I've Moved...My blog That Is!

Exciting News! Even though I was under the weather and up to the rafters in boxes, I've been busy! I decided to take the plunge and move my blog to a hosted wordpress blog.

I instilled the help of Gloria Hansen and her biz partner Derry at Gloderworks to get me up and running with the initial code installation for my blog, transferring of content and hosting. I figured the learning curve was more than I had time for right now. It has taken me 4 twelve hour days to get the layout arranged, categories reset, and occasional missing post photos uploaded on over 900 posts. There will be more tweeks and additions as I figure out how to get things the way I want, so please bare with me if you come across an occasional glitch. 

Come on over and visit my new Blog home! I think you'll find it cozy and colorful with lots of nooks and crannies to explore judycoatesperez.com

The Universe says 'you need to take a break!'

I feel like I have been going full tilt for the last couple months and when I got word my place wasn't closing, it was like being slammed into a brick wall. Nothing like being thrown into limbo with all your belongings packed.

Friday morning I woke up with a throbbing head and sore throat and felt like I'd been hit by a truck. This is the first cold I've had in more than two years and I guess there couldn't be a better time to get sick. The pressures temporarily off for the move and Quilt Festival is still a week away, so I should have a bit of immunity against getting sick then and have my energy restored.

In the mean time, I have enjoyed long hot baths during the day and hot toddies at night, and an excuse to sit on the couch with some knitting, my computer and a snoozing dog. 

The gypsy caravan has been detained

Our buyers hit a snag and we are pursuing all possibilities for getting the sale completed before the contract expires. I would hate to start this process all over again and live in boxes indefinitely.

In the mean time, I'm getting racks put on my car this morning, trying to keep up with phone calls, emails, final packing (the kitchen), last preparations for hitting the road, and getting ready to teach in Houston at International Quilt Festival in a couple weeks, I just wish I knew where I was leaving from.

More CSA Artbox's in the works

The Artbox CSA has been such a cool project, that the group decided to invite a couple amazingly talented friends to join us this time around; Tracie Lyn Huskamp and Kelli Nina Perkins! 

We are going to offer 3 new artbox options: a six piece full box and 2 different four piece half boxes just in time for the holidays. 

Since I'm in the midst of moving, I decided to only contribute to a half box this time round. I wanted to try something a little different by creating some textile collages in the tea and ephemera style but in an aqua blue colorway.

The boxes will go on sale November 1st, so watch for announcements on our blogs, facebook or check the ArtBox CSA website.

ArtBox CSA artists:

Sue Bleiweiss

Deborah Boschert

Jamie Fingal

Desiree Habicht 

Tracie Lyn Huskamp

Leslie Tucker Jenison

Lyric Kinard

Kelli Nina Perkins

Judy Coates Perez

Kathy York

I am so excited about this!

Join me for an Acrylic Ink Adventure at Quilt Camp in La Grange, Texas next June 7-9, 2013!!! organized by the wonderful folks at Quilts Inc.

Spend a weekend filled with surface design exploration! Begin with creating colorful textured backgrounds, explore mark making with different kinds of stamps, draw with inks using quill type calligraphy and ruling pens.

Paint imagery opaquely and with a transparent watercolor look. Layer washes of color with simple imagery by creating masks with freezer paper and create textured patterning with simple resists from common items found in the office supply store.

Each portion of the class will add another level of complexity to the image making process, with the last day culminating in a 1/2 yard painted whole cloth piece incorporating many of the techniques learned over the previous two days.

This weekend is packed with tips and ideas of different ways to work with these versatile inks on fabric.

The workshop, meals and accommodations will be at Karey Bresenhan's beautiful Great Expectations Creativity Center just outside La Grange.

Click here for a pdf with all the details.

Have you seen this?

Pretty exciting to see the quilt I painted a year ago gracing the cover of Quilting Arts magazine!

It's like coming full circle. What a year it's been. I am in the very midst of the transition the cards spoke of that inspired this piece.

8 of Cups: Moving on and letting go. Time to change direction in life. Dissatisfied and disappointed, wanting something entirely different, but not knowing what. Finding courage, taking time to rest and heal.

If you are interested in seeing how the painting progressed and the symbolism of the imagery on this piece you can click here to read about it.

Now I'm packing like crazy, sorting through 20 years of shared belongings, dividing things up and getting rid of unnecessary things (which is taking a lot longer than a typical move). I am streamlining, if that's really possible for an artist, lol, but I'm trying.

I feel almost like I'm going through a birthing process, with the last year of gestation, knowing this time was coming, getting psychologically prepared, doing the work that needed to be done to make it happen. Now I'm in heavy labor, doing the hard work and soon life as I know it will be very different. I'll be moving on to the next phase of my life in a new place with lots of new adventures on the horizon!

