Woooohoooo!   It’s official:  the Coastal Quilters Chapter Banner has been juried in to the AQS show in Knoxville, TN.  Each of the three AQS shows (the others are the famous Paducah show and the new Des Moines show) have different categories and size requirements.  The Knoxville show is the only one for which a group quilt of this size is eligible…and we got in!

I am SO PROUD of the 18 women who did even better than their best on their contributions to this quilt!  For the full run-down, visit here (gallery page on my website) for details.  Now, to go get it packed up and see if Louisa can drop the package off when I’m away.  WOOHOOO!

Here is a detail photo, too….

Last year, my local quilting group, the Coastal Quilters, did their first ever challenge, inspired by the 5 Artists, 5 Ways project the Frayed Edges did (you can see it here and here).  Last year’s challenge, Ropes and Buoys, was so successful, we all decided to do it again.  Program chair Barb Melchiskey and co. decided on a Grab Bag challenge.

Here’s a teaser:

The rules:

• Put some stuff into a brown lunch bag.
• Turn in.
• Collect a different bag.
• Make something from it.
• Finished size 10 x 10 inches.
• Must use some of EVERYthing in the bag, with a recognizable bit of the largest item.

Initially, folks were then going to return the finished quilt to the person who donated the bag.  So, having done this and realizing that I get possessive, I opted out.   Then Leigh Smith (not a relative) asked if I would like to do a swap, as she had not been at the meeting.  Then Mathea wanted to join, so we did a 3-way swap.

In her defense, Mathea didn’t know the rules when she filled her clear baggie.  When she dropped it off at my house (I was the swapper person for  our on-the-side group), I took one look and KNEW I couldn’t do that to Leigh (a beginning quilter).  Here is what Mathea put in the bag:

SHRIEK!   At best, any 3 fabrics went together.   I cried.  I swore.  I said I wouldn’t do it.  Then I really started looking at it.  I tried to use the kimono fabric as the focus, but it wasn’t working.  So the next dominant piece was the red…. but parts were cut off, so I fussy cut down the long center.

I also happened to be having a rare DVD-fest, watching The Tudors (rented from the local video store…we don’t get Showtime…it’s gonna be a LONG year until it is available on DVD!).  Anyway, the influence is clear, especially when you get to the finished piece.  Here is fused stage:

Then after the quilting, including lots of sating stitching and blanket stitching:

This is what the back looked like… I painted the embroidery floss black, and pressed it dry using the white cloth.  Then used the white INSIDE the piece while I quilted.

After quilting I beaded, then added a false back.  The beading makes me think of the costumes in the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn episodes I was watching, so I named it something like “Quilting with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.”  Nothing like short and pithy.  Ahem.  Here’s the false back showing the assorted fabrics (and when I get them added, the various embellishing items),

and, drum roll, the front:

Finally, another detail shot of the center, where I “hid” all sorts of little difficult to use bits.  Hope you like it… I sure do!:

If you’re like me, you’ll hear Bing Crosby’s voice as he sings to Rosemary Clooney on that one…. For those of you who don’t love the old movie White Christmas, Bing and Rosemary are the older of a pair of war buddies (that would be Bing, to Danny Kaye’s younger corporal) and sisters (with actress Vera Ellen of the impossibly tiny waist and very fast dancing feet).   Theirs is a somewhat rocky courtship, aided and abetted by Danny and Vera’s characters.   Rosemary goes to get a sandwich at the inn, and Bing shows up to make her a liverwurst sandwich with buttermilk (BLEAH…how could anyone think that tastes good?????).  She says she can’t sleep, so of course Bing breaks into song about counting your besslings instead of sheep, and the refrain ends “you’ll fall asleep counting your bleeeeeeesssssss-iiiiiinnnnnnngggggggggs”.

So I decided I should count some of my blessings:

1.  My family is alive and well, and we are blessed to be together.

2.  Mom agreed to move to Maine, and now lives 5 minutes instead of a continent (or more as it has been in years past) away.  Best of all, she has become nice again, and I have my mommy back.  The dementia is getting worse, but she is much kinder,  she gets my sense of humor, and best of all she seems to be happier!

3.  Joshua is alive, well, fully recovered, and seems to have (we think/hope/pray) passed through some of the more tumultuous moments of the teen years.  He is a responsible employee at his job, and is bright and learning.

