Wow what a fun way to start the day:  open up an e-mail from Quilting Arts about “Ten Art Quilting Lessons Learned” to see that they have a new book.  I knew months ago that something I had written for Quilting Arts several years ago was to be included in a new book.  Well this is it, titled The Best of Quilting Arts:  Your Ultimate Resource for Art Quilt Techniques and Inspiration, AND they featured my photo/pieces for the edge-finishes article in the e-mail!!!!!!  Here is a link to see that e-mail online; scroll down to see my little green quiltlets.   And here is a link to pre-order the book.  Make sure to click on the tab to see what is in the book (my bits are in the first section).  It looks like it will be a great book, and I am so thrilled and honored to be included!

The major sections in the book are:

• Introduction
• 1.  Starting and Finishing:  Articles on Art Quilt Basics
• 2.  Trends in Surface Design:  Articles on Stamping, Dyeing, Printing and More
• 3.  Represent!  Articles on People, Pets, and Text in Art Quilting
• 4.  Make it Green:  Articles on Recycled and Natural Materials
• 5.  Too Much is Never Enough:  Articles on Embellishment and Mixed Media
• Contributors
• Resources
• Index

It is 160 pages and only $24.95… can’t wait to buy my copy!  I am thrilled giddy and silly to be included with folks like Jane Dunnewold, Terry Grant, Jane Davila, Melanie Testa and so may other talented artists. WOW…just pinched myself, and I really am awake and it really is true!

The fun began when Deborah arrived in Hope, Maine, at my house to spend the night on July 8th.  We had a WONDERFUL visit, during which I forgot to take pictures~!  In my last post about the visit, I shared with you the Coastal Quilters meeting and Artists’ Reception.  Then we got to relax!  Kathy and her husband are moving down to the coast and will be building a house in the coming months. For  a short while, they are staying  in Camden, and her hubby graciously volunteered to stay with a family member so we could have a girls-get-together-sleepover and yakking at their rental.  After the reception, we went to Kathy’s and decided to start things right….

When we got together a couple years ago, near Kate's, she fixed us mojitos and we sipped them under the pines, near the shores of Merrymeeting Bay (which has to have one of the coolest names in all of geography), with a bald eagle in the branches above us. We decided that we needed to do the mojitos again, so after the Artists' Reception, we decamped to Kathy's rental house...

Kate has mastered these drinks, and yes…we WERE all able to walk to dinner at Long Grain (an INCREDIBLE pan-Asian, Thai-inspired small restaurant in Camden..it opened almost a year ago, is frequently so full they have to turn diners away, and they don’t need more than the computer printed paper in the window…no sign…we all know where it is!).  Before dinner, though, we sat on the back porch and talked and took photos:

Me taking a picture of Deborah taking a picture

and

Kathy taking a picture of Deborah

and

Deborah looking happy

and

Kate with the perfect mojito looking happy

and

Kathy looking happy (and I was behind the camera looking happy)

and

Kate looking happy and laughing....ya think we were are having fun?????

In the spirit of “let someone else cook” we also ate breakfast out…at the Bagel Cafe.  I think we STILL look happy!

Bagels for breakfast!

Then we packed up from Kathy’s and headed west…just a little ways West….

On Sunday, after breakfast, we convoyed nine miles west to my house, where it was a glorious Maine summer's day. I had bought a Jacquard Indigo kit, and we mucked about with cloth and an indigo vat!

I later draped mine over a pine tree by the deck:

My indigo pieces on the nearby pine; a few of them washed out more than I had hoped, but I'll figure it out eventually

and

a late lunch....notice the circle necklaces? Those were a thoughtful gift made by Deborah for being "in her circle of friends." LOVELY!

We wrapped up the day with sandwiches from the grill press.  I discovered this AWESOME recipe in Daniel Leader’s Panini cookbook (here) that calls for goat cheese with chopped basil, marinated artichoke hearts (Kathy gets to eat the extra bits), sundried tomatoes (I made some using his other recipe but mistakenly put the oven to timer, not cook-time, so when the oven should have turned off at 1 a.m. it kept baking  until I woke up at 6 and realized what I had done…luckily nothing smoked, but they did look more than a bit black and dead! so we had to use from the jar!), and–my addition–caramelized onions.  I LOVE the sweet addition of the onions to the salty tang and tartness of the other ingredients.

