I left Owl’s Head airport in Rockland at Sunrise:

Sunrise from the Cape Air plane to Boston

And departed Boston’s lights at 6:30 pm,

Taking off from Boston-Logan airport, Monday night, en route home

Arriving back home in Owl’s Head at about 7:35 pm:

Yes, it is that dark here! The long string of lights you see are actually the runway!

I really like the lights of home.  Or more precisely, the lack of lights!

In between I had the most fun I’ve ever had in Houston:  I taught Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (with demos on the show floor), and Friday morning.  Saturday I got to visit the Texas Quilt Museum in LaGrange, Texas (about 90 minutes by coach bus each way), and Sunday got to see the show.  Then home on Monday…nothing better than coming  home to hugs with my guys and slurps from the critters.

The Rituals exhibit during Market. I’m so glad I took this picture, because I thought I was losing my mind! During Market, my quilt was facing the aisle. When I returned on Wednesday night when Festival opened they had swapped the quilts from front to back and end to end! So glad I’m not crazy and that I really did remember this correctly! My quilt is Strength and Calm, a standing figure on a yellow-to-gold-to-plum background (just to the right of the lady in the red dress).

And part of the other side of the “Rituals” exhibit. Thanks to Havel‘s for sponsoring this exhibit! We, the artists, truly appreciate your generosity.

This year I was able to donate again to the IQA Silent Auction. Here are the donations from award winners, teachers and authors on display.

My donation was the Koi, which is a first cousin to the Koi quilt I made 8 years ago. He has now swum off to his new home! Enjoy, and thank you to whoever bid on him. I appreciate your support of the International Quilt Association!

I’ll be back in the coming days with pictures from my classes, trip to LaGrange, and the show floor.  As always, I am blown away and inspired by what I was able to see!

Hi all! Posting from Houston…will share a few photos and brief comments from the first few days.  Flew from Maine to Houston on Sunday, got in early enough to visit Quilt Market and do some business.  Monday and Tuesday (today) taught Fine Finishes first, then Birch Pond Seasons today.  Fun having folks not only from all over the US, but Brazil, Spain, England and South Africa in class!  Enjoy the photos…. I’ve been on the run since 6 a.m. this morning, it’s now 10 pm, and my next class (teaching) begins at 8 a.m. tomorrow, so going to make this brief!

Sunrise from our 9-seater small commuter plane / flight to Boston. It was about 7 a.m. when I took this shot…STUNNING!

The Tula Pink booth at Quilt Market (a to-the-trade show, not open to the general public). Great fabrics, stunning “quilt modern” quilts with great quilting!

The Rowan Westminster booth was huge and fabulous!

LOVE these ribbons that are now available!

A happy student from my Fine Finishes class…she’s showing the couched-yarn edge finish.

Another happy student! She wanted to learn prairie points, which worked perfectly because I had just taught facings, which are what you need on the back side of the prairie points!

Had a large group of ladies from Brazil in Monday’s class. The one standing next to me had quite good English and was able to translate my instructions for her friends whose English couldn’t always keep up with the speed at which I speak LOL! They did great and seemed to really enjoy the class…FUN for me, too!

Hoooray! Got to the *original* Ninfas (on Navigation) for wonderful Mexican food. Wonder if I can make back at least once more if not twice…. YUM… I’ll diet next week….

With my friend Susan Brubaker Knapp (center) and her friend Kelly Jackson of IHaveANotion.com at Ninfa’s. I’m on the phone calling the hotel shuttle, and no…we had not been having margaritas…we were just having FUN! And eating…..

From today’s Birch Pond Seasons class… a work in progress! I love watching how students re-interpret my pattern and make it their own!

And my first student to ever try a winter version…LOVE it! Inspires me to get mine a bit further done!

Now…time to read a bit, relax and sleep before the alarm goes off in 7 hours….As the saying goes here in Houston, you can sleep next week!

I’m thrilled to share with you (again, but in more detail) Conversations I, which has been juried in to a World of Beauty, the competition exhibit at International Quilt Festival 2012 in Houston, Texas.  As usual, the jurors utterly mystified me with their selection:  I entered both my portrait of Joshua (which I personally think is the best piece I’ve ever made, seen here) and this quilt, and this is the one that got in!  I am thrilled to have a quilt in Houston which is–let’s be honest here–just about the biggest, most important show there is in the quilt world!

