Moon Garden won a ribbon at festival!

My quilt Moon Garden has won an honorable mention in the painted category at International Quilt Festival. If you are at festival make sure you ask someone to show you the back of the quilt, so you can see all the hidden images quilted into the background.

I probably won't have time to post until I get back from festival, but I will post lots of pictures when I do. 

Toasty soft handwarmers

With the instant arrival of fall and obvious signs of winter I have been finishing up projects started last year and thinking about new ones. I like to have a lot of hand warmers around because when the weather starts getting really cold and I need full coverage outside I will wear these inside. I don't know about you, but my hands get so cold when I am at the computer in the winter and with these I can still type.

Luckily hand warmers are pretty fast to knit, which is always nice because you can feel like you have actually accomplished something in a fairly short time. I have made so many of these fingerless gloves over the years, I can now just knit the body with out a pattern and then customize them with interesting cable patterns that I come across, like this one from a sock pattern. These are made with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, which is so soft, I am very sensitive to prickly wool and these feels wonderful on.

Misyfuse buttons at Festival

When you are at Festival be sure to head over to Mistyfuse, booth 957.  Iris has made some cool buttons with different artquilts on them. This one has my quilt Arbol de Vida. There are also buttons with the work of Pamela Allen, Jamie Fingal, Yvonne Porcella and Eserita Austin. It will be hard to choose just one, I hope she has made a lot.

Be seen on The Quilt Scene!

On Tuesday my daughter Nina and I will be going to International Quilt Festival for lots of fun and creative adventures and our first stop will be the Quilting Arts booth 1244, to be seen on the Quilt Scene!

On preview night (Wednesday) I will be doing Open Studios from 7:30-9:30, next to Make it University, just look up at the hanging aisle signs for the huge MIU banner next to aisle 1200. If you are cruising the show floor, stop by and say hi.

Thursday, I will be teaching Mixed Media Painted Fabric, there are still a few spaces left. If you take the class you will get one of these cool collage kits, I would love to see you there, check the IQF website for class registration.

Friday I am teaching a workshop in Make It University at noon: Metal Magic.

You really want to get into this workshop because some lucky participant will win a Walnut Hollow Metal tool kit ($29.99 value)!

At 2:30 I will be back in Open Studios, so drop by and check out what I am working on and see some artwork published in Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors up close.

Saturday I am teaching Painting whole cloth fabric and then helping out in Surviving the Runway at 5:30. This is one of the highlights of festival and really shouldn't be missed, best people watching on the show floor!

Must Have Cardigan Finished!

With the arrival of fall and cold weather, I decided to pick up the sweater that I started last year and finished it just in time for the chilly mornings we are getting here in Chicago.

The best part about this sweater besides the soft cotton yarn from Knitpicks is the fact that it actually fits!

Signs of fall in Michigan

This weekend my son and I went on a teen retreat with several other families in Michigan.

The weather was cold and rainy, but there were wonderful breaks in the rain for peaceful walks with camera in hand.

I really enjoy living in downtown Chicago, but I do miss the sound of crickets, rustling leaves and soft springy grass under my feet. I found that I was more conscious of the sights, sounds and smells of the natural world than the times when I have lived with it on a daily basis.

I guess my love of fairy tales also makes me want to see into the other worlds that exist around us, like the microscopic ones on the forest floor.

These lovely little ball shaped mushrooms in the moss caught my eye after a full day of rain.

Then I saw these little mushrooms and this gooey looking toadstool.



Most of these photos were taken on my Cannon elph but the vibrant photos of the mushrooms below were taken on my iphone and then I altered the photos with a free HDR app on my iphone.

Now, it's time to get back to the real world, organize supplies, pack my bags and make preparations to head for Houston next Tuesday for International Quilt Festival.

Maggie demonstrates thermofax

Bonnie McCaffrey has made another fabulous vidcast. Click on Bonnie's name to go to her website and watch this very informative demo with the ever delightful Maggie Weiss, you won't be dissappointed. Just watching this makes me want a thermofax too!

Chicago Antique Market

Sunday, Nina and I walked down to the Chicago Antique Market, it takes place about 8 blocks from where we live on the last weekend of each month from April through September. This is the first weekend I have either been in town for it or did not forget to go and unfortunately it was the last day for this year.

