International Quilt Festival Long Beach: Day 2 Fiesta Ornaments

Friday evening I taught Fiesta Ornaments. In this class everyone gets to paint, do a little quilting, and sew and emboss metal.

I always have students tell me how thrilled they are to walk out the door with a finished object!

International Quilt Festival Long Beach: Day 2 Open Studios

Friday morning started with a couple hours in Open Studios at Make it University.

My daughter Nina participated in Open Studios for the first time. She displayed one of her Asian ball jointed dolls and the clothes and wigs she designs and makes for them, as well as her sculpted hearts and skulls and a portfolio of her other work.

I was so thrilled to finally meet my online friend Alisa Burke, she is a creative dynamo! 

Here's my good friend Jane LaFazio demoing how she makes her gorgeous felted and stitched fiber work on a needle felting machine.

This is so Jane! You know you are gonna have fun when you're with her.

Pokey, Alisa and I between activities.

My friends Leslie Tucker Jenison and Jamie Fingal who curated the fabulous Beneath the Surface exhibit premiering at the Long Beach show, it will also be exhibited at IQF Houston in November.

In the afternoon I taught a workshop at Make it University making the embossed metal origami pop up book.

International Quilt Festival Long Beach: Day 1

It was really great being back in Southern California, such a nice break from Chicago's humidity and I love catching up with so many friends here.

My first class at festival was Mixed Media Painted Fabric, we had a cavernous room to spread out and work in.

I really enjoy this class because, each person uses the technique of combining printed paper images with paint and fabric, then creating an overall secondary painted image using multiple layers of paint and paper.

The final work is something unique which will become even more interesting when it is stitched with quilted designs, adding finer details and visual dimension with thread work.

I always have so much fun meeting adventurous women like these who are willing to push the envelope and do something a little different in my classes.

Dinner with good friends and star sightings

I had dinner last night with several of my architect buddies (from my previous life as a graphic designer working in Architecture) at the W in Hollywood. Jimmy Kimmel walked in with Guillermo and was nice enough to sit down for a photo with us. (You made it onto the blog Mark!)

I havent been able to write a blog post about festival, because the place where I was staying in LA the last couple days did not have wi-fi. Now I am at the airport, taking advantage of the free wi-fi, waiting for my flight to Sacramento. I will spend a week with my mom in Davis, before flying back to Chicago. Unfortunately my mom has dial up at her house, so it may take me a while to get a good blog post done about festival, but I have lots of photos so check back in the next couple days, hopefully I will get something posted.

A little travel knitting

I am leaving Wednesday for Long Beach to teach at International Quilt Festival. I always like to have a small scale knitting project along for those times when I am passing the hours at the airport and flying.

I came across this free pattern for arm warmers on Ravelry.com, it looked like just the right balance of complexity to keep it interesting, but a pattern easy enough to memorize for stress free knitting. I am knitting this with some of the possum/merino/silk yarn I bought in New Zealand on size 2 needles, it feels so soft and a little fuzzy.

After festival I will going to Los Angeles for a couple days to visit family and a few friends, then I'll fly to Northern California for a visit with more family and friends, before returning to Chicago at the beginning of August. Blogging may be a little sporadic, but I will try to post whenever I can.

Make it University Long Beach, not to be missed!

Workshops  

Classes are by lottery, so be there 30 minutes ahead, $10/each cash

Friday:
12–1pm - Fly Your Own Colors - Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison

1:30–2:30pm- Recycling Remix - Alisa Burke
3–4pm - Embossed Metal Origami Pop Up Book - Judy Coates Perez

Saturday:
11:45-12:45- Fantastic Fabric Flowers -  Alisa Burke
1:15– 2:15pm - Mixed Media Box to Go - Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison; 
5:30–7:00pm - Surviving the Runway: Life’s a Beach; Wonderful assortment of prizes to those who survive the runway!   -Pokey Bolton and the crew!

Open Studios

Friday:
10am-Noon -  Judy Coates Perez and Nina Perez;  
2:30- 4:30 - Jane LaFazio and Pokey Bolton

Saturday:  
3-5pm Leslie Jenison and Jamie Fingal

Sunday:
10am-Noon Jamie Fingal and Leslie Jenison

See you there!

Remember this?

Last February I told you I was working on a project I couldn't talk about, well, now I can! I was dyeing silk for an article for Vogue Patterns Magazine. This is the August/September issue.

I dyed rayon/silk velvet with a variety of hand dye techniques using Rit dye to make a scarf using 6 rectangular panels of fabric that are sewn together in such a way that it creates an ever changing patterned scarf.

The rayon/silk velvet was dyed to match the fall fashion forecast colors using shibori, ombre, low water immersion and solid dye techniques, that are all explained in the article.  The scarf can be worn all scrunched up with lots of different fabrics showing or hang long and drape-y as shown on the mannequin. This was a really fun scarf to make from a Vogue pattern, I will definitely be making another for my fall wardrobe!

I'm featured in an artist spotlight

Lyric Kinard, author of Art + Quilt, Design Principles and Creativity Exercises has featured me on her blog. She is also doing a dvd giveaway, so stop by for a visit and leave a note for a chance to win.

An Urban Naturescape

I have lived just west of downtown Chicago almost 5 years now and I am always amazed by the things I see. While walking my dog this butterfly flew right into my hands then fluttered out and landed on me, staying there for several minutes.

My neighborhood is an industrial area of old brick factory buildings with lofts, galleries, restaurants, food processors and butchers, there is a lot of concrete and not so much in the way of grass, besides the little strip along the sidewalk behind Harpo studios, so of course that is dog paradise.

This is one of the few gardens in the neighborhood, it is just beautiful and attracts lots of butterflies.

My dog Abby refused to look at the camera/phone,  while standing next to all these bright pink petunias. You can tell by those pulled back ears she was very annoyed about it.

I was taken by surprise when I saw this tiny baby bunny running across the sidewalk ahead of me. He was so cute, you wonder where does a little guy like that sleep around here.

An Ornamental Fiesta

Try your hand embossing and sewing metal, painting fabric and quilting. This is a fun class loaded with techniques. Inspired by Mexican tin folk art, these fun and festive ornaments incorporate painting with textile paints, quilting, embossing and sewing metal.

an ornament can even have doors.

Here are some examples of the beautiful ornaments made by students in the Fiesta Ornament class.

Painting for an upcoming project

I am working fast and furious to prepare for a big project in a couple months, here is a little snippet of what I have been painting this weekend.

Now if you haven't caught Rice Freeman-Zachery's latest podcast with my dear friend Melly Testa, you should mosey on over and give it a listen.