Wow have I been busy, and I’ve woefully neglected my blog!   I’m sorry!  The good news is that a flurry of activity is nearly over.  In the past 8 weeks I have made a quilt for inclusion in a book due out next year, flown from Maine to Colorado to tape a Quilting Arts DVD workshop (more on that here), written and submitted two articles to two different magazines (more on those when they come out), and written a third but still have step-outs and photography to do on that one.  BUT–I am thrilled to share with you that Listen to the Song in The Night has been juried into the this year’s Dinner@8 exhibit, An Exquisite Moment.

Listen to the Song in the Night by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2013. 24 x 60 inches. Artist dyed silk and cotton, a few commercial batiks (mountains). Free motion quilted, ink with dip-pen, paint.

You can read more about the exhibit, here. Last year I was really stumped.  This year it was a matter of which quilt to make:  childbirth (done discreetly–the mom’s view looking over the sheet over your knees at your newly hatched child in the doctor’s hands), Eli as a 2 year old under the blueberry bush grinning as he munched blueberries, or any of a number of other moments.  But then I remembered the whalesong.  Best of all, not only did hubby Paul, but so did the boys who were about 5 and 9 (or maybe even 4 and 8).  We lived on San Juan Island in Washington state at the time.  Our house  was about 1/3 mile up from the water and faced the Straits of Juan de Fuca with the Olympic mountains on the other side, 17 miles away.  We could see and hear the orcas from our house.  The writing on the quilt tells the story:

Cloaked in the sounds of the rustling breeze, the song drifted through the open window as I readied for bed.  Not believing my ears, I turned out the lights.  Then I began to listen.  It couldn’t be, could it?  The more I listened, the more I believed.  It was the whale song–but above water!  How could that be?  I ran to the living room and told Paul to come outside and listen.  Then we woke our young sons from a sound sleep to hear the song in the night.

We heard the orcas breathe, ripple the water, tail lob, and the thunderous splash of whales breaching.  There were so many of them, and they were singing!  The next day, still in disbelief, I called the Whale Museum researchers.  It was indeed a superpod, a family reunion of the J, K and L pods.  They told me many scientists study the whales for an entire career and never hear them sing above water.  And we four remember standing on the deck in the summer night listening to the orcas sing.

 I knew that I wanted to dye some silk for the water because of the sheen of the sandwashed satin, and found some silk I had dyed for the San Domenico Tableau quilt (here) for Mary’s dress.  I used the matte side for the sky–it’s at the top in this picture.

First round with the dye bath. The big piece on the bottom is silk. The others are cottons except for the very top piece which is a silk I dyed earlier.

Then

More fabrics dyed for the project. The cotton on the right is what I used for the back.

I used the blue on the top left in the photo immediately above, but had overdyed it to be darker and more solid, for the top and bottom panels where I would write the story.  After all, it is hard to make a picture of something you heard but didn’t really see so I though I’d best add some words!   I took some artistic license and added a full moon and lightened the scene just enough to actually make a picture not a large blotch of dark! First, however, I needed to figure out how I was going to write on the cloth.

I knew I wanted to write on the top and bottom panels of blue cotton that I had dyed, but wasn’t sure what method to use.

On the right, you can see assorted lower case “a’s” written with DeColourant (some colored) and assorted tools to apply.  I thinned the thick liquid, but then it ran.  Not the look I wanted. It’s a great product, but not the right one for this purpose.  The top “Disguised” is done in an archivally safe Sakura Jelly Roll pen, but it looks much brighter in the real than in the photo.  It was OK, but the Liquitex Ink! (acrylic ink) in white with the “crow quill” dip pen was perfect.  The variations in pressure as I wrote gave an almost italic look, so that was my choice.

Next I printed out the text at full size to make sure it would fit and to use as a guide.  I was afraid that I would get the word order wrong or space out and misspell something, so I folded the printouts and set them just above the line I was writing, covering up the  previous line so I didn’t confuse myself!  You’ll see my chalk-lines in the photo; I used SewLine by Moda with ceramic chalk lead which erased like a dream when I was done.

Above you can see how I folded the printed paper so I could follow along, line by line.

Next step was to over-paint some batiks for the mountains.  I had a few that worked as is, but most needed to have the batik design muted.

