The Quilt Show for free!

Celebrate International Quilting Day with me and TheQuiltShow.com beginning Friday, March 14 through Sunday, March 16!

I had the best time back in 2007 in Colorado taping with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims - it was my first experience with television and I could not have been more fortunate than to have these two acting as mentors and role models on set.

Everyone who signs on to TheQuiltShow.com will have FREE access to over 160 WebTV shows featuring some of the top quilting instructors in the world. You can also enter the TQS prize drawing with a grand prize of a BERNINA 550QE and wonderful fabric prizes. 

So check in at www.thequiltshow.com on Friday, March 14, and enjoy the shows and exploring The Quilt Show website. You can start with my show, Episode #208, "Principally Speaking - A Firm Foundation for Fabulous Designs".

You can find more about the adventures of taping on The Quilt Show at this link.

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.

Today's the day

The episode I taped for the Quilt Show with Alex & Ricky last August starts airing today. It's number 208 and is called Principally Speaking - A Firm Foundation for Good Design. You'll see a lot of the quilts from the book I wrote with Elin Waterston, Art Quilt Workbook, a fun exercise and more.

There will be a live "Meet the Guest" chat on the Quilt Show website next Wednesday night, April 23, at 8 pm edt, and I'd love it if some of my blog readers could join me!

Last week I was out in San Francisco visiting our publisher, C&T, to work on an upcoming project. It's always great to meet in person the people who you've talked to and emailed with for a long time. C&T is one of the most environmentally conscious companies I've ever seen. I'm going to work on implementing some of their ideas in the shop to save energy and resources.

Bopping to Cleveland and back

Sunday morning Carlos and I jumped in the car and headed to Cleveland Ohio so I could tape a segment for the second season of Quilting Arts TV. What a blast we had!

We arrived early enough to meet up with Rayna Gillman, Claire Fenton and Shelly Stokes for dinner and had a great time. Claire was excited about the snow and the rest of us were glad that there wasn't much of it.

Carlos and I decided to visit the museum district after we checked in at the studio on Monday morning since we had the day to ourselves. The Cleveland Museum of Art was closed for renovations (until 2011!!) and the Museum of Contemporary Art is closed on Mondays so we headed to the Museum of Natural History (along with several hundred school children who had the very same great idea). The first sight as you walk in the door is of a juvenile tyrannosaur named Jane. How cool, that almost beats Tarzan's Jane for namesakes. Later in the afternoon I headed back to the studio and hung out with Rayna, Claire and Judy Coates Perez.

This morning I taped my segment with Pokey and it was great fun! Pokey is so perfect as host of the show, -- entirely capable, unflappable and professional, and at the same time enthusiastic, genuine and completely adorable. All around it was a wonderful experience with a terrific group of people. The second season will start airing this summer on PBS.



As soon as I was done, we snapped a pic in front of the studio, hopped in the car and headed for home.


Oh, here's a question for anyone in the blogosphere: All along Route 80 in Pennsylvania (which is like 3 weeks long - Rayna's observation and I agree) some of the exit sign posts have small, cryptic signs attached to them stating "Red Detour Route" or "Green Detour Route" (or black or yellow). What is this about? What do we detour from or to? Why are there different colored detours and how do you know which one to take, and when? Curious, I am.

The Quilt Show update

The episode that I taped for The Quilt Show in La Veta, Colorado last summer will start airing on April 14th this year. It's episode 208, "Principally Speaking – A Firm Foundation for Fabulous Designs".

Alex and Ricky were wonderful to work with and the taping was fun. Photo by Gregory Case.

For more of Greg's pictures of the taping that day go to the Quilt Show website, click the Slide Show, then Page 5 for September 2007.

A new friend made in Colorado

Here's a picture of Tracy Chapman from Sew Thankful and me outside of the Art Quilt Studio & Gallery in LaVeta, Colorado just prior to taping The Quilt Show last week. It was a joy to finally meet Tracy in person.

The big day

What an interesting day today was! I arrived in LaVeta really late last night due to a delayed plane in Chicago and a terrible thunderstorm driving down from Colorado Springs but I still made sure to get up early to watch the first taping in the morning so I'd know what to expect when it was my turn in the afternoon. While I was waiting for the doors to open I had the good fortune to meet Tracy Chapman of Sew Thankful.


Judith Baker Montano was the guest this morning. She had an interesting presentation and she made it look so easy. The set was much smaller than I expected and everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming. Boy, it takes a lot of people to produce a show like this! They work so well together and obviously enjoy what they're doing.






After a break for lunch, all of the quilts I brought (a good selection of both mine and Elin's) were hung up and we rehearsed my demo.




Alex and Ricky were terrific to work with and they made the day such a positive, fun experience. Alex was nice enough to pin down the collar on my blouse (it simply wouldn't stay put) and add more color to my cheeks so I wouldn't look too pale on camera. The episode will air sometime after Christmas - stay tuned!

It's hard to be glamorous!

Today was my first-ever manicure in preparation for the Quilt Show taping. I'm too hard on my hands to bother with polish and besides, I'm not good at sitting still! I didn't want to be distracted by a color (ooh, pretty...) and forget what I'll be saying so I went with a pale neutral. My daughter Sam came along for "moral support" and she picked a bold color.


Of course, one nail was dinged and one was smudged before I even made it to the car. It's so hard to be glamorous! I packed polish remover in case they're truly disreputable by the time I get there - that's hours away yet, anything can happen...

Adventures in tv land

I leave on Wednesday afternoon for LaVeta, Colorado to tape an episode of Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims' The Quilt Show.

I was asked to bring a 6" square block for each of them. They each make a quilt with blocks from all their guests for each season. So I made fish blocks -- of course!



Elin wasn't able to come this time because she's teaching camp this week, but she made blocks for Ricky and Alex too. So she'll be there in spirit even though she'll be back home working hard. And her blocks are birds -- of course!

I'll try to blog while I'm there, but in case the connections are sketchy, I'll definitely post as soon as I get back. Wish me luck!!