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.

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.

Removing Color article Part 2

The second article in my 2 part series on alternative methods for removing color from fabric is in the February March issue of Quilting Arts magazine. This article focuses on several techniques using DeColourant, a product that removes color but also has the ability to put color back in at the same time. Because it is a thickened paste it can be applied with a paintbrush, painted over stencils or used with a thermofax screen. There are so many interesting possibilites to be explored with this product.

In the same issue there is also an article by Kathy York on making fabric houses with pictures of the Artist Village exhibit that she curated. As well as an article about the Between the Spaces exhibit.

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New color removing article in Quilting Arts magazine

I wanted to let you know I have a new article in the December/January issue of Quilting Arts magazine about discharging fabric with an inexpensive and easy use product from Rit. I began experimenting with it and found a new method of using the product with shibori and had great results with hand dyes and commercial fabrics.

It's the first of a two part series of articles on removing color from fabric. The next article using DeColourant will be in the February/March issue.

These articles coincide with the segment I taped for Quilting Arts TV series 900, that should be airing soon.

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Check out my latest article in Quilting Arts

I recently wrote an article on the way I prepare my work for quilting for the October/November 2011 issue of Quilting Arts magazine focussing on Stitch. In my article I talk about my thought process for planning the quilting designs, my preference for batting, my tried and true method of basting and marking a top with strategic design elements when free motion quilting.

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Taping Quilting Arts TV season 900

Susan Bruebaker Knapp, Elin Waterston, Me, and Candy Glendening,
after a wonderful dinner at Taza Lebanese Grill

These are the artists who were taping on Tuesday and Wednesday in Cleveland. Susan and I emailed before hand and arranged to meet at the airport on Monday and Candy's flight also happened to arrive when mine did, so we had a nice little reunion in baggage.

Setting up

The first segment I taped was about removing color and adding it back in to fabric with two different products that are similar in that they are non toxic alternatives to bleach, yet very different in how they are used.

I demonstrated multiple techniques with each product. A few reverse shibori techniques with Color Remover by RIT and painting, stamping and thermofax with DeColourant. 

By the way, my daughter Nina designed the thermofax image I used and Lyric Kinard made the screen.

Preshoot photo

We're on...

Shown here on the monitor: the first half of the segment was about using Color Remover by RIT. This stuff is soooo cool, I wish I had played with it sooner. It is a non toxic alternative to bleach for discharging that is activated by hot water and neutralized by rinsing in cool water! I showed several easy alternative ways that I discovered to use it besides boiling it on the stove.


Working with both products in one shoot was a lot to cover, the segment could have easily run twice as long.

Susan was great about taking photos while the show was taping from the tv in the green room.

There's my hair hanging in my face again, film crew doesn't like that, lol

QA Editor extraordinaire Helen Gregory with Susan Bruebaker Knapp preparing for her taping.

Some extra makeup to get us through the day.

Candy stopped in after lunch to start setting up for the DVD she was taping the next day. Isn't this color chart amazing? Candy is a college biology professor and this is her Candiotic table of elemental color. The upper left triangle are all the colors created by the dye primaries, cyan (turquoise), lemon yellow and fuchsia and the lower right are colors created by using cerulean, tangerine and mixing red.

notice barrette in place for following segments, lol 

My second segment was about different methods I use to create freemotion quilting designs with the Christmas Tree Skirt I designed for Quilting Arts Gifts last year.

This is the sound guy who puts our microphones on, sitting down at the Bernina. Maybe we should teach him to sew, we could use a few more cute guys in the quilt world.

 My last segment was about painting fabric with acrylic inks.

I love the way the inks create such beautiful texture and layer over each other.

It was a fun, exciting and always a bit nerve wracking day of taping. The crew for the show is wonderful to work with, but I'm always worried I'll forget something crucial, either a specific tool for a segment or an important bit of information to say on set.

