Painted Threads

Are you going to Festival in Long Beach?

2012-05-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's nearly June! Time is flying by and in just a little more than a month Quilt Festival will be upon us. Here's the line up of classes I'll be teaching.

Thursday, July 26
Alternatively Bound & Stitched NEW

Expand your free motion quilting repertoire with some creative free motion stitching exploration. Then bind your quilted samplers with several non traditional alternative binding techniques for art quilts: faced binding, couched twisted cord binding, and satin stitched binding.

Friday, July 27
Color Theory

Did you know the color choices you make can transform an average piece of artwork into something spectacular? Be surprised and delighted by the effects and illusions you can create by understanding the mysteries of color. In this hands-on experiential class you’ll learn key color concepts with visual examples, mix new paint colors, and create helpful charts, all providing you with the tools you’ll need to see color in a whole new light.

Saturday, July 28
10 Textile Techniques Using Acrylic Inks NEW

Explore a variety of painting techniques from textural backgrounds and surface design techniques to stamping, layering colors and more traditional painting and drawing with inks.

Here's a more involved description of this class.

I'm looking forward to getting back to California for some fun in the sun, hanging with my fellow creative peeps and teaching a few classes, if you'd like to join me sign up now!

Chicago School of Fusing May Birthday Bash

2012-05-24T23:54:00.000-05:00

Jane Sassaman and Laura Wasilowski

So if you were unaware, the majority of the Chicago School of Fusing were all born in May. So this means once a year we have to get together for a party to celebrate and it includes many of the top stars of the art quilting world who live in the Chicago area.

Laura interviews Jane about her new book

We started out in Laura's backyard where Jane showed us her new gorgeous book hot off the press. BTW there will be a blog hop in July with chances to win a copy of Janes new book.

Laura and Frieda filming Jane

Patchwork Sassaman Style is a beautiful book showing how you can take some simple traditional patchwork patterns and use large print fabrics to create stunning visually complex quilts. Jane's fabric works especially well because she designs such gorgeous fabric! but really you could use these concepts with any of your favorite fabrics.

All of our get togethers include a lovely pot luck lunch. I made this unassuming looking cake, that happened to be made with Guinness stout, molasses and fresh ginger! The recipe was just too interesting not to try. I made a cream cheese frosting to top it off and I think it was definitely good enough to make again.

clockwise from left: Emily Parson, Ann Fahl, Anne Lulle, Laura Wasilowski, Barb Vlack, Frieda Anderson and Jane Sassaman

I'm so lucky to have such amazingly talented and wonderful friends.

Emily showed us her latest knitting project and a pic of her newest quilt, it's gorgeous, it will surely be an award winner!

At the end of a delightful afternoon, I gave Laura a ride back into the city so she could join her husband Steve, he works in my neighborhood, and we ended up grabbing drinks and dinner with a few of Steve's co-workers in downtown Chicago on a beautiful summery evening.

Painted ipad Bag

2012-05-10T10:26:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to buy a case for my 'new' ipad, but have held off because I read the ipad 2 cases didn't work with the new ipads because they moved the magnet that puts it in sleep mode when you close the cover and there aren't that many options in covers for the new ipads yet, so in the mean time I've had nothing to protect it when I'm not using it and need to transport it.

I decided to sew a simple bag from canvas with a piece of thick wool felt sewn into it as a cushioned liner. I had no intentions of doing anything fancy, just a simple temporary bag that was purely utilitarian. This did the job and suited me just fine... for a few days.

But the lure of that blank canvas was too much.

I pulled out a few printed tea bags, abaca paper and matte gel medium and glued a few images down.

Then I painted a layer of clear gesso over the whole bag. Gesso is a way to prep the canvas for paint and clear gesso would not cover the printed images the way white gesso would.

Using acrylic inks, I brushed on some random color. When I build up layers of painted imagery, I like to start by putting down some primary colors, mainly warm yellows and cool red, because when I paint blues over them I'll get greens and purples. I especially like yellow as a base color because it is light, bright and transparant and I can always go darker with layers of color over the top.

With pencil I drew a few images on the canvas, white pencils are always nice if you can't see pencil lines very well.

Then I painted the background with deep blues and turquoise. You can see some of the colors are translucent letting the printed images and color from below show through and some of the colors, like the turquoise, are opaque.