Kudos to Jamie Fingal and Lesley Jenisen for curating the Rituals exhibit that my quilt is hanging in at International Quilt Festival and the other 10 artists quilts from the exhibit that are featured in this issue. Hopefully I'll get a copy soon so I can see it and read Jamie and Lesley's interview.

A Spot of Tea in Springfield, Missouri

I had a lovely time in Springfield with the Ozark Piecemakers at their annual guild show.

My trip began with seeing a fabulous textile exhibit at the new Springfield Branson airport including the humorous work of Pam RuBert and beautiful organza work of Rosemary Claus-Gray, if you live in that part of the country I highly recommend a trip to the airport to see it.

On Thursday I gave a lecture and Friday taught my Tea and Ephemera workshop where we draw and paint imagery on tea bags then create collages on fabric; experimenting with a variety of processes from printing with thermofax screens to working with shiva paintstiks and stencils, rubber stamps and collaging printed abaca paper and decorative tissues.

Back to packing!

Things are getting crazy

I havent completely dropped off the face of the earth, I am in the midst of a packing frenzy. We got approval on our short sale last week and have an ambiguous closing date of any time between the first and middle of October. So now my ex and I are going through more than 20 years of shared belongings, packing and ruthlessly purging as much as we can.

Because we don't know specifically when the closing will be, it's really hard for me to make any plans for finding a place to live. If we close the beginning of October, I'll drive to my mom's in California, begin looking for a place, then fly to Houston at the end of the month for International Quilt Festival. If we close the middle of October, I'll drive straight to Texas instead, stay with friends in Austin, then drive to California the second week of November.

Either ways it's overwhelming with so many logistics; putting everything in storage, shipping supplies for 5 classes in Houston, not knowing when I'm going to get to the west coast to look for somewhere to live, having no forwarding address, etc...

On Wednesday I take a short break from packing and fly to Springfield, Missouri to give a lecture and teach a workshop for the Ozark Piece makers guild show, then fly back Saturday to resume packing and maybe? by then I'll have a better idea of when I'm actually going to be moving.

New Hand Sewing ebook

Interweave has compiled a wonderful series of Quilting Arts articles on handwork into a beautiful new ebook Hand Sewing.

What a nice surprise to find out my article on making felted wool ornaments from the first Quilting Arts Gifts issue is included.

There are also articles by Jane LaFazio, Victoria Gertenbach, Rose Hughes and Jude Hill, just to name a few.

Aloha! Grab your grass skirt and let's paint all the way to Hawaii!

This is so exciting, I want to invite you to come along with me for a surface design painting adventure on an island hopping Quilt n' Cruise to Hawaii. Linda Poole, Joan Shay and Lisa Erlandson will also be teaching on the cruise.

The ship leaves port from San Francisco October 4th. The next 4 days at sea offer a great line up of classes, then the ship stops each day in Kauai, Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo, then 4 more days for classes before stopping for a day in Ensenada and docking back in San Francisco the next morning, October 19th.

We are going to have a blast, all skill levels welcome. Look at what we're going to do:

Surface Design 101

Learn about different textile paints while creating unique, textured fabrics to use for art quilting or as a base for other mixed media techniques. A few of the methods we’ll explore are shibori and scrunching, working with sea sponges, layering translucent washes, creating texture by relief and working with a variety of brushes.

Make your Mark

Begin the class by designing and carving your own rubber stamp and foam stamp.  Then explore mark making by printing with your new stamps, wood block stamps, stamps from home, thermofax screens and quill pens to create beautiful stamped and painted fabrics. 

Heavy Metal Play Day

Spend a day working with craft metal and discover a variety of ways you can add flash to your mixed media projects.  

Each student receives a metal tool kit courtesy of Walnut Hollow, and learn multiple embossing techniques to create beautiful designs with dimension and texture on aluminum and copper metal.  Several methods for enhancing metal with color using alcohol inks and markers will also be explored in this fun and relaxed class. 

Painting Hawaiian Flora with Textile Paints

Using native Hawaiian floral imagery, learn how to paint fabric with textile paints, using an original design of your own or one provided in class. Students learn techniques for creating smooth gradations of color, glazing paint with textile mediums to create more visual depth, covering large areas with even color and avoiding blotchiness, control paint bleeding, working with freezer paper masks, and painting smooth lines and fine details.  

We will also discuss how different paints affect the hand of the fabric, and how to baste painted textiles for quilting. This is an information packed class geared to help students gain confidence painting fabric for art quilting. Students will have a variety of images to choose from or may work from their own designs.

How Can You Resist?

Explore the art of using resists to create beautifully textured painted fabric, while working with a variety of inexpensive items commonly found around the house or the local office supply.