Batik fabric for the mountains. The cloth was over-painted with dark (not sure if I used black, blue or a combination).  In the lower part of the photo you can see how I have already cut some of the mountains. I wanted the foothills and coast to be even darker than higher up, where the moonlight hit the tops of the Olympics.

Next I auditioned various fabrics, two blacks for the whales, a gray (which needed darkening) for the thin strips separating the top and bottom panels from the center.  I free-motion stitched on the black sateen I selected for the whales with just a stabilizer underneath, then cut a slit in the silk (BIG gulp and holding of breath), then tucked the whale into the opening and hand-appliqued them down.

Test-driving fabrics for this and that.

And finally, the quilting. It went fairly quickly, as it was all blues from palest (which appears white but is actually a pale silvery blue) to nearly black on most of the quilt, with just some gray and deep charcoal for the mountains.

Detail shot showing quilting, moon, and white ink dots for the moon glow.

The exhibit will debut at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach this coming July.  I’m thrilled to be a part of the Dinner@8 exhibit once again, and would like to thank our various sponsors over the years, especially Moore’s Sewing Centers, Havel’s Scissors and Mistyfuse (which I use a lot)!

On the set at Interweave in Loveland, Colorado, to film a Quilting Arts Workshop! (Who me?!!!!)

Can you believe it?  I’ve been to Loveland, Colorado, taped a Quilting Arts DVD Workshop, come home (exhausted but elated) and I can still barely believe it.  Yes, I have been “on the set” filming this week.   Due out in September as both a download and as an actual DVD (which is wonderful for us who live in the boonies with glacial internet), the working title is “Fused Collage and Thread-Coloring,”  a Quilting Arts Workshop from Interweave Press!

The project I used for the workshop is my Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic quilt (No. 1) [there will be 3 versions before I'm done], but the workshop is to teach you how to use your own photo to make an art quilt:

Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic, No. 1, the start of what I will call my Quilting the Good Life series!

My trip to the airport was an omen–a good one–for how the trip was about to go.  I mean, look at the beginnings of sunrise as I crossed the driveway to the garage!

4:25 a.m., Tuesday: leaving for the airport in Owl’s Head (near Rockland, maine) just before dawn

It got even more dramatic just over the ridge heading to the coast, at the intersection of Route 105 (the Camden Road) and High Street in Hope:

Can you believe that sky? Makes me want to get to the dye pots!

The route in was equally stunning. Here, mist rising off the Megunticook River in Camden.

And ten minutes down the coast in Rockland:

And the sunrise over Rockland Harbor, en route to our little airport at Owl’s Head.

I flew Cape Air (maximum of 9 passengers) to Boston, then JetBlue (for the first but not the last time!) to Denver, where I caught the shuttle to Loveland directly to the Interweave studio where I met Helen Gregory and the filming crew.  There we set up my materials, hung the quilts, and went over my plans for filming the next day.  Congrats to Helen on her promotion to Vice President for Content, Interweave and Martha Pullen,  and upcoming move to Colorado!

My DVD will have five segments, so five trays to lay out my supplies which I prepped at home.

And boy did I prep.  I had about a month (shorter than usual I think) between my contract and filming date, so I pretty much did nothing but make step-outs, more step-outs, refine, video (to get used to talking to a camera and to time myself), cut/edit, cut/edit/shorten more, etc.  For a month.  Non-stop.

Make-up, first thing Wednesday!

Interweave has a make-up artist come do you up for camera, as there are special products that make you look right on camera under all those bright lights.  I shoulda shot a picture of me sitting at the table looking at the room…it was FULL of big tripods, cameras, and cables and cords EVERYWHERE.  Miraculously, I did not trip and break anything or anyone!

Reviewing my notes before getting changed for taping.

THANK YOU JANOME-America and Patty WInkelman of Quilter’s Stash in WIndsor, Colorado, for arranging a Janome 8900–the machine I sew on at home–to use along with a Janome sewing table. I’d never used the table and we were all impressed at how sturdy and stable and heavy it is. Of course the 8900 sewed flawlessly!

Then it was time to get changed and start taping.  Then we mostly forgot to take still pictures!  But here are some….

Me on the left, Helen Greghory in the green top, and I think that is Laura (webinars guru) on the right, hidden mostly by one of the cameras. We were getting ready for the concluding segment I can tell by what is on the table.

