My post reviewing Lisa’s wonderful Creative Journeys book is part of a bloghop, so I invite you to visit these wonderful artists and friends and see what they have to say.

The drawing is concluded.  Any comments left now (after 5 pm Saturday) will be appreciated but won’t be in the drawing.  The lucky winner (chosen by a random number generator on the internet) is comment number 16, Sylvia!  I’ll email you directly.

Sometimes the right book comes along at the right time.  For me, Intentional Printing by Lynn Krawczyk was that book. Lynn is funny (love her Facebook posts), creative and has been able in her book to get me (and hopefully you) to just “fling some paint” and have fun making cloth you will actually USE.  So I’m going to tell you a bit about her book.  Then I’m going to send you over to her website and blog:  if you’d like to win a copy of her book, comment here by 5 pm East Coast Time on Saturday, October 18th (that’s SOON), and tell me something that you liked about her website and/or blog.   Here’s her site, Smudged Textiles Studio and her blog.  Read on!

Lynn Krawczyk’s Intentional Printing.  Here’s a link to Lynn’s website page about her book, complete with a fun video of her telling you about the book and showing her printed cloth.

For years now I’ve been buying books about dyeing fabric and surface design, yet I do precious little (almost no) surface design in my own work.  So WHY do I keep buying the books?  There must be some deep desire to make my own cloth in a way that goes beyond dyeing fabric.  Many of the books I’ve purchased are intimidating:  so much to do, so many options, too many supplies, too much set up and clean up time.

With Lynn’s book, which is about paint (not dye),  all of a sudden I got up and started DOING.  No fuss, perhaps some mess (the fun kind), and productive work that has got me to develop a whole new workshop that combines the best parts of a class I used to teach (and eliminated because I hated teaching the other parts of the class) with Lynn’s approach to paint on cloth.

Lynn discovered that the pieces she made just didn’t quite work, didn’t fit what she wanted to do.  So she figured out how she could work to create pieces she wanted to use, was inspired to use, while keeping the spontaneity of the process intact.   The chapters of the book are:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1:  Exploring Intentional Printing
• Chapter 2:  Tools and Materials
• Chapter 3:  Fabric Printing Techniques
• Chapter 4:  Handstitching
• Chapter 5:  Layered Printing
• Chapter 6:  The Projects
• Templates
• Acknowledgments, Resources and Index

Inspired by this book, I worked up two pieces that you’ve seen recently on this blog, The Nest and my X and O (Hugs and Kisses?) pieces that I’ll be teaching in the Fiber on a Whim Booth at International Quilt Festival in a mere two weeks!   Here’s a link to more information about my mini-class and to my thermofax screens blogpost (and to Fiber on a Whim where you can ORDER those screens!)   Once you see the inside of the book, you’ll see Lynn’s X and O piece, which must have been in my subconscious when I made mine!

Learn to make the painted fabrics in this project in my mini-Whimsy class at IQF-International Quilt Festival Fall 2014.

And some art cloth–this is SO not my typical, but I could see playing with surface design, a lot, to make more fabrics to use in my more typical style. I wanted to have something totally “not me” though so that students get to try both representational and not!

What I really liked was that Lynn’s approach can work for the way I use fabric.  So many of the surface design books are by people for whom the fabric and the process are the be-all and end-all.  Once the cloth is done, no more needs to be done.  But I don’t like abstract stuff very much, and I don’t think the cloth is the artwork (for me! if it is for you, that’s great, but it’s not what I want to do), it is something that goes into creating the art.  With Lynn’s book, the cloth can be the goal and the finished product, OR it can be a component that goes in to the artwork.

In The Nest, for example, I used a couple techniques Lynn covers in creating the background fabric, the nest, and the eggs.    In a quilt that I will share with you next week, Insalata, I dyed the fabric for the background but it just wasn’t quite enough.  So I used paint and a couple stencils to create background texture that got the fabric from “pretty good” to “just right.”  That’s exactly what Lynn’s book is about:  getting the fabric you need for the idea in your head / the project you want to make.

