Quilt Market in Houston

My wall at Fall Quilt Market in the RJR Fabrics booth. Heavy on the Metal, a four color collection. I am so excited about my newest line! Zippers, measuring tape, hardware, collage, alphabet, words.

The RJR display on the front side of their booth. Celebrating 40 years. Each one of the decoupaged balloons is a sku from the new lines that were launched at this market

Here’s me in my zipper dress! 

The 3-d typewriter that I made with my fabrics! Sew fun! 

Counting Down to Quilt Market

I finished this wall quilt yesterday as a sample of the fabrics in my new collection ‘Heavy on the Metal’ by me and RJR Fabrics. Dress-Up. The buttons were fussy cut from the Hardware fabric in black.

I am so excited about this collection because it is so unique in colors and content! I will be doing demos in the RJR booth #1034 on Saturday from 2-4pm and Sunday 1-2pm 

Today, I even had time to tidy up my big mess of Quilt Market prep. I will come home after Festival to a clean studio! Woot. Then Craft Napa prep begins. Hope to see you at Market and/or Festival. 

The Best of Dinner at Eight Artists Exhibition Catalog

The exhibition catalog/book is available to purchase on Amazon. The exhibit will be shown at Quilt Market and Festival in Houston. We have had a great ride in the past ten years!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1729507662/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540496946&sr=8-2&keywords=Dinner+at+Eight+Artists

Heavy on the Metal inspired by

Heavy on the Metal fabric line was designed with these wall quilts in mind. My other color palate that has earned me the most recognition in the quilt world. This dress hangs in my studio ‘Dress Up’ 2012 was made for a gallery show

Home is Where Your Story Begins won a prize in the Quilt Alliance Contest. This is one of my favorite pieces that I have ever created. It’s in a private collection.

Metal Measures won my biggest prize in the Quilt Alliance contest. It hangs in the Handi Quilter headquarters office in Utah. 

This photo is a little blurry, but you get the idea. This was made for the Quilt Alliance contest to celebrate their 20th anniversary. 20 Dresses. Those are 5” custom made zippers in between each little black dress. It’s one of my favorites. It’s owned by Meg Cox.

The iconic typewriter. I am teaching a class at Craft Napa in January on how to make this wall quilt using this unique palette of colors

This postcard was the beginning of this adventure. Virginia Spiegel gave me some great advice years ago to start a series of quilts with these colors with metal embellishments in about 2006. This is 4x6 inches.

Hardware: a few of my favorite metal embellishments!

Metal Measures makes for my famous log cabin wall quilt. This is my rendition and it’s hand drawn and has metallic silver on it. 

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An alphabet with symbols. Typewriter Keys. There is enough spacing between the letters to make typewriter keys. They are also metallic and have a subtle shimmer.

Play on words is what this line is all about and my obsession for metal. Low volume white, red, and white with black. So fun!

Rebel Quilter - collage, also has metallic elements. All hand drawn. The red is gorgeous although hard to see in this photo

And the icing on the cake - pedal to the Metal - zippers! Easy to sew without the fear of breaking a needle. So excited! Heavy on the Metal by RJR Fabrics debuts at Fall Quilt Market and ships to stores in February 2019. Dream realized. 

Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes of my upcoming fabric line with RJR Fabrics. Heavy on the Metal is the name of the line and I am so excited to finally get to the point where I can talk about it. Photo. Lower right, drawing in progress to make a ‘collage’ look. The upper one is my idea thumbnails that I use when I draw anything. Great for adding texture and backgrounds. 

I designed this line in 2017. This is the layers of watercolor paint colors, which will be built on more and more to create the look that I want. I wanted to include all of my favorite things - measuring tape, loop-de-loops, polka dots, words, safety pins, and bold marks. This line goes well with Hopscotch and the scissors in Sewing 101

I really like the look of this. A combination of watercolors, acrylic paint and copic markers

And my drawing created three colorways all with touches of metallic. It’s hard to see the red in this photo, so I took a separate picture of it below. But the gray and black really shine. Rebel Quilter is the name of this design. 

The red collage with metallic. It shimmers when you lift up the fabric. It is ever so subtle. It doesn’t wash put over time, which is fabulous!

This line was inspired by my ‘Heavy Metal’ series that began in 2009. It is a dream come true to be able to create this line. 

This is my line all fused and ready to make wall quilts for my booth space at Fall Quilt Market. Stay tuned for more about designing this line. 

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And then there is this. My famous zippers as fabric. That’s a metallic silver zipper with my initials on the pull. This is the icing on the cake for me! So excited. Zippers come in white, red and black for all of your creative endeavors! 