Conversations I, juried in to International Quilt Festival-Houston 2012

A couple Aprils ago, I had the great good fortune to be invited to teach by the Arizona Quilt Guild–it was a fabulous visit.  I discovered that it would cost the same to fly via Los Angeles (I’m in Maine, on the other side of the US for those reading from other countries) as to fly direct.  If I stopped en route in L.A., I could visit my beloved Sister-in-Law (sister of my heart!), so that’s what I did!  When she asked what I wanted to do, I promptly replied: go to the Getty!  I had seen photos of the Getty Museum before, including my friend Deborah Boschert’s trip there.  The lines, angles and shadows from the tables absolutely enchanted me, so I took a TON of photos.  You can see the FOUR (!!!) blogposts from that trip here-1, here-2, here-3 and here-4 if you really want an armchair visit!

I combined two of my photos of the tables and chairs to come up with this composite image…. I also really wanted that stark contrast between stone and sky, but since the chairs were in a courtyard surrounded by buildings, I took artistic license to put my table and chairs somewhere they weren’t in real life!

The shadows were one of my favorite things, but it took a few attempts to get them right.  For the quilt, I began with white fabric which I dyed to match the colors in my photos (Thank you, Carol Soderlund…. using my color swatches and formulas and learning from your class did EXACTLY what I wanted with the cloth!).  I had intended to use a sheer for the shadows, fused to the beige “stone” paving.  But it looked like I stuck something on….and one of the things I liked in the shadows was the seamless transition from beige to dark.  So I decided I would use ONLY thread, stitched very closely, to create the shadows, as seen in this photo:

I had thought I was done with this quilt when I took this photo, but decided there just wasn’t the stark contrast that I wanted in the shadows from the table and chairs–if you look at the photo at the top of this post and this photo, you can see the difference in the shadows.

So, on to Plan “C”!  Yes, I did test, but it was pretty nerve-wracking to take out the Derwent Inktense pencils and darken the shadows:

You can see what a difference there is in this photo. I darkened the shadows under the foreground chair first.  Notice that there are two pencils to the right of the chair, and just off the edge of the quilt a paintbrush.

VERY carefully, so that the pencil-ink didn’t bleed into the stripes of sunlight, I pencilled in with the Inktense pencils (see the pencils and sharpener) in the shadow stripes. Then VERY carefully I held a paintbrush wet with water in my right hand and my hair dryer (turned on) in my left. I would brush a small section of the penciled area, then zap it with the hair dryer to allow the paint to intensify by wetting, the dry before it spread into the sunlight stripes. I only had one small bleed!  This photo shows that about the top half of the shadows have been wet-then-dried, while the lower part of the table’s shadows are still just pencilled on–not yet wet-and-dried.  I sure was glad when that was done, because I could have wrecked the whole thing!

I also needed to think about how to create the shaded side of the wood slats on the chairs and table.  There is only so think one can cut strips of cloth to fuse.  And I didn’t really want to totally mash the quilt by darkening the sides of the slats with thread stitching (as I did in the shadows under the table and chairs).  So I used a brown (or was it red?)  Pigma pen and wrote words relating to the visit:

Detail, Conversations I

So that’s the story….the conversation between me and the cloth and thread and pencils and quilt, but it is just one of the conversations from that wonderful day.

Just wanted to dash off a quick note to tell you how happy I am to be teaching again at International Quilt Festival in Houston this coming fall!  I hope to see some of you there…perhaps in my classes!  To learn more about the classes, click here to go to the Quilts, Inc. website.  From there you can download the PDF class catalog, register (online–easy peasy) for classes and/or events.

I’ll be very busy; my schedule begins on the Monday of Quilt Market (a to-the-trade only wholesale show) and continues through the week of Festival!

October 29-November 2, 2012 – International Quilt Festival, Houston, Texas (click on images to view larger):

• Monday: Fine Finishes(edge finishes including perfect mitered corners!)
  • Learn to make a perfect mitered binding straight grain bindings, double-fold bias bindings, piping, and couched yarns.  Time permitting Sarah will share how-to’s for  fabric accents, curved bindings, fused bindings, wacky raw-edge squares, and couched-yarn finishes! By the end of this class you’ll have a “swatchbook” of samples and notes including a wide assortment of styles and techniques to finish your quilts and quilted garments.  See a previous blogpost about this class here.

   

• Tuesday:  Birch Pond Seasons(fusible applique)
  • Learn fusible applique, several techniques for “piecing” with fused fabrics, and how to make your own Birch Pond art quilt.  I’ll also cover facings as an edge finish and a range of fun ideas that will let you branch out on your own after class.  Kit fee ($20) covers the cost of the pattern and one package of white MistyFuse (except when taught in stores; then, please purchase these items from the store). See a previous blogpost about this class here.

