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.