And before I go count down 139 comments out of 224, I’m going to put a note at the start of this post:  One commenter has the book already, and  a couple of my replies are in that total.  If I land on Terry’s comment or my replies, I will go to the next highest number that isn’t either Terry or me! (PS:  I used www.random.org to generate a number between 1 and 224.)

Now I’m off to count….

And now I’m back: Annie Copeland of California (and I actually know her!) has won.

I love this kind of book with lots of photos that are clear and show how to do what it is we are trying to learn. I have trouble learning from just words, so this handsome book fills the bill from my standpoint. Thank you for the opportunity. I love the photos, but love the little dog esp. Having my share of pets, this is one I need to get down.

Annie:  looks like things are looking up for you…HOORAY!  I’ll write to you and Susan by e-mail and you two can work out when and where you want Susan to send you the book.

And since there were SO MANY OF YOU who came and commented, I thought I’d add a free pattern of mine.  So, Stephanie of Stephanieestrin.blogspot.com,  please write to me (I’ll send you a direct e-mail too) and you can pick any one of my patterns that strikes your fancy, and I’ll send it to you!

THANK YOU ALL!

As you might gather by the gap in my postings, it has been another busy week with both art and soccer (keep reading for the art part)!  Eli is in the final week or two of both league soccer and school cross country, with the championships for the latter last week, and….DRUM ROLL and MAJOR HOLLERING please…. ELI WON!   Yes, Eli won the Busline Cross Country Championship (Class B) on Tuesday!  Close on his heels (literally) was his best friend Ben, who came in second.  Both Boys and Girls teams won with undefeated season for the second year in a row (ya think Coach Morse is doing a fantastic job or what?!!!).    That was followed on Friday by Eli winning the Winthrop Invitational Cross Country meet, a course with lots of hills–best of all, they were competing against seven or more teams they had never raced, including the Class A Champion Cony Middle School Team AND he did it setting a new course record!  And to everyone (at least from our area) utter delight, both boys and girls won the team championships too!

And they're off! Eli is the arrow on the right, his best friend Ben W. on the left, and a passle of other middle school boys. This photo shows maybe one-third of the runners!

Eli crests the last small hill before heading into the chute and the finish line at the midcoast Maine Busline League Cross Country Championships

Eli WINS, with Ben close behind.... wow!

In August, I came across a bit Jane LaFazio posted on FaceBook about a sketchbook “On Location” class she is teaching online via Joggles.  Very uncharacteristically for me, I signed up on the spur of the moment, and I promise I’ll get caught up on blogposts and share with you the great stuff I did.  THEN she had a new class on Mixed Media Journals starting in October.  I really want to get in to the habit of using journals for my art, so I signed up right away.  Here is part of the first lesson:

The lesson was using water-soluble pen; first you sketch (well, I sure do!) in pencil, then ink, allow the ink to dry, erase the pencil and then "wash" the ink to shade. Here's the outlining.

The pitcher with *complicated* kitchen utensils (that spaghetti scoop was hard!) and my sketchbook. A while back I'd heard that drawing eggs is good practice in seeing shadows, so what is why the eggs on the spoon rest.

The two sketches. I've finished the page but haven't taken a picture (get with it Sarah!), so will do that later. Anyway, I'm reasonably pleased.

Now we’re off to the soccer league playoffs for all of Sunday, then more cross country and soccer next weekend and the following one….

Hi all!  For nearly 8 years now (whoosh…the sound of time whizzing by!) I have been privileged to work with Janome-America and use one of their fantabulous machines for my work, starting with the 6500, moving to the 6600, and now the delectable 7700.  Starting yesterday, they are featuring three blog lessons from me on machine quilting on the Janome-America website!

Go here to the Janome-America home page and follow the links (scroll down if you need to reach the October 14th post) to your free FMQ lesson number one.  Here’s a link directly to the lesson.  And here’s a link to the Horizon 7700, the machine I currently use and love!

