Several years back, the indefatigable Virginia Spiegel set out to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.  Her efforts have taken various forms, in which I’ve been able to participate as donor of both art quiltwork and cash:  fabric postcards and art quilt auctions.  This year, she’s got another great idea:  Totes filled with goodies from various fiber artists.  I’m thrilled to donate a copy of ThreadWork Unraveled, a spool of thread, and a fabric postcard (yet to be made!) as the contents of one of the bags.  The goal is to have bags with affordable-for-most donations as well as a few fancier ones.

Logo designed by Jeanelle McCall of http://www.fivespoongallery.com/

Here’s how it will work:

ToteTuesday, a Fiberart For A Cause fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, will open Tuesday, February 2 and continue through March.

ToteTuesday will feature themed totes filled with unique, beautiful, and inspiring items from the worlds of art quilting, fiber arts, knitting, beading, mixed media and surface design.

You can expect totes offering original artwork, autographed books, hand-dyed fabrics, gorgeous yarns, beads, handmade journals, fun and useful materials/tools for mixed-media and surface design, online classes, DVDs, and much, much more.

A list of the more than 20 themed totes now in progress is here:

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/archives/4265

100% of the proceeds will be donated directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause. Fiberart For A Cause has already donated over $190,000 to the ACS:

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html

Here’s what will be in “my” tote:

Please mark your calendar for Tuesday, February 2 and be prepared to be amazed!

To visit Jeanelle McCall’s site, click here.

Yes, I’ve been AWOL (Absent WithOut Leave) again…..  I plead the holidays, kids, exhaustion, and needed to re-charge.  So what does one do?  Quilt of course!  I spotted the panels for this quilt on eQuilter a while back and loved the motifs so much I ordered up a set.   Then in late October I saw a quilt in the Maine-ly Sewing booth at a small regional show made with them and decided that’s what I needed to do…make a colorful lap quilt (like we need another for the sofa…NOT! …but when does that stop a diehard quilter?).

So I bought a bit of fabric from Maine-ly Sewing.  Then I saw more of the line at Alewives Fabric, and bought MORE.  Ahem.  I had some serious “Visa Accidents” this past 45 days….. books and fabric!  (like I need more books and fabric…NOT! …but when does that stop a diehard quilter?)  So just before Christmas, to prevent implosion and breakdown, I started!   Thinking to make a quilt similar to one I saw at Alewives, I cut MANY 2 inch squares, thinking I’d make two rows of checkerboard sashing between the blocks.  It turns out the blocks are a weird size, so I edged them in the perfect hand-dyed rusty orange I had, but decided they also needed a SECOND fiddly, skinny outline in black.

The checkerboard:

UGH.  It was even worse the more I added……

So I looked at what fabric I had, and said “green it is!”

I went out and bought minkee (a lovely creamy yellow) for the back.  THen discovered I had only one quilt batt anywhere near big enough, and that one I needed to save for something else.  So I decided to quilt without a batting…just the top and the minkee.  To compensate for the slipperyness of the minkee, I spray basted a bit heavier than usual.  Mistake.  Even though I used a combination of threads that has been flawless in the past, I had snarls and fits everywhere with the black thread quilting.  I tried every trick in the book.  I changed needles, I changed tension (top and bottom), I changed the placement of the thread.  I still got the occasional thread clots.  I gave up and just kept quilting.  This is clearly NOT going to be a show quilt!   But it will be snuggly despite the appearance of some not-so-nice moments on the back.  Of course, I haven’t taken a picture of the finished quilt, so that’ll come later…

OH MY!   It isn’t often that I get a book and immediately want to go run dig out my dyes and cloth and start playing!   The sad news is that three-plus months later I STILL haven’t had time (and now it is winter, the basement is too cold to dye, etc), but boy do I want to!  That is what Melanie Testa‘s Inspired to Quilt has done to me, and that is a very, VERY good thing!  You can order it from Melanie, Interweave or Amazon.

I’ll also be honest… Melanie’s art and quilting inspire me, blow me away, make me think—all of these are wonderful things!  The book, published by Interweave, is well laid out, with great page layout, graphics and color inside, truly enhancing Melanie’s work, words, and instructions.  No boring white pages here, but creative inspiration all around.

One of the things I need to do a lot more is play, work in a sketchbook, and suss out different ideas, images and concepts.  I am usually so overwhelmed with stuff “to do” that I never give myself this freedom.  It is work, Work, WORK all the time, and then scramble to make any quilts at all.  Mostly for the past couple of years it has been samples for the book or classes, and not nearly enough creative development time.  Now that this book has sat for a while waiting review here, I think I need to go through it again, inspire myself all over again, and more than anything, follow Melly’s example and work with my sketchbook. The book covers:

• The Fabric Foundation
• Technique Application
• Creating Quilts Inspired by your Journals
• Sandwiching and Quilting
• Embellishment
• Finishing
• Smallworks, Series, and Exploration

One of the things I like best is how the illustrations show how Melly builds her cloth and designs, from white to finished, as in the example above of the leaves.  The same goes for this bird, where progressive washes of color create the image, just as she did in her sketchbook:

I love that she shares her notebooks and sketchbooks:

One of Melanie’s signature techniques is to screenprint and dye a sheer overlay fabric to work with the base fabric.  She has detailed information on dyeing, printing, creating stamps and screens–plenty of information to get you going without having to buy a separate book on surface design (tho it may whet your appetite for more!).  The photo below shows four steps in creating the transparency layer that brought the sketchbook work on the left to life…

There are several projects that are just plain fun (merit badges for grown ups, including one that is a hippo–I love it!) and help you try out these techniques on a small scale to get a feel for them. I particularly like how she combines hand stitching with machine, and there are also many examples to inspire.

