Art Quilt Portfolio blog hop

Lark Books is having a blog hop to celebrate the release of the newest Art Quilt Portfolio book,“People &Portraits”and I’m happy to be a part of it and to be able to offer my blog readers a chance to win a free copy of the book.

The second book in the Art Quilt Portfolio series,this book is a beautiful compilation of stunning art quilts celebrating the expressiveness of the human face by 21 featured artists. At first glance you’ll be drawn into the pages by the the beautiful art work that appears on every page but there’s so much more here than just eye candy. Each artist takes you on a tour through their creative process with a discussion about their inspirations,techniques,processes and motivations. Photographs are clear but there is a lack of detail shots that allow a view of the finer details of the surfaces of the quilts. It is a book that is meant to be savored and enjoyed one page a time. A beautifully done book and highly recommended for both art quilt collectors and enthusiasts.

If you’d like to to be entered into the giveaway to win a copy of this beautiful book,leave me a comment on this post with an answer to this question: If you could invite your favorite quilt artists to dinner who would you invite? I’ll draw a winner of the book on Monday June 24,2013 –good luck!

Here’s the rest of the blog hop tour schedule:

June 3rd – Lark Kick Off! http://www.larkcrafts.com
June 5th – Sarah Ann Smith – http://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog
June 6th – Maria Elkins – http://mariaelkins.com
June 7th – Laura Wasilowski – http://artfabrik.blogspot.com
June 9th – Katherine McNeese – http://blueheronquilts2.blogspot.com/
June 10th – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com
June 11th – Linda McLaughlin – http://notesfromstudiob.blogspot.com/
June 12th – Kathy Nida – http://Kathynida.com
June 13th – Marilyn H. Wall – http://www.marilynhwall.blogspot.com
June 14th – Janice Paine Dawes – http://thedistoriatedquilter.blogspot.com/
June 16th – Pamela Price Klebaum – http://pamprice.blogspot.com
June 17th – Deborah Boschert – http://DeborahsJournal.blogspot.com
June 18th – Lisa Chin – http://somethingcleveraboutnothing.blogspot.com/
June 19th – Sue Bleiweiss – http://www.suebleiweiss.com/blog
June 20th – Leni Wiener – http://www.leniwiener.com
June 24th – Cheryl Lynch – http://www.CherylLynchQuilts.blogspot.com
June 25th – Lesley Riley – http://ArtistSuccess.com
June 26th – Stephanie Forsyth – http://thefibernation.blogspot.com
June 30th – Pat Kumich – http://patkumicich.blogspot.com

little pink house

I dye a lot of my own fabric for use in my quilts and last week I decided to break from my tradition of working with solid fabrics and used Color Magnet by Jacquard to create some tone on tone prints:

and then used them to create a new wall hanging:

pinkhousequilt1

“little pink house”19″x 19″

ezscreenprint

I broke out my EZscreenprint supplies last week and turned some quick digital sketches done on my Ipad (using the paper by 53 app) into silk screens.

then I used them on some Cherrywood fabrics I had tucked away in my stash:

and then used a few pieces to create a quick quilted wall hanging:

“Grapes”18″x 24″

Tutti Frutti goes to the beach…

The latest in my tutti frutti series…

(click the images for a larger view)

“tutti frutti beach houses”40″x 37″ hand dyed cotton,raw edge fused applique, machine quilted

and a couple of close ups:

It’ll be a while before I’ll be posting another finished quilt. The one I’m working on next is going to be a very large piece measuring somewhere in the area of 60″x 75″so I think it’s going to be a work in progress for a while!

Website review:craft daily

F&W Media launched a new site last week called “craft daily”and after spending a good deal of time on the site I was so impressed that I decided I wanted to do a review of it here on my blog.

CraftDaily.com is operated by F+W Media,Inc.—parent company of Interweave,publishers of hundreds of crafting DVDs,books &magazines such as Quilting Arts,Interweave Crochet,Interweave Knits,Knitscene,Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist,Piecework,Stitch,Cloth Paper Scissors,Spin-off,Knitting Traditions,just to name a few. With all those artistic resources at it’s disposal I knew it was a safe bet that the CraftDaily.com content was going to be top notch and I was right. Pop over to the website and you’ll find hundreds of videos by some of the most popular and gifted artists in the beading,crochet,jewelry,knitting,mixed media,quilting,sewing,spinning and weaving industry. You’ll also find episodes of Quilting Arts TV on the site which I was very happy to see since my local stations don’t carry it.

All the videos on the site are full length and commercial free and the all content can be viewed on Macs,PCs,iOS and Android devices at any time,and as often as you want to. And speaking of the videos –I’ve already watched a lot of them and the quality is excellent. You can watch the shows in either small or full screen and I really liked that I could fast forward and rewind the videos without having to wait until I watched the entire video first. Very helpful if you just want to re-watch a particular clip in the video. The lighting is nice and bright,sound is clear and crisp and the camera work is sharp and never out of focus making it easy to see close up detail shots.

There are several ways to subscribe Craft Daily,all of which offer unlimited viewing of all episodes for either a 1-month,or 1-year period. At $199 the yearly subscription works out to only $16.50 a month. An incredible value when you consider that new videos are being added each week and what the cost of purchasing all those individual DVD’s would be. You can also subscribe by category so if you’re only interested in a particular category of videos you don’t have to subscribe to the entire site.

You can get more details on how the site works here and you’ll find all the information on subscriptions here.

Kick off your heels and go shopping!

Tomorrow is the big day!

click the image to learn more about the Kick off Your Heels fundraiser

click the image to see all the heels available for purchase

The Kick off Your Heels fundraiser begins tomorrow morning and shoes are sold on a first come first serve basis!

Shoes can be purchased for $300 on May 20 and 21,2013 beginning at 8:00 a.m. EST

Shoes can be purchased for $200 on May 22 and 23,2013 beginning at 8:00 a.m. EST

Shoes can be purchased for $100 on May 24 and 25,2013 beginning at 8:00 a.m. EST

Click here to preview all the shoes and then set your alarm for tomorrow morning!

What’s for dinner

When I saw the call for art for the “What’s for Dinner”special exhibit that Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison are putting together for the Houston Quilt Festival I decided I wanted to make mine about one of my favorite meals for dinner in the winter time.

“breakfast for dinner”24″x 15″hand dyed cotton,machine quilted

I love to have breakfast for dinner on a cold New England winter evening. Eggs,toast with jam and some fruit –yummy and comforting.

Details about the call for art can be found here.

quilted pillow covers

This morning when I walked into the studio and looked at the sofa that I have in here I decided it was time to make some covers for the throw pillows that came with the sofa.

Here’s what the pillows looked like this morning…

and 8 hours later they both have new quilted pillow covers on them:

a couple of close ups:

Someday I want to recover the entire sofa but that’s a project for another day…

The house quilt project

I have been wanting to make a quilt for the House Quilt Project for a while now and I finally got one made last week:

“house quilt”12″x 16″hand dyed cotton,machine quilted

The House Quilt Project was established in June of 2010,to assist Furnishing Hope,who works with designers to create interior rooms and entire houses to help those in need. If you’re not familiar with the House Quilt Project,pop over to the blog here to get all the details and find out how you can make and donate a quilt to this very worthy cause.

and the winner is…

262 comments! my goodness that’s the most I’ve ever gotten on one post before –thank you to everyone who took the time to stop and leave one! I wish we could send you all something but unfortunately we only have one prize package and that’s going to go to….

Carol Claytor!

A huge thank you to all of you who left a comment! And just so this post isn’t totally without any eye candy here’s a few shots from my gardens this weekend…