I used a black sharpie to give more definition to the simple graphic shapes

I still havent decided on what kind of closure if any I'm going to put on the bag, for now I just fold it over and that works fine.

It's all about me today (lol)

2012-05-08T11:57:00.000-05:00

I've been featured on the Dinner@8 blog for the upcoming Rituals exhibit.

Happy Cinco De Mayo! May Tutorial Blog Hop Continues

2012-05-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

April 30 - Tracie Lynn Huskamp

A Stenciled &Stitched Special Occasion Greeting Card

May 1 - Traci Bunkers

Gelatin Plate Printing on Fabric

May 2 - Lisa Engelbrecht

Script Lettering/Tattoo style using Sakura Calligrapher Pens

May 3 - Judy Coates Perez

How Can You Resist Such a Simple Technique?

May 4 - Melanie Testa

A Thimble Purse Pattern

May 5 - Lyric Kinard

Editing a Photo for Thermofax Screen Printing

May 6 - Jill Berry

The Layers of my Heart

How Can You Resist Such a Simple Technique?

2012-05-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

One fun little technique I found works great with acrylic inks (this would also work with Tsukineko inks) is to draw on fabric with a colored pencil or china marker and paint over it like a simple resist. Kind of like in grammar school when you colored with crayons and painted india ink over the top.

So why pencil versus china marker? Simply, pencil will give you a thinner defined line and the china marker a thicker heavier line.

In this case brand does matter. The first sample, if you can see it, was written with a Blick store brand white colored pencil and the second was a Berol Prismacolor white pencil. The Blick pencil was not as creamy and waxy and did not create a very good resist, the ink painted right over it.

If you are unfamiliar with china markers, they are a pencil that can write on a non-porous surface, like plastic, glass or metal and then can be wiped of with a firm rub with a dry cloth.

You don't sharpen them, instead you peel back the paper wrap covering by grasping that little string and pulling it back to the first perforated row

grab the paper, unwind it

then draw.

This is a sample I worked on in the acrylic inks class, layering up multiple different techniques.

The thick white lines are textile paint, the thinner flower vine pattern in the center of the paisley is china marker.

The little pale blue crosses in the background were also drawn with white china marker and then painted over with blue ink. I like how they show up really well and have a hint of blue.

I painted over the center of the paisley with red ink.

The pencil does not penetrate the fibers like a gutta resist, so if you have a lot of ink on your brush and the fabric gets really wet it will bleed beyond the pencil lines, but the white lines of the drawn imagery will show through, which to me is the effect I really like.

I painted inside the flowers and leaves with red-violet ink to make them stand out more. The benefit of the china marker was that I could quickly add color without being too fussy and neat because it kept the ink fairly contained.

Voila!

Would you like to buy a thermofax screen designed by me?

2012-05-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Lynn Krawczyk
of Fibra Artysta, you may also know her as the thermofax queen, invited a few of her fellow creative friends to design a thermofax screen to sell in her Etsy Shop.

The screen I designed goes on sale today and with a nod to Cinco de Mayo, I present you with Florabunda.

The image on the screen is approximately 9" x 6" and sells for $13.

This one is printed with textile paint on tan colored hand dyed fabric, It reminds me of those paintings on bark from Mexico. When I've got some free time I may paint this one with bright colored inks.

I know copyright seems to be on everyones mind these days and I want to assure you, you are free to use this image in any way on your work and you can sell your work after. You could use it to create a fabric and cut it up to make art or items to sell. Use it like you would a store bought stencil. It's always nice to get credit, but not absolutely necessary. The only way I would not want to see this image used, is printed alone on an object (t-shirt, bag, etc) and sold as your own design, that would just be a bad karma thing to do.

I am thrilled with how the screen prints, I printed these ones with black textile paint on hand dyed fabric.

The one below on the left is a piece of rust dyed organza that I put on top of the hand dyed fabric on the right and printed both at once with brown textile paint.

I used a demo piece of fabric from the Tea & Ephemera class to try screening over some other imagery.

Then I tried out some clear DeColourant to screen some hand dyed fabric. I love what a crisp image it gives. The slightly gelatinous consistency makes it perfect for screening.