   

• Wednesday:  Decorative Stitch Applique(use those fancy stitches on your machine!)
  • Make a small wallhanging or a selection of small blocks which take full advantage of all those decorative stitches on your sewing machine. Using fusible appliqué and an assortment of as many threads as you care to bring and use, you’ll see how versatile a single leaf pattern can be! The embroidery / decorative stitches you use in this class can be adapted to your choice of other appliqué methods; we will use fusibles in class so that you can make a wide selection of appliquéd leaves during the class. The project samples can be used for a quilt, a garment or home dec items. See a previous blogpost about this class here.

   

• Thursday Morning:  Machine Quilting Forum—Fun with Fancy Threads
  • I’ll share some tips about using fussy, fiddly threads and how to master them with the right needle, the right bobbin thread, and a fun little project/demonstration.  This Forum starts with an overview and introduction to six machine quilting experts.  Each of us will give a 9 minutes (not one second longer!) presentation. Then we break out into 6 stations…think of it as speed-dating for machine quilters!  We’ll do a 20 minute presentation, then the bell rings and off you go to the next station/teacher.  A great way to see if you want to learn more or book a teacher for your group.

   

• Thursday Afternoon:  Meet the Teacher,a free 30 minute demo on the show floor:  Collaged and Fused Art Quilts
  • I’ll show you my process for creating fuse-collaged quilts, with step-by-step examples of this small tomato-garlic-and-basil quiltlet.

• Friday Morning: Friday Sampler–QuiltColoring with Thread
  • Think of your sewing machine and thread as a big box of crayons… more colors than you’ve ever had in a box of crayons!  Then learn to use your machine and thread to color your art quilts and bring them to life.  This Sampler is a ginormous room with 20 or more teachers giving quick demos.  Participants can move from station to station as they choose.  It’s a great way to see if you’d like to take a class with a teacher or even book them for your guild.
• Saturday:  Sarah gets to relax and play today… I’m going on the bus tour to the Texas Quilt Museum in LaGrange.  Anyone want to go on the same bus?
• Sunday:  I’ll be visiting the booths and quilts today…including one of mine that has been juried into the show (more on that later, after the judging is done and it’s safe to post pictures to the internet).

I’m so looking forward to Houston this year…hope you get to come play, too!

Every year, Studio Art Quilt Associations (SAQA) has a fundraising auction of small works–all 12 by 12 inches– by some of the finest art quilters working today.  I’m thrilled to be able to donate this piece:

Conversations III

Inspired by a visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I made a series of three quilts, a larger center panel flanked by two 12 x 12 inch quilts.  Conversations III was donated to the 2012 Studio Art Quilt Associates online auction fundraiser.

Detail from Conversations III

When I began this series, I thought first of the conversation my beloved Sister-in-law, her friend and I had at lunch, but then realized that there was a conversation between the architecture and the landscape, the sky and the stone in the buildings, the artists and the viewers, and in the case of these quilts:  between me and the cloth/dye/thread.  Yes, all of the fabric in these pieces began as white, and I dyed them.

Conversations I has been juried into A World of Beauty 2012, the judged show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, and Conversations IIis now for sale. I am thrilled with how they turned out.  Quilted into the sky, and written in ink onto the table and chairs (for the shadowing on the wood) are words about the art and the conversation:  contrast, line, shape, form, sky, water, stone, shadow, sea breeze…..

Conversations I, II and III

Some of you  may recall seeing these three pieces when I blogged about them last summer (here and here) for The Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library.  The small quilt on the right is the one I have donated to the SAQA auction!  Learn more about the auction here, and see the quilts here.  I’ve just discovered that my quilt, Conversations 3, will be among those auctioned live (gulp, eek!) at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  Thrillingly, Conversations 1 (the large central quilt) has just been juried in to the IQA World of Beauty contest.

The online auction is in three parts, starting September 10th.  Each week for three weeks, a group of quilts is auctioned.  On the first day, prices for the 12 by 12 inch quilts are $750.  The next day the price drops to $550, and so on down to $75 by the end of the week (tho not much is left by then!).  The risk is:  do you wait to get a lower price, or lose the quilt you really want?  Inevitably (sigh) the ones I want are gone in the first two days….  The auction in Houston will work similarly:  on Preview Night (Weds., Oct. 31) prices will be $750.  Thursday morning the price will drop, and again at 2 p.m.  And so on, through the end of Festival.  To buy one of the quilts at Houston, though, either you have to be there OR you need to have someone there to buy for you! I shall be nervous walking by the SAQA booth to see if mine has sold!  I wish SAQA all the best in fundraising!