At the end, I asked to have apicture of four of us: L to R, Laura E. (webinars and more), Helen Gregory (new VP for Content), me, and Lauren our camerawoman extraordinaire. Camera dude Nick was taking the photo, and camera dude Garrett had already run off to another “gotta be there” job. Those lights were bright, but sure make things visible and looking good.

I never saw this view, but either Helen or Lauren kindly took this photo for me, which shows the jib camera shot of the table with my project and quilts on it:

The jib/overhead camera view. If you look in the center just above the right corner of the screen view, you can see the overhead camera.  Also notice in the backgorund it looks like the quilts are on an angle.  They are–that is to offset the perspective angle that happens with the big camera lenses.  Fascinating!

Then it was time to go home.  Early.

Before I arrived, Colorado hit 80 degrees (F). Wednesday, it SNOWED. When I left the hotel at 3:58 a.m. for the shuttle to the Denver Airport, it looked like this! Then by today it was supposed to be back in the 60s–that’s more insane than our weather!

I’ll spare you the tedium of a crowded plane from Denver to Philadelphia, a smaller more crowded plane from Philly to Boston, the utter hopelessness of Logan Airport (UGH UGH UGH), but flying home on Cape Air is always fun.  As we approach the mid-coast, first I’ll spot the Camden Hills:

There are two landmarks visible from the sky from a distance. I was in the seat behind the co-pilot’s seat (which is usually filled with a passenger). The first are the Camden Hills: Battie, Megunticcok, Maidencliff.

Then

The second landmark is the big white tower at Dragon Cement, visible dead ahead in the middle of this photo. I realized on this trip how massively huge the quarry is for this company.

As you near Dragon Cement, we turn right and head for Owl’s Head (Knox County, RKD) airport.  The lights of home!

LOVE being able to snap out all windows of these small planes.  Landing strip is visible just to the right of the bar up the center of the windshield.

Travel was the usual crowded insanity and waiting, but I was home 16 hours later to son, hubby, cats and dog.  Two of the seven are here:

Doggie love is GOOD!

In the past month, I’ve not only prepped this, but THREE articles (more on them when they are close to being published), have a quilt to make in a week, another article to write, then teaching in North Carolina in June and southern California in July, then a quilt to make by August 5.  Then I can collapse a few weeks before school begins (how will Eli be a SOPHOMORE already?) and fall teaching in Massachusetts and at International Quilt Festival in Houston.   So I HOPE to blog more often, but at this rate can’t promise.  I have so much to catch you all up on, pictures from teaching in Florida, Vermont, and Mass….but must be mom, wife, and author first. Stay tuned!

Prologue Alert:  I’ll be lecturing for the Silver City Quilt Guild in Taunton, Mass., on Monday evening, then lecturing for the Maple Leaf quilters in Rutland, VT, on Tuesday and teaching Hawaiian applique on Wednesday.  Hope to see some of you there!  Now on to the regular blog:

The S-word stuff returned in a snit of “no I won’t go” Friday afternoon.

Goodness gracious!  First a comment about the weather:  no.  No.  NO NO NO.  NO!!!!!!!  You see when I went up the driveway yesterday, midday, we were down to a few patches of snow on the north side of the woods (ergo always in the shade).  By late afternoon, it looked like this:

Opened the dining room window (no screens up yet) to take this photo this morning at about 6:30. Say WHAT? (what I really said is not suitable for printing on a public blog LOL).  Yes, those whitespots are still itty bitty SNOWFLAKES.  Snarl!

The weather forecasters said snow first, then rain.  Right…that means the snow gets melted by the rain.  So what is THIS that I see out the dining room window this morning?   NO!

And yes, in April at least SNOW is a four letter word.  It is lovely in November, December, January, February, we tolerate it in March because that’s what it does in Maine.  On April 13th?  NO!  Now, on to quilting.

As my loyal readers will have noticed, I haven’t said much lately.  Can you say busy?  I have four things going, all kinda big and hugely big (at least for me) going, and they are due just about every two weeks from April 8 to June 1, plus add in teaching in Maine in March, Massachusetts and VT this coming week, North Carolina in mid June, and three guilds in Southern California in early to mid July, and I’m basically flat-out busy from now until July 20th!  This is good, as I have precious little on the schedule for next year and the year after, so if your guilds want a quilt teacher, my motto (said with a giggle) remains Have paycheck, will travel!  (Does anyone besides me remember the tag line from that 1960s TV show Palladin, Have Gun, Will Travel?  Daddy loved it.)