Just incase you are unfamiliar with this product, DeColourant removes color from fabric. Apply it to fabric (brush, screen or stamp), let it dry and then use a hot iron with steam to activate the discharging proces. If you want to know more about using DeColourant, I wrote an article for Quilting Arts magazine Feb/Mar 2012.

You can also get DeColourant in colors so it removes the dye from the fabric and puts a new color in at the same time. For the examples below I used yellow DeColourant on a hand dye and commercial batik.

If you would like to buy a Floribunda thermofax screen to adorn your work, please check out Lynn's Etsy Shop. Lynn also has a DVD with everything you want to know about using thermofaxes to design and create textile art.

May Day, May Day - Let the Creating Begin!

2012-04-30T10:03:00.000-05:00

April 30 - Tracie Lynn Huskamp

A Stenciled &Stitched Special Occasion Greeting Card

May 1 - Traci Bunkers

Gelatin Plate Printing on Fabric

May 2 - Lisa Engelbrecht

Script Lettering/Tattoo style using Sakura Calligrapher Pens

May 3 - Judy Coates Perez

How Can You Resist Such a Simple Technique?

May 4 - Melanie Testa
A Thimble Purse Pattern

May 5 - Lyric Kinard

How to Edit a photo for Thermofax Screen Printing

May 6 - Jill Berry

The Layers of my Heart

10 Techniques with Acrylic Inks

2012-04-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

We had a great time with the acrylic inks class, this was the first official time through it so there is always so much to learn, for all of us. I'm glad it was a small class, I can see where timing will have to be adjusted for a big class, as well as needing space to put wet fabric.

We did start to run out of time when it came to drawing on the fabric with calligraphy and ruling pens, so there aren't any samples showing that, but I did demonstrate it, lol.

Now that I've gone thru it one time, I could see this class working well as a multi day workshop with one day spent covering all the different techniques and then the next day combining them into larger complex cloth.

We were just getting to scratch the surface with combining and layering multiple techniques by the end of the day.

All in all, it was a fun day.

Embossing Metal at Shake Rag Alley

2012-04-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

It was so nice to teach a few small classes for a change, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the energy and excitement of large classes (25 students) at festival, but day after day on your feet circling the room on those carpet covered concrete convention floors can get tiring.

At Shake Rag things were very relaxed by comparison, with eight students in the metal class and one of them was a 12 year old boy who stepped in to fill the spot of his grandmothers friend who was unable to make it. This is his work below, he did a lot more work than this, cutting up and manipulating the metal and experimenting with what it could do, but these were the pieces he wanted to show.

I enjoy having young students in class, as long as they have the attention span for a 6 hour class, because they are often more courageous with their art making and this in turn can be inspiring to the adult students.

We use two different methods for coloring the metal; alcohol inks and art markers.

When embossed designs have a lot of dimension, it's a good idea to use a filling paste on the back to give more structural integrity to the big spaces so they don't get crushed.

I was thrilled to see so many lilacs in Wisconsin, I love them. I know they are in Chicago, but there aren't that many in my neighborhood and I will miss them when I move back to California.

The Road to Mineral Point

2012-04-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've been slow to get a blogpost written because it took me a couple days to deal with some computer issues. Basically my computer kept telling me my startup disk was full and before I could upload any photos from my trip I needed to clear some space on my hard drive, but now that that's done I can start to tell you about my grand adventure in Wisconsin.

Friday, I left Chicago on a dark and cloudy afternoon. There were occasional sprinkles but luckily no real rain for the 175 mile drive to the southwest corner of Wisconsin. Before leaving I printed out a map from Google but also had my Garmin to navigate the way. I drove about halfway on the freeway and in Beloit, Wisconsin my Garmin decided to take me the rest of the way by the scenic route.

It was a little desolate but lovely with rolling hills and farms on country roads.

In just over 3 hours I arrived at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts. It's a wonderful facility housed in a cluster of historic buildings on beautiful landscaped grounds.

Shake Rag is an amazing place, I can't recommend it enough as a fabulous place to go for classes. It's a non profit school, run by a group of people who want a place for people to make art. The classes are small with great space to work in.