Now I can give a sigh of relief, to have it all behind me and catch up with so many things that have been put on the back burner for way too long, but first I need to start writing an article for Quilting Arts magazine on the techniques I showed in the segment on removing color.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

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Spring has sprung in Quilting Arts

I just got the new issue of Quilting Arts magazine in the mail today.

What a great spring issue! Loaded with flower themed imagery, just what those of us in the gloomy, cold north need, to remind us that it really is spring!

Paula Chung's gorgeous floral silk quilt is on the cover and inside she has an interview with Pokey featuring a lot more photos of her painterly lustrous silk quilts.


My friend Jane LaFazio has a wonderful article on stitched sketches, I have an article on using Acrylic Inks

and on the next page my good friend Laura Wasilowski has an article on zen doodle quilts!

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Design, Paint & Stitch DVD Preview

Interweave has just posted a preview of my new DVD Design, Paint & Stitch. You have no idea how hard it is to watch yourself on these things, lol!





Here's the promo info:

Add paint to your quilt with an array of painting techniques!

After providing a brief overview of the materials she uses, award-winning fiber artist Judy Coates Perez covers:

The design stage including how she uses photo-editing software to manipulate and size her original designs

The painting stage with a look at the tools needed for painting; an in-depth review of the types and properties of paints is included

How to machine quilt your wholecloth quilt, from planning and marking to layering, basting, and free-motion quilting

Non-traditional binding options for art quilts

Learn the various steps that Judy takes to create an art quilt—from working on the initial design, to painting and quilting, through the finishing techniques.

Can't wait? Also available in download!

Coming Soon!

Really, I always feel a little shy when it comes to promoting stuff like this, it's so hard to toot your own horn, but I taped a new DVD with Interweave when I was in Cleveland last month. It is due to hit the store shelves in a couple weeks. Below is the outside cover of the dvd, if you click on the photo you should be able to see all the details.

This DVD is filled with as much information and demonstrations as I could squeeze into an hour. I cover a lot of the tips, tricks and products that I have found work best for me when I make art quilts. Later in the month I will do a few blog posts to supplement some of the info on the DVD. You can pre-order Design, Paint & Stitch here.

My Christmas tree skirt pattern is now available on the Quilting Arts site

For those of you who bought the new Quilting Arts gifts magazine and want to make the deer Christmas tree skirt, there is a pdf of the pattern available for download on the Quilting Arts website, that you can print out and tape together.

Get your copy now!

Woo hoo, look what I have in my hot little hands and now you can get the new Quilting Arts gifts magazine too! This is a fantastic issue, not only because I have an article on making a graphic painted reindeer tree skirt ;-) ooh, I love how Quilting Arts photographs stuff!...

but also because there are some really great projects in here. I know I totally want to make some mistletoe like in Susan Brubaker Knapp's article (click below to see a bigger photo of it),

and I adore Kelli Perkins' rolling pin recipe books!!! I know I have mentioned that before, but they are so cool and there are couple different artsy pin cushions that look really fun to make, oh I could go on and on.

What a surprise it was when I was flipping through the magazine the first time, to see a picture of me and my friend Jane LaFazio in Melly Testa's article for making these cute little printed fabric photo frames!

Another fun project to do, especially since I already have some foam stamps that I made a few months ago, inspired by Melly.

Remember this?

Well, now I can tell you that this detail shot is from a tree skirt I designed and made for the new Quilting Arts Gifts magazine.

This tree skirt was made like a whole cloth painted quilt, but it could also be made by applique if that is the way you like to work.

This issue is full of really great projects. One of my favorites are Kelli Perkins' rolling pin recipe book scrolls, I saw these at the IQA Chicago show and they are too die for!!!!!! Pre-order your copy now.

Dyeing Batting with Rit

Now that my article on low immersion dyeing with RIT from the December 2008 Quilting Arts magazine has been published, I can show you photos of the artwork I made for RIT to use on a segment of Quilting Arts TV for season 3. The third season should begin in January. The episode that RIT will be on also happens to have the segment that was taped in the spring at Quilt Festival Chicago where I demonstrate making Fiesta Ornaments.