After that Kathy headed home (with our HUGE thanks to her hubby for making the sleepover possible), Deborah followed Kate to her house an hour south, and I collapsed (briefly)!  I was so fried with stress from Mama’s passing and all the other STUFF, that I don’t know how I made it except that it was so wonderful to be together.  Nothing like being with friends and like-minded souls who love art and playing with cloth and color and having fun together!

Take joy where you find it! This day I was walking near the harbor and Camden Falls.  A couple walked by with their (obviously!) well behaved black lab.

"See how nicely I carry my leash for my humans?" What a sweet doggie!

If this had been Widgeon, he would have been doing the Indy 500 around the parking lot and up the alley to the main street!

My dear friend Jacquie, aka the Quiltmuse and author of the lovely poesy in A Black and White Tale (see my blogpost here and order from Jacquie here or Ann here), came to visit a couple weeks ago with her daughter, Melanie, who had come over from Germany to visit.  It was such a treat!   And here it is two weeks later and I’ve still (Bad Blogger!) not gotten the photos posted.  I’ll claim being overwhelmed with making a 36×42 inch quilt due by July 1,and prepping for my teaching road trip to Virginia (2000 miles plus round trip, to Harrisonburg and Floyd, leaving Wednesday).   So without further delay…..

Jacquie and me in my dining room, with Melanie as photographer...notice Jacquie's book (Ann Fahl is the instigator and her quilts are featured of course!) in the foreground!

Jacquie lives in Vermont, and has been able to make it to her home state of Maine a couple of times in recent years.   She gets to Germany to visit her girls (she spent most of her adult life there, and her daughters and granddaughters still live there) about every other year, and Melanie can often come the intervening years.  This is the second time I’ve been able to have them come–this time to the new house.  We had lunch and futzed around here, then went on a drive to see the local sights (such as they are).  The next day we ate in town at Long Grain (AWESOME pan-Asian cuisine at a great price in Camden) then came to my studio to play with cloth and paint.  Here are photos from in town:

Jacquie with the Camden Falls behind her

Like mother like daughter... Jacquie and Melanie

Camden Falls--the buildings date from when folks WORKED on rivers (even small ones like the Megunticook, here) and used the power of the water to run millwheels to generate power. Tourism was in full swing up here even in the 1800s, but not like it is today when everyone wants to see the water

Camden Harbor on an overcast day (which is why we played in the studio instead of going to the top of Mt. Battie, as we would have seen *nothing*

And me and my friend again at the harbor

It was such a treat and thrill that Jacquie wanted special to come visit.  We had such a wonderful time and I’m so glad we got to spend time together—-HUGS!

Remember this grim view of my new studio, upon moving in to the new house?

In the beginning, it was dark and yucky. At least the wall separating the (!!!! in a basement?) dark brown room from the white room is down in this photo.

It was at least an improvement from this, before the wall went down:

My studio. Ahem. Clearly, this is the "before" picture. The camera flash makes the room appear much brighter than it actually was. Erg.

By late March, things were improving.  The wall was down, the lights were IN…nine 2-bulb fixtures with maximum lumens (the amount of light—-aging eyes  always want MORE) with daylight colored bulbs.

French doors went in... this is before they were painted so the primer is covering up the plastic that is covering up the glass in the center of the doors. Not only do the doors keep the cats for shedding and urping on stuff -- and the dog from leaving "presents"--but closing the doors helps funnel the heat from the woodstove in the center of the basement up the stairs to the main part of the house.

Those towels you see are wet — to help lift the HORRID paint on the old floors.  I think the previous owners used some leftover wall latex on the floor, and clearly you needed a different paint formula for it to adhere to the floor.  If you got water on it, it turned to paint-mush-muck-mud-soup.  Mostly.  Then there were the stuck on bits that would mostly (but not all) come up if you got down on your knees (on the COLD cement floor) and scraped with a metal flat-edged scraper.  Oh whee.  Having fun are we?

This is painting the part of the room that had been white and was the previous owner's son's painting studio. WIth that jade/aqua on the floor--with many assorted drips and drops of other colors of unkown paints..

And painted:

one half done....waiting for the paint to cure up hard so I can move the furniture to the other side and paint the second half.

You’ll notice the number of boxes is down, the amount of stuff hither and yon is up……

The other half of the room while the first half is painted. That wall on the left will end up being a closet. We will have hanging doors upholstered into design walls to cover up all that visual clutter. And notice...the TV works--the DirecTV is hooked up!