One of the other fantastic parts about taking classes at Shake rag Alley is it's in an architecturally beautiful small town filled with artists and galleries. I loved walking around Mineral Point and seeing all the stone buildings and houses, most of it was built in the 1800's by Cornish miners.

I loved seeing these little free libraries, they seemed to capture the warm and friendly personality of the town.

There's lots of hills!

I had to buy a mug from the Johnston Brewery Pottery

A gorgeous fern outside the studio/gallery that made me think of New Zealand :-)

There's a lot of deteriorating barns in Wisconsin, that are really amazing looking.

I had a pasty which is a meat pie, like a giant meat and potato empanada, that the miners used to pack for their lunch.

I bought a couple skeins of interesting yarn from Simply Scarves, although I have other ideas in mind for it than knitting.

I love these old houses!

One thing I hadn't expected to see in Wisconsin was a beautiful Japanese tea house and koi pond in the back yard of my hosts house filled with huge koi.

Beautiful!

Tomorrow I'll have a post about my metal class.

Day 3 Heavy Metal Play Day

2012-04-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

The saturday metal class was fantastic! Walnut Hollow recently changed the size of their metal squares from 4" x 4" to 5"x 5 3/4", and this larger size really opened up the creative potential for embossing.

My students had so much fun, creating fantastic designs, check out all their beautiful work (click on the photos for big images)

The texture and depth that can be achieved with the copper is amazing.

One student found this great little embossed aluminum metal box in the Artistic Artifacts booth at lunch and colored it with alcohol inks.

another beautiful bee

It was such a wonderful surprise to have my friend Holly Holloway and her mom in my class too.

For anyone wanting to take this class, I'll be teaching it in Houston at International Quilt Festival on Saturday November 3 and this weekend in Mineral Point, WI at Shake Rag Alley.

Day 2- Color Theory

2012-04-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

I believe the best way to learn about color is to mix and create colors by watching the physical interaction of one hue upon another using paint. Reading about color or looking at swatches of fabric can give you a sense about how colors relate but there's nothing like experiential learning to fully grasp the concept.

In this class we start with recognizing warm and cool primary colors and how using the right combination will create the purest and brightest secondary and tertiary colors to make an accurate color wheel. Then we apply this knowledge for making tints, shades and tones.

My favorite chart is the Complementary color chart where each student chooses a different set of complementary colors and creates a stepped gradation between the two to see how each color is neutralized by its opposite and see all the lovely colors that are created in the process.

I break up the time in class with a powerpoint presentation going over the basics of color theory and showing examples of the way different colors affect each other; shifting hue, value and visual depth.

It's a lot of information to absorb in one day, but the process is relaxing and fun and there are several extra charts to continue the exploration on your own at home.

I even had a husband and wife team in this class.

The Cincinnati Quilt Festival was interesting in that it had the highest percentage of men I have ever seen at any International Quilt Festival I've attended over the last 15 years. It's still a very small number, but I was impressed none the less.

Friday night, the city of Cincinnati threw the festival attendees a blow out dance party at the convention center with lots of small plate food, wine and beer and a 70's/80's cover band with a dance floor.

And the best part was I got to hang out and dance with my fellow creative peeps:

Pokey, who is now the chief creative officer for IQA, how's that for an impressive title, besides still being host of QATV,

and my Chicago peeps Catherine Redford and Cheryl Sleboda.

What a blast! The music was awesome, I don't think I missed dancing to a single song, 2 1/2 hours straight, what a work out, I was a bit stiff the next morning, lol, but it was so worth it. It's rare to have the opportunity to dance to such great music anymore.

Exploring Tea & Ephemera in Cincinnati

2012-04-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

The first day of festival I taught Tea & Ephemera which is a class focused on learning a variety of mixed media techniques:

drawing on tea bags and adhering them to fabric

working with printed tea bags

collaging a variety of art papers, napkins, book pages and foreign language newspapers

additional color is applied with paint and colored pencils

rubber stamps provide more options for creating texture

paint sticks used with commercial stencils and cut freezer paper can create transparant or opaque patterns to overlay imagery

I love having young students in my class. They still have their creative confidence intact and always do amazing work.

we even added printing with thermofax screens into the mix.

It was a fun day of exploration, and after class everyone hit the show floor for opening night.