In sum:  If you are or want to be an art quilter, and are willing to just do it on your own, this is a great book for you whether you are a beginner or moving on to (or at) advanced!  There is plenty of instruction, more than plenty inspiration.  If you want your hand held…well….. buy the book anyway!  Be inspired, find out if Melly is teaching anywhere that you can reach, and give it a go.

Definitely need to put this one back on the (re-) read pile by the sofa before tucking it onto the shelf….or into the DO NOW pile!

Yippeee!  It’s time for the winners of the Double-Giveaway here and over at Susan Brubaker Knapp’s Blue Moon River blog and website.  Yesterday, Paul’s minor surgery  (the reason for the delay) went well, we got home last night, he’s doing great, and this morning I asked both him and our younger son to pick to a number between 1 and 64 (the number of comments by deadline time yesterday).  Eli was first, and he picked the number for Carolyn who therefore wins Applique Petal Party

Carolyn wrote:

“I have been crazy in love with her bohemain bouquet for a long time. I may just have to take the plunge and go for it! Love the new petal party as well. I would be thrilled to win any of the great give aways! Keep up the good work!”

Paul came downstairs next, and he picked the number for Jane who will win Susan’s Pinata Purse pattern , who wrote:

quiltsmiles.blogspot.com

“Love her Bohemian Bouquet pattern, and I thank both of you for your generousity. Love your blog and I do enjoy stopping by to see what you’re up to. Thanks for sharing.

Jane”

I agree with them both…Bohemian Bouquet is one of my favorites of Susan’s, along with Round Red Barn and Glasgow Rose… I love more traditional quilts that combine circular designs with geometric/squared.  I also LOVE LOVE LOVE that quilt she is wrapped up in for her photo on her home page…great photo, great quilt!

Susan has picked the winners over on her blog, and I truly hope the winners enjoy ThreadWork Unraveled and my Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul pattern.  The prizes will be in the mail post haste!

What a FUN little book!   This is definitely not for everyone, but if you love to sew, and wonder what all those weird gadgets do that came with the old sewing machine you inherited or found at a jumble, this is the book for you!

The book has mostly illustrations from what would be dubbed “vintage” sewing machines:  from the 1960s and before, or more basic current models.  This book does NOT teach you basic sewing, but it does show you various iterations of a wide array of funky feet and attachments including:

• Seam Guide
• Bias Cutting Gauge
• Binder
• Bias-Tape Maker
• Tucker
• Ruffler
• Hemmer
• Edge Stitcher
• Gathering foot
• Shirring foot
• Adjustable zipper/cording foot
• Felling foot
• Darning/free-motion foot
• Walking foot
• Seqiun foot
• Buttnholer
• Underbraider (I’ve been sewing and studying sewing for 46 years, since I was 6, and I’d never heard of or seen that one!)
• Zigzagger
• and a few more

WOW…now, I like all this cool old-timey stuff.  And the price of the book on Amazon can’t be beat–a whopping US dollars $ 11.55!  Special issues of magazines cost more than that!  Some of the reviews at Amazon weren’t happy that the book description didn’t explain clearly that the illustrations and attachments were just that…attachments and not the snap-on presser feet found on machines today.  I do agree that a few extra words would have been useful!  BUT, that said, a zipper foot works the same way now as it did when my beloved Singer 221 Featherweight was made in 1934!  The vast majority of the information in this book can be applied to most current machines without having to stretch one’s brain very far at all.  Ahem.  Yes, I DO expect people to think <grin>! Ditto for rufflers, binding attachments and many other goodies.  There are instructions on how to use these things, but for the most part you will need to grab some scraps, follow the outlines provided, and figure out the adjustments for your own machine.  It’s kinda like a car engine…they all work on more or less the same design, but the fan belts may not all be in the same place, made from the same materials or in the same size.  You can’t expect one slim book to cover the myriad possibilities for each and every one, but it DOES give you a great start!
In sum:  a fun book at a very modest price, and worth having if you love old sewing machines, or want to have a clue what those odd presser feet are in the drawer or tool kit that came with the machine.  If you want a hold-you-hand guide to the exact presser feet that came with your every-bell-and-whistle-computerized (does everything but pick up pins off the floor) sewing machine, then you’d best move to a different sort of book.  Personally, I think it is a gas of a book!