4.  Eli is a stupendous student, cool kid, devoted son and brother, and great dog-parent to Pigwidgeon.   He is (hooray!, we’ve bred two of them) an inveterate reader, curious, polite, kind, interesting… OK I’ll stop now.  I know I’m biased.  That’s my job.

5.  Paul and I celebrated 25 years of marriage, and we’re still bubbling along. As in all marriages that last, we are always there for each other, and he is my best friend and the first person I go to for most anything (well, except for quilting advice!).

6.  Pigwidgeon (the pug) and Thumper (the 26-toed calico cat) follow me around the house and bring furry love, joy and hair to my life.

7.  Pigwidgeon makes EVERYone, and I mean EVERYONE, smile.  Just last night, when I took him out for nighttime walkies, he had me laughing out loud as he cavorted and chased a snow clod!

8.  Joyce came to visit; my late half-brother’s wife, Joyce is like a sister to me.  I remember her from when my family and I returned to the US when I was six, and she has been a part of my life ever since.  T.J. gets major bonus points for bringing the best person in the family into it.

9.  The Frayed Edges:  Kathy, Kate, Deborah and Hannah make my life and Maine a better place to be (even tho Deborah  is currently in the wilds of Texas).  They are friends, artists, confidants, and just plain FUN and interesting and wonderful.

10.  Marie is one of those friends that will last through the ages… you know how maybe six or seven times in your life you meet someone and you know you will be friends forever, no matter where you are?  Well, Marie is one of those!   Even tho she is still in Washington State, and I am in Maine,  we are still close….and even tho we can sometimes only keep up by visiting each others’ blogs (hers is here), we are always in each other’s hearts.

11.  The Coastal Quilters:  my local quilt chapter is filled with wonderful, fun, diverse, interesting women (no men yet in the group).

12.  QuiltArt ( click here for the website) is the most wonderful online group (like an extended family spread ’round the world) of kindred (and not so kindred) souls, all of whom love art quilts.   QA was my door into art quilting, my master’s degree, my continuing education, the source of untold friendships and inspiration and ideas…. it’s a great place to be.  Thanks to List Mom Judy for creating such a home, to all who make it the best place in cyber-space….

13.  Kit Robinson, on both the QuiltArt and Janome 6500/6600 groups (the latter is a yahoo group), who invited me to write an article for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine.  In talking over the proposed subject, tension, I mused that really I needed to write about needles first, because you need the correct needle to get the correct tension.  One article turned into two, then….

14.  Vicki Anderson, publisher of MQU and the sister-magazine for long-arm quilters, Unlimited Possibilities, asked me to be a regular columnist for them… WOOOOHOO!!!! For the first time since 1997, I have predictable income with each quarterly article.  Best of all, I get to write about quilting AND get paid for it… life is truly wonderful.

15.  Quilting Arts magazine accepted two of my ideas for short lessons in their e-Newsletter, Embellishments; not only was I paid a modest sum, but they put my name under theirs and in front of something like 50,000 subscribers!  WOW…. THANK YOU Pokey Bolton (top editor and big kahuna, even tho she is a tiny little thing!) and Cate Prato (editor) . For info on how to subscribe to the e-Newsletter, click here.

16.  Quilting Arts / Cloth Paper Scissors  invited folks to submit ideas to participate in Open Studio, where you get to demonstrate a technique, at the large Quilting Arts zone at quilt festival in Houston; they invited me to participate!!!!   I am thrilled at their confidence in me, and I had a blast.  I hope to be able to do it again.

17.  Festival in Houston:  I get to see great quilts, meet old and new friends, see folks I have originally “met” online mostly on the Quiltart list.   Thanks to Karey Bresenhan and her hard-working cast and crew for all they do for all quilters…. Karey is truly in the business of making dreams come true for so many of us!

18.  Iris Karp of Misty Fuse has been so kind and generous, and I had a ball demonstrating in her booth in Houston….. would LOVE to do it again!   Thanks Iris!