It was also nice to see the Artists Village again, I had totally forgotten it was going to be at the show, it had a wonderful location between the 12 x 12 exhibit and Tactile Architecture.

This is my house from the exhibit, which is constructed using abaca paper (tea bag paper) that I printed with images and painted, adhered to heavy weight interfacing, quilted and stitched together into a house.

Off to Cincinnati for International Quilt Festival

2012-04-10T12:16:00.001-05:00

So I wish I could say I've been doing all sorts of creative things the last couple weeks but unfortunately I can't. It's been mostly teaching type stuff; signing and sending contracts, negotiating future teaching engagements (a few downunder, yipee!) preparing handouts and samples for new classes, accumulating supplies for my teaching gigs and packing. There's always too much to do.

So I've been getting little bits of creative time in while I'm relaxing after dinner with a new app I got for my ipad called Paper.

It opens looking like a little moleskin sketchbook.

turn to the page you'd like to draw on and tap to open the it.

This app is so simple in design it's brilliant and it's free with the pen tool and palette of color. It's $1.99 for each additional tool you want to add. I bought the paintbrush and am completely satisfied with these two tools alone.

This was my first sketch, I really like how gestural the quality of the line is with thicks and thins. Keep in mind it's a little wonky drawing with a finger as opposed to an actual drawing implement, but that kind of lends it's own charm.

This app has the closest feeling to drawing in a sketchbook I've seen, I love it.

In the morning I'm hitting the road to drive to Cincinnati to teach 3 classes at festival. I'll be sure to post all about it in a few days.

DIY Ombre Jean Skirt

2012-04-03T12:36:00.001-05:00

I've had this jean skirt for a couple years and have hardly ever worn it, the first reason is the length was not flattering being right at the knee, as you can see here in this photo from quilt festival with my friend Jane LaFazio and one of my students, Nasreen. It makes my long legs look stumpy and it was just kind of boring.

So I cut off 3 inches and left a raw edge. I'm a 70's girl at heart, I always liked that raw edge on cut offs. Then I set to work bleaching the bottom edge.

Here it is after, much improved, I think.

This is how I did it:
I used bleach, unfortunately with denim there aren't really any other good options for removing the dye, and a bucket.

First I saturated the skirt in water so the bleach wouldn't make a sharp line when I first dipped it. I put about an inch of bleach in a bucket and dipped the skirt in.

Then I poured hot water down the skirt and into the bucket, so there would be more bleach in the bucket but it would be diluted. I slowly dipped the skirt in a little deeper so the diluted bleach went up higher on the skirt. I repeated dipping and pulling the skirt out of the bleach until I got the bottom edge very light and had a nice gradation.

I ran the skirt through a long wash wash cycle to get all the bleach out and put it in the drier on hot to get the bottom nice and frayed.

Now back to work prepping for all my classes at International Quilt Festival next week.

New Acrylic Inks class!!!

2012-03-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

I'm excited to tell you about a new class I'm teaching

10 Textile Techniques using acrylic inks!

I'll be teaching it at Shake Rag Alley School of Arts & Crafts in Mineral Point Wisconsin April 22. This is going to be one of those classes filled with experimenting and learning multiple ways to apply ink to fabric.

One of the things we are going to do is explore a number of different ways to create texture.

We'll explore mark making with different kinds of stamps

and drawing with the inks using calligraphy and ruling pens.

We'll explore layering imagery with color and marks

We'll be cutting masks with freezer paper.

And painting in a watercolor style.

This class is going to packed with lots of tips and ideas of ways you can work with these versatile inks on fabric. If you'd like more info and want to join me in an action packed day of ink exploration check out the Shake Rag Alley class info. I'd love to see you there!

If you would like to see two step by step blog posts about my making art quilts using acrylic inks you can click on the links for 8 of Cups and Black and Bloom All Over.

Hectic days, an old artquilt gets a face lift and spring fever.

2012-03-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

I've had so much going on the last couple weeks it's been hard to sit down and write. Between my recent travels, I sold two quilts to a friend/collector who's moving to England and sent my daughter Indigo off on a last minute month long trip to help her get set up in her new place.

