and you’ll need to not “blink” with your ears or you might miss me!  I’ll be on at about 3:20 Eastern (US) time.

Creative Mojo radio with Mark Lipinski

But I’m happy to report I’ll have my two minutes (literally…that’s all:  two minutes, but much appreciated)  of fame tomorrow, live on Creative Mojo with the irrepressible Mark Lipinski.  You can tune in here, on Toginet.   Or if you are someplace you can’t log on and tune in (or perhaps like me get so involved in stuff you forget what time it is and miss stuff), you can always catch the Creative Mojo podcast, here.   The website tells us:

CREATIVE MOJO WITH MARK LIPINSKI is a live, two-hour entertainment program broadcast on the Internet. It’s fun, entertaining, informative, inspirational and illuminating.

and

• Just log onto www.toginet.com for a brand-new,
• LIVE, 2-hour
• Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski!
• 3 pm -5 pm EST    2 pm – 4 pm CST 1 pm – 3 pm MST    12 pm – 2 pm PST
• Call in anytime during the live show with your questions or comments for my guests
• (877) 864-4869

AND I just discovered you can go to iTunes and subscribe to his podcast! WOOT!

As for what I’ve been up to since I last posted, I had a *really* long commute to work last week:  flew from Maine to Florida and back so I could spend two wonderful days teaching for and lecturing at the meeting of the Venice Area Quilt Guild.  Many thanks to my host and program chair Betty Jordt and the folks of the guild AND some folks who know me who actually came to the lecture!   I’ll blog soon!

Since returning on Thursday afternoon, I left within 16 hours to head south to Rhode Island to support two of the members of Eli’s high school wrestling team who made it into the VERY competitive New England Regional Wrestling Championships:  to get IN you have to be a State Champion from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Connecticut.  Talk about stiff competition!   Both boys did well and one even placed!   It was a great trip but I’m REALLY glad to return home on Sunday.  Yesterday was lots of bookkeeping and paperwork stuff, and today was spent researching patents!  I have an idea for a quilting tool, and may be dashing off a provisional patent application in the next week before a new law goes into effect on the 16th of this month (ERK).   So I’m going to be scarce while scrambling to do something that should take me months and consultation with a lawyer (not to mention a patent search that goes back 120 years), but I’m gonna try anyway.  Stay tuned—maybe in a year I’ll have some good news if the provisional application goes through and I can find a manufacturer and funding!  (Can you say Kickstarter campaign?)

But in the meantime, I’m looking forward to a couple minutes on the phone and radio tomorrow with the ever-funny Mark Lipinski!

WOWIE ZOWIE!   When you’re a quilter, there are a couple of real “biggie” things that can happen.  Getting in to one of the major shows (done that), winning an award at a big show (done that! Second Place at Houston, Honorable Mention at the NQA show), being published (done that, a lot fortunately), but up there with winning an award is being on the cover (still hoping) of a major magazine, or featured on the last page in what I think of as the Grand Finale page where most magazines profile one quilt.  Guess what…… DONE THAT thanks to Jan Magee (editor) and company at The Quilt Life magazine, which is one of my favorite quilt magazines (along with Quilters Newsletter).  My art quilt “Fields of Gold” made the final page!

Here is that last page, 86… I mean PINCH ME?  Is this real?!?!?!  It MUST be, because I finally have a copy in my happy hands!

Page 86, April 2012 issue of The Quilt Life

And talk about WOW… they included me on the page with the other quilters in this issue…what a line-up…and me, next to them!!! Plus, I’m right next to the amazing Suzanne Marshall, who was my roomie when I taught at AQS-Paducah in 2008.  Suzanne is so much fun!  I can hardly believe I’m on the page where, in the last issue, Noriko Endo’s quilt was featured!  Who ME?????

The quilters in this issue page....I'm on the right and LOVE that they chose my favorite "head shot"...the one with the dog! so much more fun than the usual mug shot! It's a PUG shot!

And a final bit of kindness… I had thought this would end up only on their website or blog (blog link here), but it’s on p. 18–a note that this quilt is, sadly, one of two lost.  The whole sad story is here.  Thanks so much, Jan, for adding this note.  If there is any hope of someone spotting this quilt, this will help SOOOOOO much!

Note about this quilt being lost....sigh....

Thank you to Jan Magee, the wonderful editor of The Quilt Life, for asking to publish my quilt, to Ricky, Alex and the entire gang that put together The Quilt Life for such a fun magazine….now I’m off to read it cover to cover and pinch myself yet again… wow, this really happened!

Another thrill—I am one of a number of folks who have written for Quilting Arts magazine whose articles were included in The Best of Quilting Arts: Your Ultimate Resource for Art Quilt Techniques and Inspiration, edited by Pokey Bolton.

The Best of Quilting Arts by Pokey Bolton

My articles on edge finishes were merged, edited and included in the first of five major sections in the book.  The Table of Contents is impressive:

The Table of Contents, The Best of Quilting Arts

The five major sections are:

• 1. Starting and Finishing: Art Quilt Basics (this includes my article)
• 2. Trends in Surface Design:  Stamping, Dyeing, Printing, and More
• 3.  People, Pets, andMore:  Representation in Art Quilting
• 4. Make it Green:  Recycled and Natural Materials
• 5.  Embellishment and Mixed Media:  Too  Much is Never Enough

This page spread is the opening of my contributions.