For novices to surface design, this book is a great start.  For folks like me who have tried it some but just weren’t jazzed, this book is a great way to help focus random flinging of paint into a process that will give you something with which to create (instead of a pile of “what am I going to do with that now?” cloth).  HIGHLY Recommended!

So if you want to WIN A COPY, here’s what to do:  go to Lynn’s website and blog,  Then come back here and  leave a comment  by 5 pm East Coast Time on Saturday, October 18th (that’s SOON), and tell me something that you liked about her website and/or blog.   Here’s her site, Smudged Textiles Studio and her blog.  I’ll post the winner probably on Sunday–Eli has a Cross Country meet that will last all day Saturday.   ENJOY!

And thank you Lynn for offering a copy of your book…I LOVE IT!

What a THRILL!   I’ve been published many times now (how lucky am I?!!!), but I am elated to share that I my traditional quilting has also made the cut.  I have three quilts in 500 Traditional Quilts, juried by Karey Patterson Bresenhan, founder and CEO of Quilts, Inc., and founder and Director Emeritus of International Quilt Festival.  The book is part of Lark Book’s “500 Series,” and I was proud to be included also in 500 Art Quilts. You can find 500 Traditional Quilts here (on Amazon, available other places too) and 500 Art Quilts here.  My blogpost about 500 Art Quilts is here.  What is so wonderful is that I made the cut in blind jurying:  that means the juror has no idea who made which quilt, you are juried in on the basis of the quality of the quilt.

I’m in 500 Traditional Quilts, Karey Patterson Bresenhan, juror. Well, three of my QUILTS are in this book, not me!

My three quilts included in this book are From the Schooner Coast, Haleakala Sunrise and Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul.  Avid quilters will recognize the works and names of many of the quilting world’s top traditional quilters, so I am particularly honored that three of my quilts made the cut.  Even better, the two Hawaiian-style quilts of mine will be in an exhibit of selected works from this book that will debut at International Quilt Market and Festival this October-November.  For me, this is huge: my work meets the standards for publication and exhibiting at what is probably the most prestigious quilt show in the world.  WOW!

The theme for this spread is clearly sailing ships. Mine is the blue one in the middle, with a detail of the quilting no less! This quilt is called From The Schooner Coast.

Any reader of this blog will immediately recognize my Haleakala Sunrise quilt which is the background for this website. I just love bright, clear “Caribbean” colors. This was my first original Hawaiian-style design, and I still love it and Hawaiian quilts in general.

Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul, is on the left. I made this quilt to be in my Threadwork Unraveled book, a “bible” of thread used on/in a sewing machine. Due to length, we ended up cutting the applique section out of the book, but I remember finishing the design for the center block while sitting on the floor of Joshua’s hospital room in 2007 after he was hit by a car (and it’s somewhere back in the July/Aug 2007 blogposts!). So glad he is completely well, doing well, the book did great, and my quilting career actually exists!

I have to be honest:  I have not “read” this entire book, yet.  This is a book to be savored. Dip into it, browse the beauty in its pages.   Yes, I am an art quilter.  But first and foremost I am a quilter, and these quilts are art even though they are traditional–I love ALL types of quilting.  Karey called these quilts “the crème to la crème of traditional quiltmaking today.”   I can’t wait to see the exhibit of selected quilts from the book in Houston (I’m teaching again this year, but blessedly have a couple days to be a civilian and just enjoy the show).   Hope to see you there!

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!

Just a quick dip in to share that one of my favorite magazines, Fiber Art Now, is trying to win a Fed Ex small business grant.

If you click on the link, you can vote for them.  And if you HAVEN’T seen this magazine, you must! Visit Fiber Art Now on their website here and look for them now on newsstands.  In the US they are at Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million and in Canada at Chapters.  Check out the site and the issues.