So this is what my studio–which is usually kinda tidy because I can’t function in a mess–currently looks like:

Please add the large suitcase with quilts and the small suitcase with clothes to this heap for teaching in Mass/VT next week.

The sewing machine table…with about four things going on on top of it, none of which is sewing (at the moment).  Usually the only thing on these tables is the thread in use and my Machingers gloves!

The work table and ironing board. It looks relatively clear on this side because I’m working over at the iron, but the big suitcase was on the floor over there (filled with stuff for next week).  Again, usually clear with the drop-leaf down unless a work is in process.  Clutter bugs me!

Chaos.  Busy.  And drat it all, I’m not permitted to tell you about it, at least not yet!   But it’s all good stuff, it’s got me working and creating and teaching and all that, but gosh I wish I could share the details.

The third sports season has begun. The airborne kid in red shorts is Eli doing the triple jump. And as always, someone stands up right in front of me….

And (drum roll), Track and Field Season has begun for Eli.   The first meet was Thursday at Belfast, and as usual, it was COLD.  The breeze comes in off the harbor.  The upper 40 degree temps wouldn’t have been bad except for that wind. If I had had a sleeping bag, I would have been sitting in it on the stands!   Eli had one race (great last leg, so-so first 3 1/2 laps) but was so cold he couldn’t get going.  Did fairly well at javelin despite minimal practice times–the fields have been too sloppy for the discus, shotput and javelin because they’d splash when they land.  Sigh.   Did well on his triple jump (again without much practice due to field conditions).  But he’s psyched, and that’s good!  Now I’m off to a full day of quilt guild meetings.  Hope to share pics from teaching in Florida and up in Skowhegan, Maine, soon…..

And a PS…WOW.  Just looked at my blog sitemeter, and it tells me I’ve had 250,127 visitors from 190 countries over the years!   That’s more like total visits not individual visitors, but wow!  Thank you all for reading!

Just quickly popping in to share a photo ot three before another week evaporates!   After returning from teaching in Florida, I left about 16 hours later to attend the New England (High School) Wrestling Championships with Paul and Eli, and since my return from that have been slamming on multiple deadlines between now and March 15th!   But wanted to share a photo or two, let you know I haven’t disappeared, and will be back with more.  First, the eye candy:

After class Tuesday, my host Betty Jordt took me to Sharky’s on the pier for supper. Shrimp and a sunset—perfect!

And a teaser about the class:

In my quilting design class, where we brainstorm ideas for tops folks bring in. Not sure who took these photos for me, but thank you! I forgot to take photos on Tuesday, so really glad to have this one!

And what FUN…. Rebecca H. from Camden is a snow-bird, and she and her friends traveled to Venice from their Florida winter homes to come to my lecture!  SO FUN to have familiar faces in the audience!  THANK YOU for coming!

With Rebecca and her friends just before my lecture to 200+ (!!!!) people.  I’m on the far left with Rebecca next to me.  Great quilters choose good colors LOL…totally unplanned!

Let me knock off a few urgent items (like magazine submissions!) and I’ll be back!

Hi all!  I’ll be teaching and lecturing this week in Venice, Florida!  My departure was scheduled for today, but due to snow I’m leaving Monday but will be there in time for teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Wednesday evening lecture.   Here is some info from the Venice Area Quilt Guild website:

February 27, 2013 regular meeting at 7:00 pm at the Venice Community Center, 326 So. Nokomis Avenue, Venice, FL 34285.

Our regular February 27, 2013 meeting will begin after the special meeting with guest speaker quilt artist Sarah Ann Smith.  Sarah’s talk will be “How did she do that?”.  There will be a $5 admission fee for non-members.   The doors open at 6:15 for socializing and guild business.  The meetings will begin at 7:00 pm.

I’m teaching one of my favorite courses to teach:  Quilting Design!  The one-day class will be held on both days.  There are still a few openings, so if you’d like to attend, contact the guild!

If you’d like to read more about the class, go to my classes page and scroll down to “Quilting Design.”  The class supply list is also available as a pdf in that description, just click the link.   And if you’d like to book me to teach the class, I’d love to do so!   The class is best as a 1 1/2 or 2 day class, but can be squeezed into a day with Some exercises you can take to do at home instead of in class (where you get feedback).  Hope to blog pictures later in the week!