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.

Upcoming...

Coming up - lots of events and traveling and teaching!

Next week I'll be in Chicago for International Quilt Festival. I'll be vending in the mixed-media section as Flourish-Country Quilter. I'll be teaching a Make It University workshop on Friday afternoon (1:30 - 2:30) on collage pendant necklaces and then demonstrating in the Open Studios section both Friday and Saturday from 2:45 to 4:45. Please stop by and say hi!



Saturday, April 25th from 12 - 3 pm will find both me and Elin at Elm Street Books in New Canaan CT for a book signing and talk about art quilts. We'll be signing both Art Quilt Workbook and Art Quilts at Play. Elm Street Books is a gem of a bookstore, one of the last great independent booksellers in our area. They bring in lots of authors for signings and host lots of interesting events. I'd love to have a really big turnout for our signing - we aren't as mainstream as Calvin Trillin (a recent author there), but I like to think that our readers are just as dedicated.



Saturday and Sunday, May 2-3 is the quilt show in Somers, put on by the Northern Star Quilter's Guild. I'll be vending all weekend and demoing on Saturday afternoon. This is a fantastic show with something for everyone. It's on the train line from Manhattan and an easy drive from anywhere in the tri-state area (NY-NJ-CT).



And Saturday, May 23, I'll be at the City Quilter in NYC teaching a workshop on self-expression quilts. You'll learn a variety of direct and indirect photo-transfer techniques and lots about composition and design as you make a small art quilt that expresses you.

A busy, busy spring!

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!

Reporting in from Quilt Market in Houston

I'm in Houston for the next ten days for International Quilt Market (wholesale only) and Quilt Festival (retail!) Last night was the C&T Publishing Authors' Dinner and it was great. I gave a little talk about using the internet to market your books and promote yourself and I hung out with a lot of other authors and some of the wonderful people at C&T. I took this picture while I was waiting for the bus to take me to the hotel where the dinner was held. The architecture of the buildings in downtown Houston is interesting. I didn't realize that the other hotel was only about a block from my hotel until after the dinner when I walked back with a couple of other authors. Could have saved myself a thirty minute bus ride on the way there if I had but known. Oh brother!



We have a booth at both shows, but with completely different stuff at each. At Market we show the books and patterns that we publish through our shop, The Country Quilter. We have four new patterns for this Market and we're also running around the show looking for wonderful new things to carry in our store. Tomorrow I'll be in C&T's booth for a little while signing books and chatting with customers. Next Tuesday we disassemble this booth and reassemble as Flourish! with all of our art quilting goodies and supplies.



I have a new pattern out, Market Bag, that's a really generous size for shopping. It's completely lined and has a medium to heavy interfacing inside to make it strong and give it some body. I'm going to make a slew of these when I get home for my own grocery shopping and to give as gifts. So much prettier than the bags with store logos that I'm currently using!



The highlight of my day today was meeting Jay McCarroll, the winner of the first season of Project Runway, who has two new lines of fabric out with Free Spirit Fabrics. He's completely adorable and his fabric line is fresh and funky.



My least favorite part of today was the two hours I spent in the ER waiting for a tetanus shot after a staple gun accident at the show. Oof. The medics at the show told me I was the fourth (!) person that day who had stapled themselves and the hospital people told me I was the fifth (!) quilter in to see them today. The other quilters were at the hospital for less exotic reasons, mostly falls, at least mine was more creative, though hardly unique, lol.

Nature Printing

Yesterday I taught a Nature Printing class at the Country Quilter. I totally forgot to take out my camera when we got to the fish printing (gyotaku). I got distracted because that's my favorite part!

We sunprinted with transparent paints using sea salt and masks and scrunching and folding and flinging (technical term for going all Jackson Pollock). The weather was glorious -- perfect for getting good, crisp prints.



We also printed leaves and ferns and then moved on to produce (fruits and veggies). The orange, apple and lemon prints came out particularly well.





I'll be teaching the same workshop in Ohio next week for a guild near Cleveland. I'll try to remember to take pictures of the fish printing this time.

Art Quilting Student Exhibition

Last night was the opening reception at the Country Quilter for the latest Art Quilting 101 Student Exhibition. Elin Waterston and I have been teaching this class for the last five+ years and it's where our book, Art Quilt Workbook, came from. This was the last time we offered this class in its original ten-week format.



The opening is always my favorite part. The students are so proud of their work, their families get to see what has been obsessing them for months, they get a chance to see what their fellow students have created and it rounds out the art quilting experience rather well.

If you'd like to see the entire exhibit, I've posted pictures of all of the work on the Country Quilter website. Didn't they all do a great job? I know they all worked hard.

I remembered to take pictures after everything was hung (from a few directions at least) and then totally forgot to after the place filled up with people. So imagine it full of beaming artists and their friends and families, wine glasses in hand.

The show comes down tomorrow night but will remain online for a while. Next week, the shop is hosting Rayna Gillman for a Gelatin Plate Printing workshop - I can not wait!

Playing with Materials

One of the best things about managing a quilt shop with a large art quilt department is playing with all of the materials that are out on the market. Yesterday I spent a little time working on some new samples to show how some products look used in an art quilt.

Inkjet-Printable Shrink Film Sample


I created a page in PhotoShop, made a background layer with color and texture, and then added copyright-free clipart images of bees. I printed the page out onto the shrink film, cut it into squares and punched holes in the corners using a hole punch. Then, off to the oven to shrink them down to size. What fun! Watching them as they shrink is the best part. Last week one of my students brought a big box of all different kinds of wooden cigar boxes to class to share. I, of course, scooped up a couple to alter. In the bottom of the box there were a couple of labels that had torn off the wooden boxes. I used a scrap of one in the bottom right corner of this piece.

Distress Ink Sample



I masked off a rectangle in the middle of my background with freezer paper and rubbed a light green distress ink pad all over the fabric. I removed the freezer paper and added collage elements, sewing and glueing them in place. To accentuate the line between the distressed section and the plain section of the fabric, I sewed a fairly wide, loose row of zig-zag stitching around that edge.

I found some really neat frames in Ikea yesterday. The openings are only 5.5" square and they're less than 1/2" thick. Perfect for displaying little samples and giving them some substance and a clean finish. I'm in the midst of a shop makeover right now, cleaning, adding new displays, re-arranging merchandise and just generally re-thinking how things are presented. I do this just about every summer to keep things fresh and exciting. I had a display inspiration involving apothecary jars, wooden spools, styrofoam balls and pretty fabric the other night - I'll have to show you the results - it actually came out the way I was picturing it in my head!