19.  SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Association. Despite the somewhat steep annual dues, I decided a while back that I needed to join.  Boy was I right!  I’ve had at least one exhibit opportunity thanks to being on their site, and think that at least a couple of the work opportunities that have come my way have been due to being in SAQA (and on their website).  Then, last Christmas Marie (see #10) sent me a copy of Portfolio 14, a SAQA publication that is aimed at galleries, museums and collectors.  I knew within about 20 seconds of seeing it that I needed to upgrade to Professional Artist Member status (if they’d take me) and be in the next one.  Well…. I was accepted as a PAM, and got into Portfolio 15 (now available for sale here) and (drum roll) a thumbnail of my quilt even made the back cover!

20. As a result of adding some information to the SAQA wiki (an online information data base for members), I came to Lisa Chipetine’s attention, and she very kindly invited me to be the fifth person in an online Critique session with quiltartist Sandra Sider.  WOW!   I can’t believe how much I learned, perhaps even more so from listening to the comments and discussion about other quilts being critiqued.  If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming critique sessions, click here.

21.  The manuscript is nearing completion!  More on that when I can!

22.  I was FLOORED when I pulled up Creative Quilting with Beads early this year on Amazon.com  looking for a publication date…as longtime readers know, I have two projects in the book, and Kate (1), Kathy (1) and Deborah (3!) also have projects.  The COVER was MY pomegranate notebook! Talk about a pipe dream come true!

23.  About this time last year, I wrote a quick note to Bonnie Browning, who is a big kahuna at the AQS quilt shows, related to a posting she had made on the QuiltArt list.  She must have clicked on my signature links and visited my website, and she invited me to apply to TEACH for AQS!  The kicker:  this was Sunday, and applications needed to be in her office Monday.  I quickly turned my brochure into a PDF and e-mailed her all the info.  The result:  Bonnie and AQS took a chance and hired me to teach in PADUCAH (Paducah and Houston are the two biggest, most prestigious quilt shows in the US and honestly, in the world!).  I had a ball, student reviews were good, and I did it….hoooray!

24.  Lowell Quilt Festival (Massachusetts) also hired me to teach, and I had a ball there, too.   That show is only about 4 hours from me, so I was able to take LOTS of extra goodies since I could drive.  I had the most amazing time, and they treated the teachers like royalty!  I learned so much from so many amazing teachers…. Nancy Prince and Joanie Zeier Poole were incredibly generous in sharing tips and tricks of teaching on the road…. all of us who ate dinner together… totally fantastic!

25.  Blogging and the internet and all of you!  One of the joys of my mornings is checking flags…. I use a couple of sitemeters, and I LOVE looking at where people are who visit my blog… the sitemeters don’t tell me your e-mail, but they do give a location (more or less… depending on the company, my address in Camden shows up as Camden, Rockland, Tenant’s Harbor….at least it is a general location).  I’ve now had visitors from over 129 nations and every state in the US and almost every province in Canada.  WAY COOL!   I love how the internet has brought us closer, how I can e-mail my friend Lisa in Sydney (literally almost halfway ’round the world), hear back a moment later, reply, and carry on an instant conversation.  I love how those of us who worked in isolated splendor can now share and learn, so THANK YOU for being out there and surfing in to here!

I could go on, but I will stop here, or I really will put all of you to sleep.

Thank you and blessings and peace to you and all of yours,

Sarah

During lunch break from class on that Friday, Jan and I went down to the show floor to see the quilts, and what ribbons I might have won …… teeeheee!   I got lucky this year, and received two first place blue ribbons and, drum roll please, my first ever Judges’ Choice from (usually traditional-loving) Lisa Erlandson (you’ll have to read to the bottom for more!)!  The first of my quilts that I ran across was Nourish; when I walked up all sorts of folks were looking at it closely (way cool!).

Here’s me doing the “Vanna White pose” and explaining to some viewers how I did it….

The next aisle had a wonderful exhibit called A Sense of Place, the annual Art Quilts Maine challenge for the year.  This year there were many entries (some years there are not so many!), and they were all wonderful, and some outstanding.  Of course I loved Kathy and Kate’s!   Kathy’s features her signature bright colors and many beads….as always not one too many, not one too few:

This detail shows more of her fine work:

Kate outdid herself this year.  She went to Italy earlier this year, and was so inspired by Cinque Terra.  She took her time with this quilt (as an overextended mom, we all tend to rush!) and it shows in the quality of design and workmanship.  This may be the best machine quilting she’s done… I totally love the piece:

Anne Walker, the President (aka Queen) of AQM, made this stunning aerial view…. her work is always tops—I wouldn’t mind owning a piece like this one!  The blue binding on the bottom is inspired!:

Across the aisle, the Coastal Quilters challenge hung on the ugly burgundy drapes.  Inspired by the Frayed Edges 5×5 grid (seen here in an older blogpost, and here and here), the chapter chose a photo by Jan’s husband and photographer Dwight P. called Ropes and Buoys.  The challenge was to make a 10x 10 inch quilt using any technique.   Many went for realistic colors….weathered wood and rope and a bright buoy, but some of us went hog wild!

