I am over the moon excited that Pink Oyster Mushrooms has been juried in to the 10th and final (SOB) Dinner at Eight exhibit and that I can now share it with you–I made this back in the January to April time frame, and keeping it under wraps has been difficult!  From that website, “Dinner at Eight Artists is pleased to present The Best of Dinner at Eight Artists: Celebrating 10 Years of Exhibitions. Each artist selected a theme from the last 9 years for what will be our last exhibition. Quilt size is 30” wide by 50” high. The exhibit is sponsored by Havel’s Sewing.

“Artists considered the following:

We’ve explored the Edges and the Spaces Between

We examined things Beneath the Surface

We all admit that we have Rituals

We shared our Exquisite Moments

We Reflected upon ourselves and the world around us

We expressed our Affinity for certain things

We’ve noted the many Patterns in our lives

and expressed ourselves through Personal Iconography”

First and foremost:  Yes, oyster mushrooms really can be PINK!   Here’s the photo I took at the Belfast (Maine) Farmer’s Market last September:

Here are two detail images.  For this piece, I dyed the background fabric a very pale, warm pink. Then I used Tsukinenko inks mixed with aloe vera gel (the white kind from the organic food shop that is about 98 percent gel, not the green yuck that is barely 60 percent aloe gel from Rite Aid) and painted the browns and pink shadows on the gills.  I used stabilizer underneath and did all the stitching on the curled tops before layering up with batting and backing.  I then quilted the wholecloth top, outlined the brown tops/edges, and added a little more quilting where necessary to prevent buckling on the brown areas.

It has been such an honor to be a part of so many of the Dinner at Eight exhibits.   I am a better artist and a happier person for having met and worked with and become friends with the strong women involved, starting with Jamie Fingal (http://www.jamiefingaldesigns.com) and Leslie Tucker Jenison (http://www.leslietuckerjenison.com).  I am proud beyond belief of the work I have done for these exhibits, which I consider to be the best of everything I have done, and deliriously happy to be included in this final exhibit.  THANK YOU, Jamie, Leslie and all the Dinner@8 artists.

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Many of you know I have been a Janome Girl for a long time.  I was beyond fortunate to be able to attend Janome-America’s first ever Education Summit last week in New Jersey.  It brought together Janome Educators–those wonderful folks who work in show booths for Janome, Janome dealers, in classrooms at quilt shows, around North America, the National Spokespersons for Janome for both the US, Kimberly Einmo, and Canada, Tamara Kate, as well as many Janome Artisans (like me) and Janome Makers.   As someone said at the start, I am in awe of the talent in that room, and my awe only increased as the week progressed.   I’ll share what we did over several blogposts because it was WAY to much fun and educational to fit into one post.  A bunch of us from the summit are blogging, so I will link to their posts at the end (and perhaps in a separate post, too).  A HUGE HUGE HUGE THANK YOU to Janome America–I think all of us are still floating on the collective energy and inspiration!

We began by working on the Janome 9400, the machine I have in my studio.  You will have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.  I love what I can do on this machine. Stay tuned for different session work on it (as well as all my garment sewing and a lot of my quilting).

The swag that came from attending this Summit was unbelievable–thanks to ALL the donors.  Kimberly designed a ruler for flying geese and has a new line of fabric, Solid-ish which was one of our first delights. I had admired it on Facebook posts, but OMG it is SO much prettier in person!   And I am now a convert to specialized rulers.  This ruler makes it brainless and possible for even me to get perfect points (and I totally mean that, not just complimenting because we got a freebie, it really works).

One of the first and most useful tips came at the start:  ya know how Jelly rolls and other precuts have pinked edges and shed bits of thread and lint like crazy?  Lint roller them FIRST, before you undo the package!!!!!   Brilliant!

I tend to stress in classroom situations and my brain freezes, so I don’t accomplish a lot.   But I do start thinking.  I totally want some play time to make more geese and maybe some placemats, a wall quilt of the modern persuasion…. I saw what Tamara Kate was doing and totally thought that I need to get out of my box and play.   Go check Tamara Kate’s website Kayajoy for inspiration.

More soon!   Next post will be about ruler work with Amy Dreishbach Johnson of Sew Simple of Lynchburg VA.

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Two and a half weeks ago, I came across a Jimmy Fallon re-working of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ on Facebook and Youtube (hear it here–really LISTEN to the lyrics).  I was so moved by it that I wanted to create a quilt based on the song, but realized there were all those pesky copyright issues with using Fallon’s lyrics, so instead I created this quick piece to capture the spirit of the re-worked song. I pretty much never just drop everything and make a quilt this rapidly, but I just had to do it. I have titled it Words –> Power –> Action because, as our mothers told us, words have power.  Over the past two years, the election cycle, the results, and the first year of the current Presidency, have galvanized many so many of us. I have changed.  Legions of us have changed.

