Interested in trying your hand at art quilts? Not sure where to start? This class has proved a perennial favorite at IQF Houston (and elsewhere)–sign up soon!

Yes, registration is OPEN for classes for International Quilt Festival Houston 2018, including my four classes.  I’ll recap my four classes (well, three full day classes and the Machine Quilting Forum). My first class, Birch Pond Season,  is already covered here.  Today, I’ll share about Collage the Garden, one of my newest classes and proving to be one of the most popular.  I hope to see some of you in it!

This workshop is all about how I –and now YOU– can create imagery from a photograph to create your own fused, collaged art quilt.  In Houston, this workshop is offered as a one-day class.  I’ll provide photos to teach you how to use a photo to map out your shapes and values, then you will start (and maybe finish?) creating the pink water lily or the orange tiger lily.  For this outing in Houston, you will be bringing and fusing up your own fabrics (or bring them pre-fused–I prefer Mistyfuse and will have it available in class–it has the lightest weight and softest hand of any of the fusibles).  This is a no-sewing class, but we will talk about how to quilt your fused artwork when you get home.

Collage the Garden: I’ll teach you “how did she do that” so that you can create your own art from your own photos

Detail of the Pink Water Lily

Here’s the Tiger Lily option fused in batiks

And the tiger lily done in hand-dyes….it’s the same but different. What fabrics will you choose?

You can see the supply list here.

Click on this link to sign up for Class 339 and spend Wednesday playing with me!   Class ends at five–just in time for IQA member preview opening at 5 (and general public preview at 7).

In other venues, a guild can book this workshop over to two or three days to allow students to bring in their own photographs and begin work on their own artwork with Sarah to help guide them.  The workshop can be booked in conjunction with Quilting the Garden:  Thread-Coloring the Flower to create a three-to-five day workshop.

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Interested in trying your hand at art quilts? Not sure where to start? This class has proved a perennial favorite at IQF Houston (and elsewhere)–sign up soon!  

Yes, registration is OPEN for classes for International Quilt Festival Houston 2018, including my four classes.  Over the next week, I’ll recap my four classes (well, three full day classes and the Machine Quilting Forum).  I hope to see some of you  in those classes!

On Tuesday, the day between Quilt Market (open to the trade only) and Quilt Festival (open to anyone who pays admission), I’ll be teaching Birch Pond Seasons.  The wonderful thing about this workshop is that you can bring a photo of your own favorite pond or hills and morph my pattern into your special place!   The class is always full or almost full–I’m hoping that with it scheduled on Tuesday I’ll be able to entice some Market-goers to stay over for a workshop.

Here’s the summer version:

Summer version

And autumn:

Autumn at Birch Pond

You’ll learn basics of fusing, working from a pattern without having to cut a bazillion pattern pieces, working a bit more free-form and improvisationally, how to “strip fuse,” fusing easy-melt fabrics like synthetic sheers, fabric selection, and time-permitting in the afternoon we’ll talk about quilting.  The class includes a kit fee that covers handouts, pattern sheet, a full package of white Mistyfuse, and a few tidbits.  You bring a range of fabrics but not a ton of any one fabric (maybe a fat quarter for sky and half that for the pond)…a range of fabrics is more important than a lot of any one thing.

Here is a blogpost about students taking this class some years ago.  This post will give you a feel for the class.

If you click here to get to my classes page, scroll down to Birch Pond Seasons class and you can click on the link for the PDF Class supply list, too.

Sign up before it fills!  If you have questions, just leave a comment or contact me via the Contact page (link up top).  Here’s the link to IQF enrollment   again.  See you there!

Squee! Not only an article on the Rising Stars exhibit, but right at the front of the magazine! Thank you so much Cate Prato for writing the article and Vivika Hansen DeNegre for running it!  There’s a couple more pages of interview with both of us.

WOW…what a delightful surprise!  I knew I’d have a short 1-page article on “going pro” in Quilt Scene magazine.  I had forgotten the interview–THANK YOU Cate–with Cate Prato about the Rising Stars exhibit, which is on p. 15, right up front, and then to have Widgeon featured in the Special Exhibits section of photos, too…wow!

Can’t believe the contents, so delighted to share the pages with so many people whose work I admire. Can’t wait to see it “in the real” at Festival!

My quickie article with ten tips from the years I’ve worked in the industry on how YOU can make your dream come true, too.