Getting Indigo off was an adventure in itself with procuring an expedited passport. Because of her less than traditional upbringing, moving many times over the years, being homeschooled for half that time and working as an artist/photographer herself, she's pretty much off the grid and having a hispanic last name probably didn't help. Her passport was stalled 3 times for requests for more information and identification. The most outlandish information requested was whether her mother had prenatal care and when the appointments were. Really?!?! Who the heck remembers that after 22 years!

When my friend asked me to show her what was available, I knew I had two quilts that would resonate with her. She has been going through a difficult divorce along the same time line as me and we have shared a lot over the last few years. So I felt like she needed to see 3 of Swords.

This quilt is about feeling torn open and raw (with exposed painted red batting) from betrayal and loss but finding peace while working through the pain and creating something beautiful from it.

The other quilt, Joan of Arc, hasn't seen the light of day in many years. I made it in 1999 after going through a breast cancer scare and lumpectomy that thankfully turned out to be benign. The style of this quilt seemed like a good fit for the historic town she was moving to and she was coincidentally dealing with a questionable mammogram the week I showed it to her.

This quilt is pieced and appliqued with painted and hand dyed fabric. I felt that before I could pass it on it needed a little more work, so I put a new back on it to help it structurally to hang better and added more quilting in several areas, near the sun, moon, flames and most importantly the horse.

I had a lot of fun adding ornate decorative quilting stitches to the horse, thinking about all the carved stonework in the gothic architecture of England.

I am happy these two pieces have found such a perfect new home.

Now I'm having a hard time sitting at the computer when I really want to be outside enjoying the beautiful unseasonably warm weather we are having. Who could imagine Chicago would be 80° in March!

Taping Quilting Arts TV

2012-03-07T23:10:00.000-06:00

I've just returned from an overnight trip to Cleveland to tape a segment for Quilting Arts TV with Pokey.

I arrived tuesday afternoon and was thrilled to get together with my friends Deborah Boschert and Jane Davila for a long chatty dinner.

Deborah and I in the green room. Deborah taped 3 segments and even though it was her first time you would never have known it, she was fantastic.

It was great seeing Quilting Arts editor Helen and Pokey.

Ellen Anne Eddy hanging out in the green room with Patsy from of the staff of Beachwood Studios. Ellen has the funniest dry sense of humor, her segments were a hoot! and fascinating too. She demonstrates how she does all her amazing thread work.

a few details of Ellens work

Ellen is so little, but then again I'm pretty tall. Here we are with Michele Muska from Simplicity.

Last but not least, the wonderful Jeanne Delpit, where would we be without her warm hearted spirit and expertise with Berninas!

Another fun trip, but I could have done with out all the turbulence on the flights!

Fun Metal Workshop and a Rough Drive Home

2012-03-04T14:38:00.000-06:00

On thursday, I drove 85 miles to Rockford, IL to give two lectures and teach Heavy Metal Play Day. I don't teach locally very often so it was really nice to drive instead of dealing with the hassles of flying. There was lots of fun experimenting with different embossing techniques on silver and colored aluminum, and heavier weight copper, as well as playing with various ways for adding color with alcohol inks and markers.

Great work, huh?

We wrapped the class up a little early since a storm was coming. What a shock to walk outside and see close to 4 inches of heavy wet snow already on my car and strong winds blowing huge fluffy snow flakes.

I was anxious to get back to Chicago to meet a friend who was back for a few days from England for dinner. The roads were AWFUL! The 6 miles to the freeway may have been the worst, being very slippery, neither plowed or salted and the wind caked the snow on my rear and side windows so thick I couldn't see well enough to change lanes. I had been hoping to get gas before leaving since it was 40 cents cheaper a gallon than in the city, but I didn't want to even try.

The freeway was treacherously slick, I passed 4 accidents within 5 miles, including this jack knived truck that was lucky enough to stop before hitting head on traffic across the divide. I called home a few times to check on the weather in Chicago, where it was still warm enough to have rain instead of snow. I was never so happy to make it to the rainy outskirts of Chicago's bumper to bumper evening traffic. It took almost 3 hours to go 85 stressful miles!

I got such a special delivery today!

2012-03-01T07:00:00.000-06:00

a surprise package from Havel's Sewing! Havel's makes some of the best scissors on the planet. I first tried a pair of these on the set of Quilting Arts TV, they are a sponsor of the show and supply scissors to use on set. The package came with a nice note saying they're a gift for taping on the show (next week).

