I’m thrilled, touched and honored to be quoted in the Centennial Issue of Quilting Arts magazine! First though, CONGRATULATIONS to founding editor and publisher Pokey Bolton for starting a classic, congratulations to current editor Vivika Hansen DeNegre and the entire QA team (including alumni members among others Kristine Lundblad, Cate Coulacos Prato, and Helen Gregory) at QA for what you have collectively created and given to all of us. The two-page spread on pages 86-87 of all 100 magazine covers gives me goosebumps: it is still on my dream bucket list to make the cover of QA — I came close once, was one of the top two choices, so I will strive! It’s good to reach for the stars–even if you don’t ever make it, you’ll enjoy the journey.

When QA began, I was living on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington state. I was in King’s, one of the two main grocery stores on the island, and by mainland standards a pretty small store. It was the only store on the island to stock magazines, which I was browsing. I picked up Issue Number 2 of something called Quilting Arts, and the rest is history! I ordered issue #1 so I have every. single. issue!

A while back editor Vivika Hansen deNegre wrote many of us who have contributed to the magazine over the years (I KNOW… Me???? How lucky am I to have been published so many times?) to ask for quotes that might or might not be used. I was THRILLED when she said it looked like my quote would make it into the magazine, and indeed it did. Check it out on page 55!

When I got home, before I had even read the entire issue, I picked up the phone to subscribe. That was the first time I ever spoke to Pokey, and learned that she had attended San Domenico School in grade school, my beloved Alma Mater, and grew up in Marin County, California, where I did! She’s a good bit younger than I am, but what fun–and when I won a second prize at International Quilt Festival Houston in the Art Quilts Miniature category, it was sponsored by QA and Pokey presented the prize to me. What memories.

So THANK YOU QUILTING ARTS, and you betcha I’m shouting. Thank you for the opportunities you have given to me, including my own video workshop! (available here as a download), the opportunities and inspiration and learning you have given to legions. Here’s to issue #200!

Another SQUEEE–this time ProChem! I am delighted to share that I will be teaching a 3-day Paint on Cloth Workshop from August 5-7, 2020 at Pro Chemical & Dye in Fall River, Massachusetts. Think kindergarten for grown-ups with paint and cloth: silk paint, transparent, opaque and pearlescent textile paints, as both the Movie Star and the Supporting Cast. I’ll be developing course materials over the next 15 months, so if you’ve got something you want to learn, TELL ME! And if you’ve got a brilliant title, I’m sure I’m gonna need suggestions on that, too!

Please let me know what YOU would love to do in a paint-on-cloth workshop. Personally, I want to go to dinner at the fabulous seafood restaurant out on the shore in Rhode Island after class, too! I’ll be back later in the year with more details, but in the meantime, tell me what you’d love to learn from me!

Sometimes you need to do something else. You totally love your main “thing” (in my case it is clearly art quilting), but you need a break. And sometimes, that makes your main “thing” even better. I’ve learned over the years that good design is good design, whether it is landscape, interiors, architecture, photography, painting, sculpture, apparel, the principles are the same. So I have taken online classes in drawing and photography and been enriched.

I don’t know if I’ve done it every single year, and some years — like this one — it was done in (late) January instead. But I like reading what words have called me to use them and seeing where my head was in a given moment.

I’ve also taken a number of outstanding art classes from Val Webb over the years, ranging from birds to children to faeries to animals, using pencil, ink, watercolor, colored pencil…I learn so much, both about materials and tools but more importantly about SEEING. Observing. I’ll never want to be a colored pencil artist, but taking birds in colored pencil with Val taught me about patience and layering. I found I now do that with dyes, with paints on cloth, with thread, in my art quilts. And this year I also took a brilliant course at Sketchbook Skool, Watercolor. I always want more watercolor!

I used to have both my to-do-etc notebook and a sketchbook. I never had the one I wanted handy. So I said to heck with the cost, and bought a GOOD sketchbook and use that as my “everything” journal. I write lists, take notes at SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) meetings, suss out ideas for quilts, and sometimes even sketch or paint in it! Now I will start filling in the circles with words, quotes, ideas, images/sketches, may fill the white backgrounds with ink textures…we shall see!

So that’s what I’ve been doing…along with quilting. What about you? And here’s an end of the day/blogpost dog walks photo from yesterday:

Better. I finally got a little time in the studio (and the hammering on the roof is more muffled down there–we are having a new, metal roof put on–who knew they could do that in Maine in January?). I had thought the Rosehip top was done when I left it on Sunday evening but, I’m learning I need to let things set a spell, after I looked at it with fresh eyes realized it needed some help. I made a small rose hip quilt (below), and when I saw it next to the big one, I realized the large one looked a bit dead.

So I decided to use up the very last bits of my buffalo check fleece.  I began with 4 3/4 yards of the 58-60″ wide cloth.  The second photo shows the last bits!   These hats are SO FAST to make…including figuring out the best sewing sequence it took less than an hour for the first one.  If you wanted to make a half dozen, you could do that in an afternoon–quick and easy winter gifts!

How many selfies do you need to take to eliminate many chins or no chin? LOL! I love my soft hat!

This is all that is left of 4.75 YARDS of fabric….that is 10,260 square inches. Under 200 left! I even made some tassles/trim out of the selvages!

This hat will be a free pattern soon–not sure yet if it will be here or at Shannon’s site, but you can make one of these in well under an hour from scraps.  Truly, I used maybe 10×25 for the white part, 5 x 25 for the bottom, and a bit more for the tassles/dangly bits.   I just sewed two tubes to fit my head, one of the white print, one of the buffalo plaid.  The white print is here at Fabric.com.

Because the fleece is thick, and because I wanted the soft part next to my forehead, I didn’t use a typical garment seam. Instead, I overlapped the two fabrics, wrong sides together, and sewed them with a serpentine stitch. I did this twice, on either side, so I would catch both edges of the overlap. My finger is pulling the two pieces apart so you can see the overlap.

I then turned the plaid to the outside and brought it up above the seam that joins the top of the hat to the “cuff.”  I pinned the fabric at both edges so that I kept the amount of black that shows at the bottom even all the way around.  As I mentioned in my earlier posts about the throw and the jacket, the inside of Cuddle is slippery, so pin well. Because the fabric does not ravel, I didn’t need to turn under the upper edge of the plaid cuff.  I used the serpentine stitch to it down.

Finally, I made some dangly bits using the trimmed off selvages (they were about 1″ wide plus lengthwise grain of course):  fold in half wrong sides together and use serpentine stitch.  Cut to length, insert two, each folded in half, at either end of the seam at the top of the hat, and sew the final seam.  Because of the bulk from the dangly bits, I found it far easier to sew from the center to the ends, lock off the stitch and repeat for the other side.

Two hats…I mean I used up EVERY LAST BIT of scraps! One hat for me, one to send to Shannon for them to use as they wish!  Talk about a quick and easy Christmas gift!

THANK YOU Shannon Fabrics for this wonderful fabric and an October full of fun, fast and easy fleece projects.   I look forward to making more…I’ve got some Christmas gifts already made which I can’t share due to friends looking at my blog, and another big length of fleece to use on a snuggle quilt for winter!