emailed you, Gail, to get your snail mail address.  This giveaway is now over, but I’ll do one more in mid November–come back on November 10th—well, come back before then please, but for more on the Holiday giveaway, visit here on November 10th.

There is now a video clip available on YouTube which you can watch here or over on YouTube, here.

The grand prize is grand indeed:

Huge thanks to Quilting Arts/Interweave, Mistyfuse and Havel’s for their generous donations to this bloghop!

• A copy of the DVD!
• A selection of products from MistyFuse! I show you how I use these products in the Video workshop.
• A huge donation from Havel’s Scissors including a generous giftbag that includes long scissors, short scissors, snips, seam ripper, AND the non-stick scissors too!
• And a copy of Quilting Arts Gifts magazine from this year, with a project by me!

Here’s a photo of the stencilled ornaments project I did; I will also be demonstrating this project at the Christmas Delights Sampler (Class 765, and it still has openings…sign up at Festival!) from 2 to 5 Saturday afternoon at International Quilt Festival!

My project in the Quilting Arts Gifts 2013-14 issue is Stenciled Ornaments.

If you’d like to win this GRAND PRIZE, please leave me a comment and tell me something you learned these past two weeks from one of the blogs you visited on the bloghop!    And if you can’t wait, or don’t win, do remember you can order my DVD from me here or the download (or DVD) from Interweave, here.  Leave comments before 8 a.m. Eastern Time, October 10th.  I’ll do the drawing that morning and post/contact the winner.

NOTE:  this giveaway is for those residing in the United States due to postage costs.  However, if you live outside the US and win and are willing to share postage costs, you can enter also.

And….. just when you thought the bloghop was over, NOPE!  I’m doing a SECOND bloghop in early-to-mid-November to kick off the holiday season.  So on November 10th, make sure you come back (well, come back and read my blogposts before then, but you know what I mean) to join the second and final round of fun!

Lookit what popped up in my inbox this morning:

Today’s Quilting Daily was a decidedly pleasant surprise! My DVD!!! Right Click to view larger

You can pre-order the DVD from me, here, or purchase the download TODAY from Quilting Arts at the Interweave Store here, or pre-order from Interweave also.   If you do the download, spring for the extra $2 and get the High Def version–the photography and clarity is superb!

Thanks to Ann C. and Debby H.  for their early and wonderful praise for my DVD:

• From Ann on Facebook:

From master quilter Sarah Ann Smith! A must get!

• From Debby H. on Facebook:

I just downloaded this video and have only watched the introduction and first part on cutting the pieces. IT IS ONE OF THE BEST I’VE EVER SEEN! I know I may be partial since I’m your friend, but it really is very very good. I love the detailed information about the supplies. You tell us specifically what to get and why that name brand. You just have no idea how valuable that information is! That would have been worth the price of the download all by itself! Thanks for putting in the work to produce such a wonderful informational piece. I’ll watch it over and over and have to use it as a reward for getting my other household chores done. Really really good!

And a sneak announcement:   next week we’ll start a bloghop and giveaway!    Details on Tuesday the 17th!

Teeheee…can you tell I’m excited?  My Video workshop, Art Quilt Design from Photo to Threadwork (with Fabric Collage and Machine Quilting) is now available as a digital download on the Interweave Store here (both regular AND [!!!!] High def) and available for pre-order here on my website and on the interweave site.  If you pre-order your DVD from me, shipping is free from now through September 24th (and a modest $3 after that).

Now available!!!!

I haven’t downloaded the video here at home yet, but I think I am at least as excited about this as about the entire DVD:

The Closing Credits…son Joshua is there, too! I had so much fun playing his music on my iPhone to get psyched before and celebrate after taping, too!

Yep, JOSHUA’s MUSIC, written, performed and recorded by my firstborn son, runs during the closing credits!!!!   You can hear the entire song on SoundCloud, here.  (Note:  link coming soon…gotta listen to the video to hear which song they chose but too eager to get this posted to wait for the download to finish–will update on the 11th.)

And as always, THANK YOU to Janome America.  They have sponsored me with a sewing machine through their Artist and Teacher program for a VERY long time, and I am incredibly grateful for their generosity and support.  I’m also thrilled that the dealer in Colorado,  Quilter’s Stash of Windsor, Colorado, was able to arrange for me to sew on an 8900–as I do at home–on the DVD set.  It made taping so much easier to be sewing on a familiar machine!

To celebrate, I will be having a bloghop giveaway in about ten days (September 2013) and another one in November 2013, just in time for the holidays.   Stay tuned for more on the bloghop and giveaways!  Now I’m gonna go float up in the clouds somewhere!