I’m so happy to be able to share this information with you and through Janome.  They have been wonderful supporters, including me in the program before my first article or quilt was published.  I have done so much in the past 8 years that they have sponsored me, that it is hard to fathom–from complete unknown to exhibiting for the first time at Houston to being published in a magazine, then a series of articles for Machine Quilting Unlimited, to articles in Quilting Arts, to teaching in national venues like IQA Houston, AQS Paducah and Knoxville, NQA in Ohio, and guilds across the nation, writing my first (but I hope not last) book, and even winning an award in Houston.  It is sometimes hard to believe this has all happened to me.  And I am so thankful to Janome for their support and their machines, which have helped me do all of this.

So please, surf on over to the Janome site and feel free to download a copy of my lessons for your personal use! Wooohooo!

The last week of July, I headed to Nebraska (with trepidation given the weather forecasts for 100+ days everywhere in the midwest).  I left a cloudy Maine and snapped this photo on the way out of the midcoast:

Outbound...love the picture of the land through the clouds.

To get anywhere, I either drive a long way and spend the night (more expensive for the guild) to catch a plane out of Portland or Boston, OR I leave from Rockland/Owl’s Head, which is about 30 minutes from home.  Mo bettah!  Still not inexpensive, but less costly than an overnight.  The plane is small — here is a blogpost from last May — perhaps 9 passengers total, one of whom sits next to the pilot.

Once I got to Nebraska via Rockland to Boston to Detroit to Omaha to a car to 2-3 hours to Kearney (phew), I taught three classes:  Art Uncensored, Fine Finishes, and Hawaiian applique.  Since there are a ton of photos (and I’ve skipped a bunch), I’ll break it into two posts.   I must say, I seem to have taken cooler weather with me.  The 100+ temps abated and it was a quite tolerable (thanks to A/C) 90-ish during the days.

The first day I taught in a conference room in the Holiday Inn since the class was small.  This is the first time they have offered classes on Thursday, and I think many were low on students.  We still managed to fill up the room!

three students filled up the entire conference table (along with all the STUFF I schlep for them to try)

They did a great job and produced a lot of nice surface-designed fabrics, using both my carved blocks and the raw materials and ideas of their own:

An end-of-class collage of pieces made

And even more end-of-class samples by the students; techniques include lino-cut rubbings, rubbings with Shiva painstiks, stamping, printing, stenciling.... lotsa fun!

I particularly liked how the student used the sequin waste and shaded colors to create the berry clusters here:

The green-on-white is a "paper snowflake cutout" stencil, the other two are the berry/grape/hydrangea (take your pick) clusters... really like them!

And one lady actually made a postcard…

collaging fabric to make a landscape

I’ll be back in a couple of days with the final two classes:  Hawaiian Applique and Fine Finishes.

Hi all… at 2 pm east coast time today, the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) annual fundraising auction began here and here.  If you’d like to help support SAQA by bidding, or just would like to see and enjoy the stunning small (most are 12×12 inches)  art quilts, surf over to the SAQA site.  The price begins at $750, then is reduced this week in increments…does one risk waiting too long for a lower price and losing a gem?  If I were independently wealthy….

SAQA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation.  Their quarterly journal has become one of my favorite “magazines” because it not only profiles great art quilters, but also addresses issues of interest to us from creative blocks to marketing.   Anyway, Martha Sielman, the SAQA president (and also the curator behind the two wonderful Masters Art Quilt books from Lark–click on the links for more info for Volume 1 and Volume 2) invited us to be virtual curators ourselves and pick some of our favorites as an online show.

La Mere de la Tranquilite by Genevieve Attinger, above, is one of my favorites.  The Title translates literally to the Mother of Tranquility, but is also a play on the French for the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.  Stunning!

Mary Pal’s study of Jane Goodall is stunning in its simplicity and its complexity.

Composition XIII, by Deidre Adams, is another favorite.  Though I generally prefer representational art, I am one who is thrilled by the quilting line, and this piece thrills.  One of these days I hope I’ll muster the courage to quilt something, then paint it!

Kate Themel’s GottaHavaCuppa is another joyous celebration of line and stitch…and steam!

In next week’s auction (there are three sessions), Terri Stegmiller’s quilt charms me:

A Little Bird Told Me, by Terri Stegmiller

Which quilts are your favorites?  I’ll try to post again in the next two weeks with more of my favorites… so many quilts, no lottery win (yet)!