One of the first things that caught my eye was this barrel of large spools of thread from the defunct textile industry of South Carolina, these are about 10 inches long.

I thought the display of thread spools on this old rake head was wonderful.

Check out this little old sewing machine.

I love this old copper tub.

This is Katherine Anne, who makes the best truffles I think I have ever tasted. She had little samples of her truffles and amazing melt in your mouth caramels, you could literally taste a subtle floral essence from the wildflower honey she uses.  I bought a small box of truffles and two single truffles for Nina and I to eat on the spot.

This is what her brochure says:

Katherine Anne has been making decadent confections ever since her childhood on a sustainable Wisconsin farm. Her mother taught her how to use fresh cream from the family's Jersey cows as well as honey from a nearby farm, to create batches of old-fashioned caramels. 

Katherine-Annes' Confections are sold locally in Chicago at coffee shops and Wholefoods but you can also order them online here, these are truly a slice of heaven and worth every penny.

We rarely see or hear cicadas downtown, but we saw this guy clinging to a fence post. This is probably the last one we'll see until next summer.

St. Louis

I had such a great time in St. Louis, thanks to my wonderful hosts Judy Cobillas, president of MoFA and Carlene Fullerton, fiber artist and hostess extraordinaire.

Thursday evening I gave a lecture at the St. Louis Artist Guild, this was also the site for my workshops on the weekend. The St. Louis Artists Guild is in an old stone mansion that is being used by the guild for housing exhibits and holding classes. There are some beautiful architectural elements in this building, this staircase in the foyer was particularly impressive. Through out the facility many different rooms were being hung with incredible fiber exhibits as part of the two month long Innovations in Textiles 8.

Innovations in Textiles 8 is really such an impressive event with exhibits in numerous galleries in the St. Louis area. On friday Carlene and Judy took me to several galleries and to the Craft Alliance where there is a fantastic exhibit on textile collage with the work of Joan Schulze, Fran Skiles, Barbara Lee Smith, Bob Adams and Luanne Rimel. A week ago there were workshops with Fran Skiles and this weekend there are workshops with Bob Adams. There are so many incredible events happening, I hope the fiber world is stopping and taking notice, I don't think anything like this on this scale happens anywhere else.

After Gallery hopping we had lunch at Pi, Obamas favorite pizza place, it was delicious!

Friday evening we went to the opening of Fibre Vive an exhibit of fiber works influenced by Hispanic arts and culture by MoFA members. Following the opening, I had the opportunity to spend more time with Rosemary Claus-Gray and several other MoFA members over a lovely dinner at Carlene's.

Saturday I taught Mixed media Painted Fabric, I love seeing how each person interprets this technique though the colors and imagery they use.

This lovely work was done by Chris, I am sorry I do not know some peoples last names, but Chris has a wonderful gestural quality to her drawing and a beautiful sense of color.Judy and Carlene working.Jennifer, one of several students who traveled from the Columbia, MO area, who I got to spend some extra time with since they also stayed with my host Carlene on friday and saturday nights.
Carol Zemanand Leandra Spangler, who's name was so familiar to me and I just figured out why, she also contributed artwork to Virginia Spiegal's Fiberart for a Cause auction earlier this year.On Sunday I taught Tsukineko Inks, it was a whirlwind of a day covering more techniques than usual, introducing Ink Potion No. 9 into the mix and I never got in anytime for photos. I had a wonderful time working with all these textile/fiber artists who work in so many different media, I had so much fun, I would come back and play with these gals anytime.

Ooh, I'm so excited, look what came in the mail!

I placed a pre-order for Creative Time and Space by Ricë Freeman-Zachery from Amazon, and it arrived this afternoon, just in time for me to get in some good airport reading tomorrow. Yay!
This book is so cool, please forgive the bad/fuzzy photos, the sun is going down and I am anxious to give you a look, since I won't have time to post good photos tomorrow.
This book is sure to please every kind of creative soul, there are mixed media, textile, doll, sculpture, painter and jewelry artists represented here.

Cool montage using samples from everyone's work in this image.
Photos of beautiful art work on every page.
Look, there's me and PaMdora aka Pam RuBert on facing pages.
Gorgeous studio shots
Wonderful tips and ideas from all the artists, including one of my favorite sages Judy Wise.
This book is gorgeous, I can hardly wait to sit down and start reading.