It's so nice they come with covers, so you don't stab yourself grabbing them out of your tote bag, because they are SHARP.

I'm really looking forward to using these curved ones, so I can snip threads extra close.

What makes these scissors so razor sharp is this tiny serrated edge. They are fantastic for cutting sheers and silks, slicing right through them without snagging or pulling.

Now I'm on my way to give two lectures for the Sinnissippi Quilt Guild today and teach a metal workshop on Friday.

Introducing the Painted Threads ebook!

2012-02-26T17:01:00.000-06:00

I recently updated my Painted Threads portfolio book with two newer quilts and while I was at it I created an ebook version that can be viewed on an ipad. If you'd like to see a preview of the entire book you can see it here.

I don't have an ipad...yet, so I bought a copy to try out on my iphone.
After ordering, I received an email with a link that I opened on my phone from there it asked me where I wanted the book to go on my device and my copy loaded right into ibooks.

Overall I couldn't be happier, it looks just like the book. You can zoom in to see details and the pages turn with a swipe of the finger.

Best of all is the price of $6.99! it's much cheaper than getting a printed copy, not to mention there's no shipping fees, the joy of instant gratification and being able to take it anywhere! I can hardly wait to see it on an ipad.

Right now it's for sale on Blurb, after approval from itunes it will be available there too, but Blurb is better for me since itunes takes a hefty commission and us starving artists need to eat more than apple execs, lol.

I'm Talking Thread

2012-02-25T12:03:00.001-06:00

My friend Frieda Anderson interviewed me on her blog as part of a month long series she is doing about thread.

Felted Eggs

2012-02-22T07:00:00.000-06:00

Well over the weekend I took the plunge and created a Pinterest account since so many of my friends are on there and see what I've been missing.

While I was poking around I saw quite a few pretty dyed eggs and although this seems a little early, I thought it might be fun to make some felted eggs.

After all they aren't going to spoil between now and Easter :-)

It might be fun to also add some decorative stitching with embroidery floss and adding some cut out wool felt shapes.

If you'd like to make some too, you can follow this tutorial, just roll your yarn balls into oval egg shapes.

This is a great way to use up leftover wool yarn. Rolling golf ball size yarn balls as a base for the ball. Wind yarn into oblong shapes to get a berry shaped ball. I usually use wool yarn for the center because I know it will felt better, but in a pinch I have used other yarns too. My favorite place to order roving is from Outback Fibers, the colors are gorgeous and the prices are very reasonable.Unwind a length of roving, while holding it in one hand, grasp the end portion with the other hand and gently pull off "tufts" roughly 5-6 inches in length. Spread the fibers into a thin flat layer with all the strands going in one direction. Pull off another tuft of roving and layer it on top of the first at a 90 degree angle. Repeat this process several more times, criss-crossing 4-6 thin layers.
When lifting the blanket of roving there should not be thin spots or holes. Changing the colors of yarn in the layers will create a heathered multicolored wool ball.

Wrap the roving blanket you have created around a yarn ball, making sure there is full coverage of fluffy roving with no bare or thin spots.

Close the roving covered yarn ball in your hand and bring it to the foot of a knee hi panty hose. (buy cheap ones at the dollar store, or use those ancient ones in the back of your hosiery drawer that you never wear anymore) Gently remove your hand from around the ball pulling the hose tightly around the roving ball then tie a small piece of yarn to secure the ball in place.

When all the balls have been wrapped in the hose, place them in the washing machine, set the water to lowest level and hottest setting. Add a small amount of detergent, about a tablespoon, the exact measurement is not crucial but soap is important in the felting process. I usually run it on a long cycle, the more agitation the better the felting. Good old fashion top loading washers have the most success with felting.

When you take the chain of balls out of the machine, you will see little fibers have come though the mesh of the hose. Snip the tied yarn between the balls, gently peel away the hose removing the ball and roll the ball in your hands to smooth the fibers.

Click here to watch a video tutorial to make felted pumpkins which start with a basic felted ball.

It's been a week for dyeing

2012-02-17T15:23:00.001-06:00

This week I have been preparing samples for taping a Quilting Arts TV segment next month about creating dye color recipes.
Here's a little sneak peek