Art Quilt Studio Workshops

Four new workshops offered this Winter in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Treat yourself to a relaxing, educational and artistic day. Class sizes are limited, so don't delay!

Playing with Paint
Learn a wide assortment of ways to apply acrylic paint to create unique and original fabric and effects. A great introduction to Jane's new book, coming in January, 2010.

Thursday January 28 or Wednesday March 17
10 am - 4 pm $75.00

Surface Design Sampler
Come to play with a large variety of materials and supplies - paintstiks, neocolor pastels, assorted inks, mediums, paints, stamp pads, glitter, foil, smooch, angelina fibers and films, and more.

Thursday February 4 or Saturday March 20
10 am - 4 pm $95.00
most supplies included in the class fee

Introduction to Image Transfers
Learn direct and indirect transfer methods to add images to your projects. TAP, acrylic paint and medium transfers, and direct printing on a variety of fabrics and surfaces will be covered.

Saturday January 23, Wednesday February 10 or Thursday March 11
10 am - 2 pm $75.00
most supplies included in the class fee

Sketches from Nature
Create a free-motion thread sketch and then apply acrylic ink to complete a small quilt with a hand-drawn and hand-painted watercolor effect.
Wednesday January 20 or Saturday February 13
10 am - 4pm $75.00

Workshops are held in Fairfield County, Connecticut with a limited class size for individual attention. For more information email me at info @ janedavila (dot) com

Live Chat

I hope you can join me for a live chat on Susan Sorrell's Fiber Art/Mixed Media site tomorrow, Sunday December 27 at 5PM EST (22:00 GMT) where we'll discuss Art Quilts at Play, the second book I wrote with Elin Waterston, and other fun artful things!

Quilters TV

Ellen Lumpkin Brown caught up with Elin and me at the C&T Publishing booth at Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh in May. She taped us doing a couple of demos from our book, Art Quilts at Play and the interview is now playing on Quilters TV.

Pittsburgh and back again

Life has been a little busy lately! I've been madly dashing from one event/signing/class/show/something to the next since the store closed on March 31. Last week was International Quilt Market in Pittsburgh. I was there at the behest of C&T Publishing for the release of Art Quilts at Play. My co-author, Elin Waterston, and I signed books (at the Checker Distributors and United Notions booths), spoke to scads of people about it, taught a workshop on one of the techniques, demonstrated a few more in the C&T booth, taped a demo and an interview plus I had a booth as the Country Quilter. My mom and I had four new patterns between us and were busy connecting with old and new customers.


at the C&T booth


at the United Notions booth

Of all of the convention centers I've been to (quite a few), my favorite architecturally is the David L Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. The food there was really awful, the hotel was terrible (Sheraton Station Square), but the convention center was gorgeous.






Country Quilter booth

I met a lot of internet friends - from different lists and from Facebook - isn't that the best? It was a wonderful week, although it's really good to be home! No more traveling or running for a while, time to catch up to myself.

Simple Arts Podcast

When I was teaching in Asilomar at the Empty Spools seminar a couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting Annie Smith, podcaster extraordinaire. She interviewed me one evening and we really hit it off. You can head to her website to listen to the podcast and hear us chatting about art and quilting and life and everything. Please leave a comment for me here - I'll be giving away a copy of my new book, Art Quilts at Play, on Wednesday, April 1st (no fooling!)



So you can follow along, in the podcast I talk about the books I've written with Elin Waterston, the shop that my mom and I opened in 1990 (that will continue as an internet store) and my husband's artwork.

UPDATE: The winner of the free book is "sewjoe"! Please contact me with your mailing address and I'll get an autographed copy of Art Quilts at Play right out to you. Thank you everyone for your very kind comments! And thank you Annie for the opportunity to talk to your listeners!

Workshop at Sew Inspired

Elin Waterston and I will each be teaching a workshop at Sew Inspired Quilt Shop in Simsbury CT on Saturday April 4th. We'll also be signing copies of our new book, Art Quilts at Play from 1-2 pm.

Elin is teaching Artist Trading Cards with Angelina fibers, painted fusibles and Shiva Paintstiks from 10am - 1pm and I'll be teaching Fiber Art Postcards with Tsukineko inks, metallic foil and gel medium transfers from 2-5 pm.

Hope to see you there!

Let's get this party started!

Tomorrow is the big release party and book signing for Art Quilts at Play, the new book that Elin Waterston and I have written for C&T Publishing.



Please join us at the Country Quilter in Somers, NY from 1-4 pm for the celebration!

If you can't make it and you'd like to have your own party, you can order an autographed copy here.



We'll have an exhibit of a lot of the quilts from the book, great snacks, good music and as a bonus, the retirement sale is in full swing at the shop. A number of the contributing artists will be there and, of course, your favorite Most Inspirational authors - me and Elin!

News about books

Art Quilts at Play, my new book written with Elin Waterston for C&T Publishing is now available. If you'd like an autographed copy you can order one from me here. The book is gorgeous, the designer and all of the folks at C&T did a knock-out job. I've been furiously packing up all of the books for people who pre-ordered a copy and should be caught up soon.



In other news, our first book, Art Quilt Workbook, was voted the Most Inspirational Book by the readers of Quilters Newsletter magazine in the latest issue. What an honor!

Refrigerator Art Online

Dorian Price at the super-cool website Refrigerator Art Online interviewed me the other day. Check it out here.

Dorian's site is a fantastic resource for artists and art lovers with reviews of galleries and shows, art news, interviews, calls for entry. Head on over for a visit, she has all sorts of goodies!

Art Quilts at Play

Here's the big, exciting news! I've been living this project for the last 18 months and I can finally share. Elin Waterston and I have written a new book, Art Quilts at Play, for C&T Publishing, to be released in January 2009.

This new book is a perfect complement to our first book, Art Quilt Workbook, and covers a plethora of surface design techniques and special effects on fabric. The book is full of illustrated how-tos, many, many samples from the different processes and oodles of finished art. Once we've shown you how to create and alter some beautiful fabric, we give you scads of ideas of what to do with it, from challenges and trades to collaborations and more. Our first book was based on an in-depth, comprehensive class that we'd been teaching. This new one also draws on workshops plus the techniques we each use in our own art.

Over a year ago we asked a small number of very talented women in the art quilt and mixed-media world to contribute some pieces to our book and they very generously agreed. Their work enriches the material and shows you how different artists with different voices and different techniques approach the same themes or materials with exciting, original and unique results. We're so grateful to each of them for their contributions.

Natalya Aikens
Woodie Anderson
Liz Berg
Gail Ellspermann
Janet Ghio
Rayna Gillman
Terry Grant
Kathryn Hunter
Andrea Jenkins
Jane LaFazio
Mati McDonough
Tricia McKellar
Kim Rae Nugent
Karen Stiehl Osborn
Virginia Spiegel
Beryl Taylor

A few of our students were also asked and graciously agreed to share their work with us. We are so thankful to them for their generosity (and in a couple of cases, their bravery as well!)

There will be a big release party, book signing and art quilt exhibition at the Country Quilter in Somers NY on Saturday, February 21st and we hope you can join us!

You can pre-order an autographed copy of the book now by contacting me. We're so pleased with the response to our first book and hope that you'll like this one just as much.