The Migrant Alphabet

I am thrilled and honored to be a part of this project. The Migrant’s Alphabet. Jane Davila asked me in June if I wanted to participate and of course, I said yes. 

Inspired by a book from 1846 (The Anti-Slavery Alphabet), leading mixed media artists and activists from all over the US started a project, called the Migrant’s Alphabet, to bring awareness, education, and conversation to the current crisis of immigration in the United States and around the world. The Migrant’s Alphabet exhibit of 26 mixed media artworks will debut at City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport CT, opening October 4, and then travel to a variety of venues across the nation. A book is being published of all of the art and the accompanying poetry. All proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to organizations defending and working to better immigrant communities. The Migrant Alphabet website is under construction and will serve as a resource for education, links to donate funds, the art on view with statements and links to the individual artists, and information about the exhibits and events.

E is for Empathy 

I was outraged at the comments on mainstream media by so called Christians and other’s that were quick to judge other people’s circumstances without being able to feel any sort of empathy or compassion for them. 45’s rhetoric dancing in their heads. Most of the negative comments that people wrote had absolutely no idea what these parents and children go through to seek asylum in our country. I ask you to put yourself in their shoes! Walk a few hundred miles with your children. 

Stenciled background and letters on watercolor paper and then stitched on a sewing machine to felt. I painted and stenciled the sides of the 12”canvas. Boots are a photograph of my actual Doc Martens. I hand stitched the 12x12 to the canvas and stapled the corners down with a staple gun. 

Passing the Time Being Housebound

I am home recovering from my hip surgery, so I factor in the process if I have energy I would draw and paint in my Moleskine watercolor notebook. 8-1/2 x 12” pages of watercolor paper. Watercolors from tubes and an Uktra Fine Point Sharpie

These are all basically from my imagination. The quilted landscape is a new one for me, but I really like how it looks.

I really love this one - off to the quilt show with bolts of fabric in the back seat of the car!

I think my first week of recovery I was living on chocolate milk and Talenti Gelato because my stomach was a mess. The sugar highway!

I love this one with all of the different fabric designs collaged in the background. It could be a quilt! Since I can’t sew right now, I can sew with paper, paint, and a black pen 

A little different for me, but the message is good

The Patchwork House! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Okay, I had Surgery

I had hip surgery last week to change out the defective ball in my left hip. Apparently, after having my hip replacement 10 years ago, the ball was recalled two years later because it was releasing metal into my bloodstream. It began hurting last year, which prompted me to get it checked out earlier this year.

I certainly felt the love from my family, friends and social media community.

My fashionable bracelets for my time at Hoag Orthopedic Institute 

My dinner following surgery was delicious! Hoag is known for having good food.

I had physical therapy in the hospital using this walker. I passed the first class and didn’t have to have another one in the afternoon. Then I went home to rest and recover

This is pretty cool. They rolled in this portable x-ray machine to my bed to take some glamour shots of my new ball. Pretty slick

Me and my fake Bandit dog at home. It is the first time not to have a real dog at home to hang out with me. Great sorrow. Fake dog has been okay. I not ready to get a new dog.

Some small drawings to encourage me on my path to healing. The first three days home were pretty rough getting used to all of the meds. Now, things are more under control. Physical therapy has begun. Life is moving on. I have the attention span of a flea. Hope that will change over time. 

I am moving forward. Living in the moment. Drinking hoards of water and chocolate milk, eating yogurt, bananas, and everything that coats my poor stomach. I can do this. Thank you for reading my blog and leaving comments. Onward and upward we go!

The Artful Garden

Block printing using Speedball blocks that make it easy to carve on using carving tools. This is the paint that I bought and then figured out that I could use acrylic paint too.

I also used RJR Fabrics Supreme Solids. I love how they have every color of the rainbow. I pre-fused all of the fabric with Mistyfuse. I carved a strip that I used to frame each flower and leaf. I really like the imperfections that a block print creates with the background cuts.

I asked friends on Facebook to weigh into what fabrics would set off the blocks the best. It is really about each persons preference in colors and pattern. I had first wanted to use the black and white polka dot.

This is what I ended up using and both made by RJR Fabrics. The big dots are from one of Leslie Tucker Jenison’s lines and the black and white drips from Flaurie & Finch. I really like the way the blocks look with these fabrics. 

The Artful Garden 36x36 made for The Power of Women exhibit that will be shown at The International Quilt Festival in Houston in the Fall. The deadline for pieces is the Monday of Labor Day weekend. Go to the Quilts, inc website for more info