A New Quilt - for Dinner at Eight!

OK, it's been a loooong time since I finished a "big" quilt. I'm constantly making small samples for publication, and have made several quilts for donation in the last few years, but nothing much bigger than 12"x12". Hence I'm *very* excited to show you this new work! Without further ado - California Dreaming:

 I made it specifically for the juried invitational exhibit Dinner at Eight. I'm very honored that my quilt was accepted for the exhibit, and will appear at International Quilt Festival in Long Beach; August 1-4, 2013, and International Quilt Festival in Houston;Oct 31- Nov 3, 2013. 

California Dreaming is 24"x60". It's a digital collage comprised of  several photographs I took while on vacation with my family in Florida and California last summer. (The pelicans are from Florida, the grasses and flowers from California.) The theme for this year's exhibit is "An Exquisite Moment". This quilt represents the exquisite moments I experience with my little family on vacation, free from the everyday stresses of work, school, extracurricular activities, and all the minutia that go along with them. The three pelicans represent my three sons, ages 15, 13, and 10.

If you enlarge the detail photo, you'll be able to see better that on the flowery parts I repeatedly stitched over the lines of the flowers, adding some weight to those areas.

Tomorrow is the Big Day! FFAC 2013

For quite some time now Virginia Spiegel has done a tremendous job of raising funds for the American Cancer Society with the assistance of many fiber artists. This year she's come up with a new twist - A Year of Art. Tomorrow, February 12, and Wednesday, February 13, there are two ways to participate for this great cause - an auction and a drawing. Here's how it works.

The auction includes artwork from 11 well known fiber artists.

The Inspiration Month Drawing is a fabulous opportunity in that one lucky donor wins the entire prize pack from 27 Inspiration Sponsors - all together they are worth more than $1500!! You can enter by making a donation of any size to the American Cancer Society during the event through Fiberart For A Cause's donation page on February 12 or 13.

I'm so pleased to be among the 27 Inspiration Sponsors. I'm donating a copy of my instructional DVD, Digital Collage for Quilt Design from Start to Finish, as well as four beautiful fat quarters of fabric hand dyed by me.

I hope you join in by bidding on some of the beautiful artwork or donating with the chance to win that amazing prize package. So far Fiberart For A Cause has raised $220,000 to fight cancer - let's keep the ball rolling!

Winter Birds

I took these photos around this time last year and never got around to sharing them. The top one in particular is representative of our weather today - light, blowy snow.

In a shocking turn of events I've actually manged to dye a few yards of fabric this week. When it's all washed and dried I'll share it with you.

Stay warm!

Inspiration 12-12-12

Some artists are posting 12 things that inspire them in honor of 12-12-12. Unfortunately, I should be finishing up writing an article right now, so I don't quite have time to find 12 things. However, I would like to show a few things that continue to inspire me.

Nature:

A blue whale tail that we saw during our great, unblogged California vacation this summer

A spiderweb in my carport

Nature is quite simply a constant source of inspiration, joy, and awe to me.

Surface Design:

Pole wrapped shibori using paints instead of dyes

Some of you might not know it, but I have a passion for surface design even though it's not usually the focus of my quilts. I usually use fabric I've dyed for the back of my quilts, as well as borders and bindings (if I use them). I also frequently use hand dyed fabrics in the samples I make for various articles I write. Most summers I dye quite a bit of fabric. This summer, not so much. Obviously I did take time out on one day to paint this fabric, and it inspired me to do what you know I love -

Digital Manipulation:

 This is the image above, cropped, blurred, and color adjusted. Add a few layers and you get:

So how did that green fabric look when it was dry?

OK, I probably should have ironed it better!

And what happened when I played with it for a few minutes?

Now we're cooking!

It's always interesting to me to see what  inspires other artists - what inspires you?

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If you're interested in learning more about how I digitally manipulate a variety of images to create my quilts, why not check out my DVD, Digital Collage for Quilt Design? In honor of 12-12-12 it's on sale just for today for $12.12.

More Tutorials!

About this time last year I created a post with links to tutorials I've written. I'm happy to say that I have now added some more!!

These are some cute mini-stockings that I designed for last year's Quilting Arts Gifts.

I love them as embellishments for gifts

I originally designed them to hang on a swag

Yesterday this project was featured on Quilting Daily, so if you'd like to make your own mini-stockings, head *here* to get the directions.

Though not Christmasy, these water bottle slings make easy gifts, especially for kids (so they can carry their own!).

 They were originally in 101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts, but I also showed how to make them on Quilting Arts TV episode 910, and the directions are *here*.

If you're looking for more technique oriented info, there are many great articles available on the Machine Quilting Unlimited Web Extras! page. In particular, if you're interested in learning how to quilt feathers, check out the links to my article on feathers, as well as Judy Woodworth's.

The holiday season always inspires me to create, and I hope some of my projects inspire you to do some fun quilting, sewing or crafting too. Merry Christmas!