Karlyn Bue Lorenz is the other Rising Star artist; her work is bold and colorful and abstract mostly, on left page. And of course that is our beloved Pigwidgeon on the right.

Come see me at Festival–I’ll be at my exhibit more often than not and will do gallery tours 2 or 3 times a day (schedule will be posted at the exhibit), will be doing a Meet the Teacher panel discussion, and two Open Studios demos.   See you there!

If you’d like to order my book, The Art of Sarah Ann Smith, you can do so with the hotlink on my store page or using this hotlink.  The book is way more than an exhibit catalog:  it includes all 24 works in the exhibit, plus 20 more, a bit about my life including photos of me as a wee kid, a senior in high school and a not-as-old-as-I-am-now mom, and some how-to tips and hints.

Back and front cover of my  book, a companion to the exhibit but a lot more. Available at http://www.blurb.com/b/8193077-the-art-of-sarah-ann-smith

Hi all!  I can share that I will be half of the Rising Stars special exhibit in Houston this upcoming International Quilt Market (Oct. 27-30) and International Quilt Festival (November 1-5).

Back and front cover of my soon-to-be-ready book, a companion to the exhibit but a lot more. I’ll post here and on Facebook as soon as it is available…in about 10 days I hope. My extra special thanks to folks on FB for feedback, especially Paula Blanchard for copy editing here, and Susan Fletcher King and Neroli Henderson for greatly appreciated graphic layout advice and help!

Between now and then I will be sharing some of the 24 of my art quilts that are in this exhibit, and in a week or two share the book I have written that includes all 24 works and more (available here and directly on Blurb).  As I said in the Introduction to my book,

It was a good thing I was sitting down when the inquiry popped up on my screen. After years of being in group exhibits and national level quilt shows, I had finally gathered up my courage and applied to do a solo exhibit in the Camden (Maine) Public Library’s Picker Room, the best public art space in the immediate area. I was accepted, made new work, selected my best pieces, and put them on display in September 2016. And I shared on my blog and Facebook. That was when I got a message from someone at Quilts, Inc., the folks who put on International Quilt Market and Festival, inquiring

“What are your plans to travel your very excellent exhibit?”

​I would have fallen down from shock if I hadn’t been sitting.

I was beyond delighted when Quilts Inc. used my little bitty 12″ square portrait of Widgeon on their Special Exhibits page and in the catalog!

Our beloved pug in technicolor!

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Hi folks!   I am in the midst of preparing a book of my work including the 24 pieces that will be in my part of the Rising Stars exhibit this coming fall at International Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival Houston, as well as many of my other best pieces from the past decade and bits about my life and influences.  If you have experience selling books from either Blurb or CreateSpace (an Amazon company) let me know.  I am still undecided which platform to use.  I would dearly love your input, whether you have self-published or as a consumer.

Do I use Blurb? or Createspace? Where would you go to purchase… I’d have a link on my blog etc. to either option so folks who don’t attend Quilt Festival may also purchase a copy.

I feel the quality of the Premium Magazine at Blurb is definitely better than the book I can create through CreateSpace–I have copies of Blurb books, Blurb premium magazine (which you would never know is a “magazine” as it is exceptional quality–a teacher I know uses this for her books and it is excellent), and several books (exhibit catalogs) from CreateSpace.   I really really want top quality over profits on this, but I also would like folks to be able to purchase the book easily online.

With both platforms, I can select an 8 1/2 x 11  portrait format (vertical) so I can include large images with good detail shots.   For print quality, Blurb Premium “Magazine” wins and the cost (unlike Blurb books) is reasonable.  For customer ease and distribution, using Createspace on Amazon is better because Amazon takes a much lower percentage of the sales price is you use their platform.  What to do?

For international customers, absolutely the Amazon/CreateSpace option is better because it can be  on-demand printed from European Amazon sites, thereby reducing postage costs.  For those in the US, I can have it on my site and Amazon-or-Blurb, depending on my final decision. The Blurb “magazine” is better overall print and paper quality, the template software is superb, but even if I can manage to list it on Amazon, I would make almost nothing (less than a dollar probably) per copy to keep it in the affordable range.

Please let me know your thoughts!   Would you buy from Blurb?   Or do you vastly prefer Amazon?  Price would be $25-30 plus any shipping depending on final page count–I’m guesstimating 80 pages, but could be a bit more or a bit less.  My goal is to keep the price under $30.

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