 

As a US Foreign Service Officer, I was not allowed to participate in partisan politics (federal regulations) because our job was (and should be) to serve ALL Americans.  I was used to keeping my mouth shut.  As a national level quilting teacher and artist, I felt it was better to keep politics and religion out of the classroom (and still do), so I kept my mouth shut.  But the past 20+ months have convinced me that I must speak out.  My quilt about the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017 was my first overtly political quilt.

I’ve been so distressed about the polarization and apparent lack of civility, compassion and understanding, of tolerance for differing views, that the past two years have been pretty depressing.  Our political climate has made me angry and galvanized me to take action and speak out.  Inspired by Fallon’s lyrics I went in search of quotes.  I’ll share all of them after each detail photo in which they appear.

I began like our nation, with revolutionary words from the US Declaration of Independence, which are written at the top of my brick wall (yes, I have the Pink Floyd lyrics “another brick in the wall” running on loop in my head, along with the phrase “the writing is on the wall”–I resisted the temptation to use that as a title!).  I dyed fabric to be a wall, using cold wax (from ProChem, and can’t find it any more on their website!) to create a resist for the mortar.  The backing is dyed cement grey.  The edges are raw, like my nerves and emotions (and those of so many others), torn on both the top and backing, with a tiny bit of batting peeking out and scruffed up.

Prominent phrases and quotes:

• Speak Up, Speak Out
• get woke
• We the People
• Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek.  Barack Obama

Background quotes:

• Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governedwhenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  US Declaration of Independence
• We did not come to fear the future.  We came here to shape it.  B. Obama

Prominent phrases and quotes:

• Take a knee
• Listen
• Reach Out
• #metoo
• When they go low, we go high.  Michelle Obama

Background quote:

• We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.  B. Obama

Prominent phrases and quotes:

• Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.  Hillary Clinton
• Vote!  Get Involved
• Courage can be contagious.  Michelle Obama
• e  Pluribus Unum (for non-US readers, this phrase comes from our Founding Fathers and means out of Many, One which represents who we are as a nation, a government of the people, by the people and for the people)

Background quote:

• here in America we are waging a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for reading this far.  I hope you like it.

 

 

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Hi everyone!   Thanks so much to those of you who were able to attend my new lecture, Inspiration in the Ordinary.  Thank you so much to the many guest artists who allowed me to share their work in my lecture.  You’ll find them below, along with links to a couple apps that I mentioned in the lecture as well as website links to two exhibits and several books, including The Art of Sarah Ann Smith…so far.  

Inspiration in the Ordinary                   A lecture by Sarah Ann Smith

 

Guest artists, apps and websites

 

Deborah Boschert

http://deborahsstudio.com

 

Kathy (Kate) Daniels

 

Louisa Enright

http://louisaenright.com

 

Bonnie K Hunter

http://www.quiltville.com

• On Ringo Lake: https://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/on-ringo-lake-mystery.html
• Blue Skies from String Fling
• Lazy Sunday from More Adventures with Leaders and Enders
• Crabapple from Adventures with Leaders and Enders

 

Kristin La Flamme

http://kristinlaflamme.com

 

Heather Pregger

http://www.heatherquiltz.com

 

Wendy Caton

http://theconstantquilter.blogspot.com

 

Teri Sontra

Purple Moose Designs  https://www.purplemoosedesigns.com

• Sandy Toes pattern is here https://www.purplemoosedesigns.com/product/sandy-toes/

 

Timna Tarr

http://www.timnatarr.com

 

Jim Vander Noot

https://www.jimvandernoot.com

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TidewaterStudio?ref=search_shop_redirect

 

Angela Walters

http://www.quiltingismytherapy.com

• Blended Squares is at http://www.quiltingismytherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BlendedSquares.pdf
• Impracticality is at http://www.quiltingismytherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Impracticality-tutorial.pdf

 

Websites and apps:

 

Pantone  app

Pic-Collage app

PicStitch app

 

The Art of Sarah Ann Smith, so far

http://www.blurb.com/b/8193077-the-art-of-sarah-ann-smith

 

Inspired by the National Parks

http://www.npscentennialquilts.com

https://www.amazon.com/Inspired-National-Parks-Landscapes-Perspectives/dp/0764351192/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1445953799&sr=8-5&keywords=inspired+by+the+national+parks

 

Threads of Resistance

http://threadsofresistance.org/home.html

http://threadsofresistance.blogspot.com

 

Here’s a downloadable Inspiration in the Ordinary PDF of the information above.  Thanks again to all my visiting artists!

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Hi all…quickly popping in to say HI!  I’m debuting my new lecture, Inspiration in the Ordinary, tomorrow at the Pine Tree Quilt Guild quarterly meeting in Waterville, ME.  To get directions, click here for more information.  Note, however, that the meeting has been moved down the hill to the auditorium.  Just look for where there are more cars parked!

Tomorrow I’ll have a follow up post with a PDF and links to the “visiting artists” websites, pattern links, information about apps, and the books mentioned in the lecture.   Hope to see many of you there!

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