Seed stitches opens tomorrow night

Really excited about the opening of In the Details at Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury NC Friday night 6-8 pm.

Each of five galleries will solo an artist with distinctly different work.

Read more information here.

Nancy

SAQA Donation Quilt Underway

I decided to use the maple seeds for my 12" x 12" donation to the SAQA Auction so I reworked the original design seen in the previous post, cropped the seeds closely and squared the design up. But still wondering what color to make the seeds.
Sunday after church we stopped by the Fresh Market for some dessert supplies and I found these wonderful red and green maple seeds. My color scheme is now at hand. Put a few Hypericum blossoms with the maple and popped them into one of Mom's little blue bottles for a small arrangement for the studio. If I can just refrain from tipping over the bottle and getting water on stuff, it will be a delight to have.
I finished inking the design on Tuesday. Want to take it with me on Thursday morning to the SAQA Visioning Conference. Anyone want to make bets?

Nancy

Designs from Passion

I found wonderful little group of maple seeds in my driveway last week. Knowing that I was planning to do a maple seed quilt again, I brought them into the studio. The sketch below is my first trial at a design. I always sketch with pencil and a fat eraser at hand. I found the different sizes of the "wings" intriguing. I will probably change the color when I do the inking of the design.



Any suggestions for color? I am going to work on a salmon colored piece of hand dyed fabric.

Nancy

Creating Glass Beads - book Review

This book is a bit off the track for my fiber art friends. However, many of us love beautiful and interesting beads, so take a look. Jeri Warhaftig has written a delightful book on creating those quirky beads that so many of us love to use. Lark Crafts and Warhaftig are to be congratulated on the publication of this all too seldom found book. It is a book, not for the rank beginner or the coffee table, but one for the ambitious novice and intermediate glass bead maker. The type of book that is too rarely found in any craft area. It is well designed and laid out for ease of use and reference as a technique-driven book that will take the ambitious novice many strides forward in learning about tools and techniques that are building blocks to creating in one's own style.




There is an opening chapter on tools, safety and how to use the book. Then 10 chapters that are individual projects and four appendices on specific techniques like mirroring with silver and working with resin. The project are each laid out with the same structure covering what the session will teach, tools and materials and specific illustrated instructions. My favorite parts of the book were the work done by testers and the examples they did with the techniques and how they branched off from the basic instructions to make their own work. If you are interested in how to make those fancy beads, this book is a delight. ISBN: 978-1-60059-582-0 HC, 144 pages, $24.95

Nancy

Mountain Scenery

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Holly Wilkes creates amazing tapestries of mountain scenes. She lives up in the mountains and wakes every morning to fabulous views of mist, sunrises and nature unfolding in front of her. As a result, her work breathes with the mountain air and is awash in glorious colors. She captures the unfolding imagery beautifully. In the image here, you can see that she has a really good feel for creating depth in her work.

Readying Quilts for Delivery to Waterworks Visual Arts Center

In taking quilts to trunk shows and delivering them for exhibition venues, I needed a way to wrap them that would be easy to handle by non-quilt enthusiasts and preferably would help use up some of my large stash of fabrics that I no longer use.

Here is what I came up with.

Your comments would be appreciated. How do you wrap for delivery and studio storage?


First, I create a two-sided cover from a one yard (or 1 1/2 yard) by the width of the fabric with two fabrics sewn back to back. Before sewing the fabrics together, I add a label to one of the longer sides. I use either a business card or create a label with my name and contact information on it. The label is sewn onto the cover inside of vinyl so it is permanent and indicates a bit of what is inside.

I pillowcase the two fabrics, and sew around the case, leaving an opening near the label to turn the case inside out. Once the cover is turned right side out, I machine sew the opening closed. I created long ties the length of the fabric. I put the ties on the end of the cover with the label and sew them on at their middles with some space between the label and the ties, so they can be tied around the bundle of quilts. I sew the ties on with a rectangle with an X in the middle for security over time.


When ready to use, I wrap the quilts one at a time, face out, around a swim noodle, being careful not to get creases into the face of the quilts. Then the cover is wrapped around them and tied with a bow.


Since I have multiple bundles of quilts to deliver, I took a 4 x 6 inch card and wrote the names of each quilt inside on the card, cut a hole into the card and slipped it onto one of the ties of the bundle before tying it. That should make it easier on the curator in hanging the show to know which quilts are in each bundle. I will also group the slats for each bundle together as well.

Here is another bundle ready to go.

And here are the five bundles with 17 quilts inside, 3-4 quilts in each bundle.

I am delivering the quilts tomorrow and am really getting excited about the exhibition that opens May 21 with an artists reception on Friday night May 27 in Salisbury NC. Hope you can come.

Do you have other techniques for storing and/or packaging for transporting your art work? Please let us know.

Nancy

Great News!! Made My Day!!

Just received word that Kousa: A New Dogwood's in Town will be in Sandra Sider's upcoming publication: The Studio Quilt, no. 6: State of the Art.

A detail of the quilt is shown here.

Originally planned for 30 artists, Sandra is including 60 because of the great response and quality of the submissions she received.

This makes four books that will carry some of my work in the coming 12 months. The first out will be Susan Brubaker Knapp's book. Point, Click, Quilt! coming out next month. Susan's book will feature her extraordinary work, projects using her techniques, and a gallery photos and art work from other artists who use photos for imagery for their quilts.

Martha Seilman's book: Art Quilt Portfolio; The Natural World will be published in 2012. She selected me for one of the featured artists for the book and it will include both an interview and discussion of my work, my inspirations, my work processes and several of my quilts. I am very humbled by this terrific honor.

The last book will be the next publication of SAQA's Portfolio series of work by the Professional Art Members. It will be available as an on-line e-book on the SAQA site and as a printed book. This should be out in October 2011.