Wow… this is fun:  I am shipping out FOUR quilts to various shows and exhibits today!   The first one to go on display is Conversations 1, at the big AQS show in Paducah!  Then two are going off to be in the Traditional Treasures special exhibit for the International Quilt Festivals in Chicago and (in fall) Houston, and then the pug-love is headed off to a round of exhibits with Mary Wilson Kerr’s Dare to Dance exhibit!

Conversations 1 is going to Paducah!

Next on the exhibit trail is Mr. Wiggles Does the Circle Dance.  This portrait of Pigwidgeon’s joy when getting his supper is in Mary Wilson Kerr’s soon-to-be-available book and exhibit “Dare to Dance:  An Artist’s Interpretation of Joy.”  You can read more about the exhibit and where it is going here.  This quilt is going to log a LOT of miles, starting in West Virginia, heading to MANY Sew Expo’s, MANY Mancuso shows and will return home after (get this!) two and half years on the road!   Wave hullo to our beloved pug when you see him!

Mr. Wiggles Does the Circle Dance is going on the road! If you look closely (at least in person) you can see below the bowl that I’m asking him “Are you hungry?” That questions sets off the dance which begins with three (always three, only three) counter-clockwise (same direction always) circles. He then runs behind your legs and bumps you in the direction of the closet which holds the kibble!

Then, to my utter astonishment and complete delight, I have TWO quilts that made it into a **traditional** exhibit at International Quilt Festival, the Traditional Treasures that will debut in Chicago in June and return again in Houston.  This is the first time I’ve had traditional quilts juried in to a major national show, and I am elated!

This may be one of my favorite quilts. It is inspired by a beer carton (for our grocery challenge, see blogposts here and here). I revised the harbor to be Camden, Maine, and the schooner to be the Louis B French. The miniature storm at sea is mostly from a John Flynn quilt kit, with the small square in a square finishing at (EEEK) 1 1/8″. At least when I pieced them accurately! Finished size is 20 1/2″ square.  This quilt and the next one will also (yippeee!) be included in Lark’s forthcoming 500 Traditional Quilts book!

And my Hawaiian inspired quilt, Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul, will also be in IQF’s Traditional Treasures.  There are apparently only 25 quilts in this exhibit, so I am totally gobsmacked and humbled to have two quilts included.  Nourish is 64 inches square, is available as a pattern, and is the basis of my Hawaiian Applique by Machine class:

Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul, by Sarah Ann Smith. The blocks are either food (taro, pineapple or breadfruit) or things that are beautiful: the plumeria with its heavenly scent and the bird of paradise.

Have lots of things to share, but am so busy I don’t have much time to blog!  Will try to post again in a couple of days!

Especially in my house!  Think rural.  Think cats.  Think Sarah.  But you don’t want dust inside your sewing machine!  I was so happy when editor Kit Robinson asked me to do an article on the care and feeding of your domestic sewing machine.  That article has just come out in the March/April issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited:

Machine Quilting Unlimited March/April Issue with my article on dust along with other great articles. LOVED the one by fellow-Mainer Margaret Solomon Gunn on scalloped bindings and one on Jenny Bowker’s quilts.

I was even more elated when just a few days after copies arrived in mailboxes across the US, Publisher Vicki Anderson forwarded this email to me:

My wife just received her March/April 2014 issue and I want to compliment you on the Sarah Ann Smith article titled Dust Happens.
 
I am a Bernina Certified tech that repairs anything that walks in the door and all brands of Long Arms. I also give presentations to the local guilds on Care and Feeding of your Domestic Machines. Her article is the most comprehensive that I have read to date. I feel as if she had a copy of my Power Point in front of her (right down to the needle photos!).
 
Outstanding! I agree with 100% of what she said and applaud her for the article.
 
Please use this and pass this along in any way that you see fit.
 
Duane Sellers
Bernina Tech
Lafayette, In

WOW! Talk about a HAPPY RUSH!  You all know I’m a Janome girl, but we also all know how GOOD Bernina is in terms of service and support, how good it’s repair folks are.  To have a Bernina Tech say that about my article just gives me goosebumps!  Thank you Mr. Sellers!

Here’s a peek at my article–to read it you’ll need to get a copy, which you can do online at mqumag.com or in places like Barnes and Noble or Books-a-Million.

The first page of “Dust Happens,” my article about caring for your machine. Just a few moments every time you use your machine will keep it much happier!

And HUGE thanks to Marie Z. Johansen (BFF!) and Silvia Dell’Aere (a.k.a. Orkaloca) for photographs used in the article.  I needed a specific view of a Bernina bobbin case and, astonishingly, despite having hundreds of photos available for press use, Bernina didn’t have the view I needed, so I called Marie–who is a fabulous photographer–and asked if she could save my bacon and photograph her Bernina’s bobbin case (right before deadline no less), and she did!  THANK YOU!  And Silvia has allowed me to use a photo of hers of the tips of new vs. slightly used needles in my class presentations for years.  I asked for a print-resolution photo, but she had to take a new one–Thank you!  So please, visit their blogs and say thanks! Here’s the page with their photos:

Two more pages from the article. In the “nine patch of photos,” Marie’s photo is middle row, right. Silvia’s is on a different page.  Thank you both!