These circles are cut from dyed Warm and White cotton batting and stitched with a blanket stitch on the sewing machine. If I had an easier time with hand work I would have loved to do all the stitching with embroidery floss to really make the stitches stand out. Dyed batting can be like a cheaper softer substitute for doing wool appliqué.

I think dyed cotton batting would make a great substrate for needle felting. I can imagine a whole landscape made from pieces of dyed batting and embellished on a felting machine with ribbons and roving for trees and flowers.



You can see the back of the 9 patch is one piece of dyed batting cut with a prairie point style edge. I used a leftover block cut in half on the diagonal to make the corners for hanging, with a piece of painted balsa wood to rest on a nail in the wall. This is a super easy way to hang small fiber art.

On the left is a detail from the abstract piece at the end of the article. The wavy lines of color running down the center is the dyed fusible interfacing. This is the soft nylon interfacing that is usually meant to be used with knit fabrics.

Below is a detail from the flower piece. The flowers and leaves are cut from batting and the centers of the flowers and leaves are fusible interfacing.

Dyeing with RIT

A month or two ago I mentioned that I had done a project for RIT dye for Quilting Arts TV. I actually made three projects for the RIT representative to use on the show because I had too many different ideas to stop at one. They taped the show at the end of August and it will air in Series 300. I have heard it will be on the same episode that I taped last spring at quilt Festival doing the Fiesta Ornaments. I would love to show you more but you will have to wait for the show or pics in Quilting Arts magazine.

I never used RIT dye before doing this project, I had no idea what the colors would be like or how to dye fabric with it, I have always used Procion. I think I was imagining that I would get dull 1970’s colors, you know dusty mauve, blue gray, goldenrod. I was really surprised by the colors that I got when I adapted it to a low immersion dye method, dyeing pieces of fabric in small containers of dye. These are all the RIT dye colors.

These are some of the colors I made mixing dyes.The basic recipe is:
one cup hot water to 2 tsp liquid dye or 4 tsp powder dye and one minute in the microwave. Increasing or reducing the dye quantity will make colors more saturated or lighter.

This quantity of dye solution will dye up to a 1/2 yard of fabric or roughly a fat quarter of cotton batting. I am writing an article about it now that will go into a lot more detail about the process.

One of the things that intrigued me about RIT was that it could dye some man made fibers. It won’t dye polyester but it will dye nylon, so the soft Pellon interfacing can be dyed, just don’t put it in the microwave, it will melt. This is how it looks.


I used the interfacing on two projects. I ended up melting a lot of the interfacing during my experimenting with dyeing it, so I didn’t have a lot to work with for the projects. I found if you put the interfacing in the hot water dye solution and leave it there for a couple minutes, that is enough to dye it. I made one piece fusing the interfacing to batting to make details on flowers and leaves and another piece that is abstract working with layers of batting and interfacing.

This was a really interesting project to do. I found there are definitely times when the speed and simplicity of using Rit comes in handy, not to mention the fact that it is non-toxic. There are also times when I will opt for using Procion. Each product has its benefits and drawbacks. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable using fiber reactive dyes for a number of reasons and RIT certainly provides a viable option for artists to use instead.

Quilting Arts Gifts 2008

Remember last years Quilting Arts gifts? This year the gifts issue is bigger and better than ever. It is packed with great projects. Look at that table of contents, two pages of holiday goodness!

I wrote an article for making my felted wool ornaments. You can see them hanging on the tree in the photo in the bottom right corner of the first table of contents page.

Look at Pokey's adorable dog in that pink jacket, too cute, and I love LuAnne's awesome messenger bags, in the bottom left corner of the second page. Don't you want one of those?

3 months until Christmas doesn't seem like enough time to start whipping up all those handmade gifts, cause it looks like there are a lot of good ones in here.

This issue will be on sale in the stores starting September 15, but I bet we'll find it in some places before that.