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.

Saturday: Make it U, friends, Surviving the Runway and Pokey's Surprise Birthday Party

Saturday I taught a Make it University workshop using DeColorourant, a product used to discharge color from fabric using an iron. I have an article on DeColorourant in Quilting Arts magazine after the new year. 

Hanging with Friends

Melly, Rice and I ran into Jamie and Leslie on their way to open studios and had to stop for a photo

In the afternoon, I had my first real down time of the week and spent some time with Melly Testa and Rice Freeman-Zachery.



Surviving the Runway

Click on photo!

Saturday night was the last Surviving the Runway and Melly was the star of the show, so happy to be back with all her friends and cancer free and we were so thrilled to celebrate with her.

The theme was creating a fascinator/ hat out of a cheap black flocked plastic bowler hat with a variety of supplies like craft foam, duct tape, paint, glue, ribbons, feathers and pipe cleaners in less than an hour. Music is playing and there are challenges such as doing a curtsy or dance to get extra supplies for your hat.

Cheryl Sleboda

Melly and I getting our groove on

Catherine Redford, the winner

Now the fun really begins
Following Surviving the Runway, we walked over to the park for Gala on the Green where we ate BBQ brisket and danced some more and after an hour, much to Pokey's disappointment, several of us made excuses to leave early.

We then gathered for a surprise birthday party for Pokey. This was a pretty elaborate party that we began planning several months ago. We had the QA crew in on it to make sure we got Pokey over to the party.

As many of you know Jamie Fingal is a mad Barbie collector and she and Leslie have been using a couple Barbie alter egos in their travels over the last year.

This spurred the idea of planning a special calendar for Pokey with each of us creating a scene for each month with a Barbie alter ego and some way that Quilting Arts has been part of our life, whether it was reading the magazine, incorporating a project from an article or teaching a workshop at MIU. There is even a page with the whole Quilting Arts/ Cloth Paper Scissors staff as Barbies.

Jamie and Leslie set a beautiful table with all the Barbies in the center in various poses and Barbie party favors.

It was a fabulous party, celebrating friendship, Pokey's 40th birthday and our years working with her as the editor of Quilting Arts.



Farewell Houston, it was a fantastic week, looking forward to next year!

Head over to Melly Testa's blog to see her zipper pouch mania tutorial.

Friday: Lecture, Interview, Reception, Dinner

Waiting for the lecture to begin

 On friday my day began with giving a power point lecture called Making an Award Winning Artquilt (and everything that can go wrong in the process).

It's an information packed lecture showing a series of quilts from start to finish, how I pull together a concept with imagery to create a design, products that I prefer and why, funny (but not so much at the time) stories about mishaps and problems I ran into and how I resolved them.

After the lecture, I always bring out Primordial Sea since a large portion of the lecture is about making this quilt.

listening to a question from the audience after the lecture

SOS Interview

Awkward moments, waiting to start

In the afternoon I had a Quilters Alliance Save our Stories interview, that will go into the historical quilting archives and stored at the Library of Congress.












Lone Star Reception

Frances Alford, Leslie Jenison, Rachel Parris, Jamie Fingal, Kathy York, Sherry McCauley & me

Rachel holding the book

In the evening Karey Bresenhan hosted a wonderful reception to kick off the exhibits that go along with the beautiful, and big!, Lonestars lll book at festival and the new Texas Quilt Museum opening in La Grange next week.

I have two quilts in the book and exhibits that were made during my years living in Austin, TX. This is where I first became friends with Frances, Kathy and Sherry, we were all part of the same art quilt group and created a significant series of group quilts with a number of group members, exploring various themes based on color studies to begin with and eventually incorporating a variety of subject matter.








Dinner at 8

Our dinners always begin with a beautiful toast that Rachel leads about strong women.

Rachel, Deb Boschert, Jamie

Deb, Jamie, Linda Minton, Terry Grant

Frances, Gerrie Congdon, Susan Bruebaker Knapp, Leslie

Leslie, Barb Forrister, Susan Fletcher King

Guest appearance by Napkin head

Gerrie being a newbie to the dinner @ 8 gatherings takes a moment
to gather herself, lol

 Late night antics with roomies

Melly Testa pouncing on Jane La Fazio 

Melly sharing the love

It was great having Jane as my roommate in Houston during the week and then having Melly join us on friday and saturday nights was AWESOME!

Hop on over to Tracie Lyn Huskamp's blog to check out her tutorial.

Thursday: Tsukineko Inks Again and Dinner at 8

On thursday, I taught a second Tsukineko inks class at festival and the good news is if you were trying to get in and didn't, I had such a big waiting list, I have been invited to come back and teach it again in Houston next year.

Dinner at 8

Sue Dennis, Rachel, Sue Bleiweiss, Leslie, Jamie, Sherry McCauley, Kathleen Murphy, Frances. Indigo, Kathy York and Jane LaFazio were also there but I couldn't squeeze them in the picture. 

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Sue Dennis from Australia at dinner. Sue had a special exhibit at festival with a body of work she created after doing an artist in residence in LaGrange Texas last year.

Me and Sue

Sue has now been initiated into the dinner at 8 spoon hanging tradition.She's also helping me out with contacts in Australia, I am hoping I can get booked to teach/lecture there in June/July 2013 since I will be teaching in New Zealand. It would be such a shame to be on the other side of the planet and not get a few more opportunities to extend my trip.

Sue, Rachel, Sue

My daughter Indigo has a very small nose and can't get a spoon to hang off of it the regular way, so being the unique individual that sheis, she found she can hang a spoon off her face in the other direction.