Have another article in the next issue of MQU..it’s been a good year for writing (which I love as much as quilting).  Thanks, Vicki and Kit, for the opportunity to write for MQU.  I’m so happy to have been able to bring good articles to you.  Thanks also again to Mr. Sellers for taking the time to write such a nice comment!

Hi all!  I can’t believe I haven’t had time to blog about this yet, but I have been published again!   This time in the new book Quilt Essential:  a Visual Directory of Contemporary Patterns, Fabrics and Color by Erin Burke Harris, part of C&T’s “Stash Books” series.  If you are new to quilting and want an overview book, this one is a good one.  It has a very “Quilt Modern” feel to it:  fresh, airy, not fussy, and covers a lot of basics.

The cover of Quilt Essential

I was thrilled when I was invited to submit some quilts for consideration, and even more thrilled when I received a copy and learned I was in the book three times!

My Haleakala Sunrise quilts ( pattern available here in my shop and also at Pacific Rim Quilt Company, a great resource for Hawaiian and applique patterns) are both featured on the opening pages for the Hawaiian Quilts Section (mine are the blue-yellow and red-green).

The book is divided into four major sections:

• 1.  Fabrics:  covers types of fabrics, yardage and measuring, and caring for fabrics.
• 2.  Colors:  color theory, and matching fabrics and colors.
• 3.  Designs:  Shapes, quilt blocks, block layouts and settings, styles and arrangements, sashing and borders, embellishment.
• 4.  Assembling:  piecing, quilt sandwiching, quilting methods, bindings.

The book includes profiles of well-known quilters as well as works by other quilters (including me!).  Here’s a couple more photos:

My Koi quilt is in the Pictorial Quilt section (detail, bottom left, where I’m thrilled to share a page with Lura Schwartz Smith-no relation).

A big detail shot of The Tide is Hire, my pieced, appliqued and beaded quilt which is in the International Quilt Festival Collection (!!!!).

If you know of anyone who is beginning their quilt journey or just wants a good single overview book with a fresh feel to it, this book would be just the thing!  Thank you Erin for including me!

Woot! The January/February 2014 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited is just out and includes my article on machine quilting feet.  Somehow the title (I submitted it without a title..ooops!) ended up being very similar to Barbara Hollinger’s article from last October, but we cover fairly different territory.  Anyway, I am THRILLED with how the article turned out.  The layout is superb!  MQU was great to begin with, but the formatting and layout is even better–if you haven’t picked up a copy, do!  And then subscribe!

Here’s the first two pages of my article, where I use one of my quilts as a teaching moment (that means I did something not so great, then explain how I could have done it differently and better since I didn’t actually rip out the stitches and do it over. Ahem.)

I haven’t read the whole issue yet, but I learn from each and every issue. And if you’re looking for a copy on the newsstands, here’s the cover:

Cover of the Jan/Feb 2014 MQU magazine.

Thank you to Kit Robinson (editor) and Vicki Anderson (publisher) for inviting me to do the article and for doing such a superb job presenting it.  This may be my best article yet!

ALERT:  Joshua, if by chance you are reading this, STOP and GO AWAY!  <grin!>  Ashley, if YOU are reading this you may, but please don’t share pics with Joshua!

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Yes, I am trying to get the photo below the screen line LOL!  In a small miracle, I have made some headway on Joshua’s quilt!  He graduated and got his GED in late Spring.  I started on it in late winter and hoped to have the top done by graduation.  Then I got the chance to make my video workshop (here) and was delayed.  Then I had hoped to have all of Autumn to work on it–but offers of articles and two bloghops to promote the now-out DVD intervened.  But I did get the diamonds made.  Yesterday I FINALLY got to put them up on the design wall, and I AM HAPPY!   If Joshua doesn’t like it (I’m sure he will), I’d love to sleep under this.

Clearly the quilt was inspired by Kaffe Fassett’s quilts.  I actually prefer the Philip Jacobs and Martha Negley prints to Kaffe’s, but had a lovely stash.  There was one print in particular that Joshua liked, so there are ten diamonds in that one, plus I plan to do a pieced “quilt modern-ish” back so the quilt will be two sided.  I think the quilt will be about 87 x 95 when done.  Yesterday I got the pieces up on the design wall (and partly on the floor):

Inspired by Kaffe Fassett’s diamonds quilts. I used the diamond template I had, then cut strips to make 1 inch (finished) sashing/borders for each diamond. There are not two pairings the same in the entire quilt. Doesn’t the color just make you happy? Now to get it pieced without messing up the order!

As I was stitching the edges onto the diamonds, I started popping them up on the wall.  What a muddle!  Wasn’t happy.  So I tried grouping them by center color (large prints) and, when that wasn’t so great, by border color (smaller scale designs/prints).  That worked much better, so I chose a simple rainbow flow:  reds to orange-ish/yellow to green to blues.  When I got to the bottom of the number of rows I needed, I had lots of blues, so used them to fill in the triangles on the tope and sides and really like how the darker strips help contain the quilt.  I’ll use a dark-ish blue for a simple binding.

Now I need to upload a few photos to a transfer site in the cloud for my next article for Machine Quilting Unlimited!  WOOT!