Painting Hawaiian Fauna with Textile Paints

Using birds, insect or animal imagery native to Hawaii, learn how to paint fabric with textile paints, using an original design of your own or one provided in class. Students will learn techniques for creating smooth gradations of color, glazing paint with textile mediums to create more visual depth, covering large areas with even color and avoiding blotchiness, control paint bleeding, working with freezer paper masks, and painting smooth lines and fine details.  

So grab your partner (or not), and come spend two fun filled creative weeks immersed in color, texture and fabric. Check out all the details so we can go try some Spam sushi!

How Long Does It Take To Bind A Quilt?

Evidently for me, a traditional quilt binding can take 9 years, lol.

I don't make many utilitarian quilts and I've never liked sewing traditional quilt bindings, but I made this 'modern' quilt for the bedroom we renovated in our house in Austin Texas almost 10 years ago!

Front                                                                                    Back

Shortly after the room in Austin was finished, we moved back to Los Angeles and 2 years later we moved to Chicago. I guess with all the work of moving and resettling twice in a fairly short period of time, I kind of lost steam and forgot about finishing the quilt.

I decided, it was time to finish the quilt before I pack it up and was shocked when I counted how many years that quilt has been without a binding.

I look forward to sleeping under this quilt in a few months when I get resettled in Northern California!

Gimme Shelter

The symbolism of home and shelter is very significant to me right now. I am on the cusp of a major life transition, and home, as I am sure I will have some form of shelter as I go through this, is a bit ambiguous right now.

My marriage of more than 20 years came to an end a few years ago and because of the bad economy I remained in Chicago with my (now adult) kids, unable to sell our loft. I am in the process of negotiating a short sale and crossing my fingers it all goes through, which will allow me to move back to California in the next month or two.

I made this house for Kathy York's curated exhibit the Artists Village about a year after my initial split. My house incorporates floral/plant imagery for growth, bees for hard work, a heart for healing and love, 

roots for staying grounded and figuring out where to plant myself and even a couple of female nudes to represent rediscovering what it meant to be a single woman again.

My finished house is about 10 inches tall.

This was the house that started it all, The Cicada House is about 20" tall and 6" wide. The fabric is layered with printed paper imagery and multiple layers of transparant and metallic textile paint, then fused to heavy weight interfacing and quilted. The panels were stitched together and the roof and windows were embellished with embossed metal trim.

I enjoyed making the cicada house so much I needed to explore the house construction further with a couple water themed houses which were featured in a two part tutorial in Cloth Paper Scissors magazine March and May 2008.

I've also done a series of houses with stitched painted imagery with embossed metal stitched to them that I like to think of as personal altars. Bees and hives are symbolic of industry and craft, so I like to have them in my work.

This house series was painted and quilted fabric stitched to painted and hand stitched lutradur with embossed metal stitched to it, sewn to copper screen.


I know there will be more symbolic houses incorporated into my art in the future as a I transition to a new life living in Northern California as a single woman, with kids embarking on adulthood while I explore new forms of shelter.

Prepping fabric

I have so much on my plate that I have very little creative time right now, but I did pull out paint and fabric to prepare for my next teaching gig in Springfield MO for the Ozark Quilters show next month. It was a really nice break from paperwork, computer time and purging.

You can see the paint is pulled to the top of the creases in the fabric. The fabric on the bottom against the plastic is the lightest, staying damp the longest. Many times I turn the fabric over when the top feels dry, to further dry the underside, but also to encourage a little more creased staining on that side.

This method works great for more contrasty stained fabric with very light overall areas and darker creased stains. For a more overall colorful fabric (like this purple one) brush straight paint or a less diluted solution on damp fabric with a paintbrush, then crumple fabric to dry. 

Once it's dry it takes some serious ironing to get all the wrinkles out, usually requiring extra steam or spritzing with water while ironing.

Click here for a photo tutorial of the process. 

A Sea of Colorful Fabric Using 10 Techniques with Acrylic Inks

This was the scene on the floor before we broke for lunch on Saturday. Luckily we had a really big room. I spread out a 9' x 12' tarp and then added another 6 feet to it an hour later. These were our base fabrics created using the first 5 techniques. 

After lunch we used this fabric to work through the next 5 techniques.


It's a pretty action packed class to get through all 10.

It would be great to do this as a 2 day class working at a slightly more relaxed pace with more time dedicated to each technique, then have the second day to incorporate all the techniques into one larger piece.

And for those students in my class that were interested in the beautiful wooden block stamps we used, as well as all of you reading this post, they are from The Indian Block Company. I'm fairly certain the company Colouricious will have a booth selling them at International Quilt Festival, Houston this fall.

Everyone was very productive creating a lot of unique fabric and most importantly had a lot of fun doing it.