After each section Jane Davila has written a “Professional Advice” article on various subjects, all of which are interesting.

One of Jane Davila's Professional Advise articles.

For anyone new to art quilting, this is a fabulous all-in-one-place resource, and it would be a useful addition to the newbies library and even for those who are at an intermediate level.  As always with Quilting Arts magazines and books, the layout, graphics, and photography are outstanding.  And for those of us who live in the boonies, there is a useful Resources list in the back along with additional reading suggestions and a useful index.

Sandra Sider's The Studio Quilt, No. 6: State of the Art

The Studio Quilt, No. 6:  State of the Art, by Sandra Sider, is a monograph that is part of a series featuring contemporary quilt art, all of which are available on Amazon.com (click on the title for a link to the listing).  The previous five volumes have each focused on a single artist.  This volume includes one quilt for 60 different artists–including (gulp gasp Who ME?) me!  To say that I am elated to be included in such elite company is an understatement of epic proportions.

Sandra Sider has been a well-known artist and curator in the art quilting world for a number of years (her curriculum vitae on her website is mind-bogglingly impressive), and is currently the President of the Studio Art Quilt Association.  The SAQA website states:  “Dr. Sandra Sider, a New York quilt artist and independent curator, has published articles and reviews concerning fiber art and other aspects of visual culture for three decades. Her graduate degrees include an M.A. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her most recent book is Pioneering Quilt Artists, 1960-1980: A New Direction in American Art (2010).”

The volume is a slim, succinct snapshot of 60 artists working in textile art today, including Benedicte Caneill, Gloria Hansen, June Sowada, Jette Clover, Mary Pal, Virginia Spiegel, Grace Errea, Charlotte Ziebarth, Nancy Cook…the list goes on!   My portrait in cloth of our older son is the work included:

I'm artist 36 of 60 in this slim volume of contemporary textile art.

It is an honor to be included, and if you want a good overview of who is doing what, this is it!

Point, Click, Quilt! is the title of Susan Brubaker Knapp’s wonderful book which is subtitled “Turn your Photos in to Fabulous Fabric Art.”  And this is a SERIOUSLY overdue review!  I received my copy of the book from Susan in July, just before heading out to teach in Nebraska.  I liked the book so much that I wanted to review it before I went, but felt I really needed to read the entire book closely first….then I got back and life happened!   So now that I have almost (but not quite) dug out from under the accumulated “life happening” stuff, I would like to recommend this book to you.  And offer the disclaimer that Susan is an internet friend and she asked me to have a piece in her book.  However, I’d say all these good things anyway!  Check below for information on winning a copy of this book!

Susan Brubaker Knapp's Point, Click, Quilt!

There are a lot of books out there these days about using your photography as the starting point for your art quilts.  Many of them, alas, make me think of “paint by numbers”–artworks that are slaving imitations of a photo without much thought–fortunately this book is all about thinking.  Susan’s book  begins by teaching you to THINK and to SEE–to improve your own photos so that the process of modifying them into textile art starts with a really good image from the get-go.  The Creativity and Learning to See section talks about one of my favorite things:   actually SEEING what is there, not what you think is there–about learning to really look at the elements of the composition (your photo’s composition) to make it a strong visual image. She covers the basics elements of design, including showing you how to crop a so-so photo into a much better composition, and how you can modify an existing photo to make a better composition in your quilt.

Learning to SEE!

Susan then goes on to “On a Mission:  Photography exercises to build your skills” which has five separate exercises, lavishly illustrated with Susan’s photos.  These exercises show how you can take what I call “reference” photos to put  into practice (and into your imagery) what you learned in the Creativity section.  These two sections are, for me, worth the entire price of the book and more!  They are JUST what you want from a book like this!

Table of Contents. Sorry the photo is a tad blurry...click to see larger.

The “Getting Started” chapter then shows you how to take your photo and turn it into a quilt pattern. Finally, there are sixteen projects, each using a different special technique.  These projects are good learning exercises for those new (and not so new) to art quilts.  Once you have begun to practice SEEING, and interpreting first Susan’s and then your own images in cloth, you’ll be ready to move on to creating your original art.

At the end is a gallery of quilts made from photos to give you an idea how contemporary quilt artists are using photographs to create art.  My quilt of Blue Buoys, made for a Coastal Quilters (local chapter of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild)  Challenge a while back, uses a very tight crop of some buoys in a photo by D. Pitcairn (used with permission) and faces a quilt of an adorable dog made by Pam George.

Blue Buoys (mine) on the left, Peanut by Pam George on the right. Click to view larger.

I’m happy to be able to recommend this book, and so thankful that Susan asked me to be a part of it!  You can order directly from Susan at her website.

LATE NEWS BULLETIN:  I wrote Susan to let her know this post would be going live today, and she said “OH!  I’d love to donate a copy of the book in a giveaway!”  So thank you Susan!  To be eligible to win a copy, please leave a comment below.  I’ll use a random number generator (may be my son!) to  select the winner.  I’d love it if you’d tell me which of Susan’s works you most like…she has a mind-boggling array of beautiful work here (her Gallery page) as well as in her series of six articles on thread sketching for Quilting Arts magazine.  PS:  Susan is heading to Quilt Market and Festival, so I’ll do the drawing on November 9th (after I’m back from teaching in NH, too).