Mine are the two close-ups….last one on the 4th row, first one on the 5th row.

I LOVED that some went traditional in their interpretation, and that others went totally wild.  What is astonishing is that some of the most traditional quilters who had never EVER made an art quilt did some of the most AMAZING piece….major kudos to Karen Martin and Leigh Smith for not only attempting the challenge, but excelling!

This quilt was a round robin made by Roxanne Wells, Rebeccah Hokkanen, Susan Barry and Gail Galloway-Nicholson.   Despite serious medical challenges to them and / or their spouses for at least three of them, they did a wonderful job.  Alas, I somehow only got the picture of this one (not all four) of their challenge quilts.  Of course they are, all 4 of them, part of my awesome local Coastal Quilters chapter.  I’m so glad I’m here! What luck to find so many kindred souls.

As promised, here is Rana O’Connor’s tiger….he is totally, completely amazing.  The tiger himself is ALL THREAD….and then appliqued onto the surface, which is a single batik. Everything else you see is thread–the snake, the tree, everything.  Can you tell she loves thread as much as I do?  Not surprisingly, he took a well-earned blue ribbon!  The quilt is fairly small, maybe 14 inches tall?

Here are several quilts (and sorry, I’m too lazy and rushed to run upstairs and find the show brochure to add who made them… if you know tell me and I’ll update the post, which I’ll try to do later anyway) that I really liked…. first this awesome green NY Beauty:

And this very Maine-ish quilt, complete with loose-flapping flags:

No blog about the show would be complete without one of Jeanne-Marie Robinson’s quilts (she’s also in Coastal Quilters…grin!).  Almost always her quilts feature animals, and most often are brightly colored.  This one is softer, yet is one of my favorites….the handwork (all hand applique and quilting, and lots of embroidery) is stunning:

This charming little quilt was made of one of those fabrics you’d think would turn out, well, a bit tacky, but it SO works, and the beading is just perfect.  I want to track down the maker (I have the info in my notes somewhere) and ask her if I may use it in my lecture on beading on quilts:

Last but not least, here I am doing another “Vanna” showing off my Judges’ choice ribbon for Naiads:

It was a good year!   I actually got to see the show this year, Joshua is well, Paul is well, and Eli is well!  After helping hang the show on Wednesday (see the post from a couple of days ago), I returned Friday morning for a class on “Woodcut Quilts with Laura Wasilowski.”  Jan and I had signed up eons ago, as soon as we could, with the idea of a “moms escape to play.” To see Laura’s work and / or buy her fabric and thread, go here.

To get an idea of the type of pieces, take a look at Laura’s small quilts on the demo-board.  There were no patterns, just your imagination to run wild.  The class kit fee included two lengths of Laura’s hand-dyed fabric (it is a rainbow run of color from one selvage to the other) in bright and a narrower strip in pastel, plus some dyed-to-match perle cotton.

For some reason, I don’t have a picture of my piece (in progress and untouched since class…sigh…), so you’ll get to enjoy Jan’s piece, above.  I really like the bricks…not a whole raft of them, just some to suggest the wall around the door.   As usual, I was disobedient, and brought Misty Fuse instead of Wonder Under (and did just fine thankyewveddymuch), and also brought along my stash of pre-fused batiks (see the flowerpot to the left of Jan’s door!).

There were some awesome pieces…one lady made a giraffe for a granddaughter (sorry I don’t recall her name)….and please remember, these are all “in progress” pieces:

You can see the shading on the pastel hand-dyed in the sky on this piece.

Virginia Morrell of Art Quilts Maine made this awesome and vibrant flower doing very careful fussy cutting…can’t wait to see where it goes:

And Beth Guisely from Coastal Quilters is well on her way to achieving a rooster here:

I’ll be back in a couple of days with one more post about MQ2008!