I’m thrilled to be able to share a wonderful new book about art quilting written by Deborah Boschert about our Frayed Edges Project called 5 Artists, 5 Views:

and yes, I’m in it / a part of the book. Some of you may remember that in August, The Frayed Edges (my mini-group) had an exhibit at the Camden Public Library (to see more, click here and here). For that show, I had an idea to create a group project: each of us would contribute one photo, then we would each make a small quiltlet based on those five photos. The project was SO successful that Deborah Boschert wanted to create a small book discussing the project and how others might do something similar.

Deborah has finished the book and blogged about it here, and best of all, the book is ready for sale in her Etsy shop for a modest $20 plus shipping; these books will make wonderful Christmas gifts (I’ve already ordered several!). I hope it will also be an inspiration for all art quilters, and would be art quilters who are looking for a way to start!

Deborah designed the book to be interactive. You open the lovely embellished vellum envelope (above) to find a book with interviews, hints, tips, ideas and inspiration, and a stack of photographs

including the five original inspiration photos (Kathy’s umbrella photo is on the bottom left) plus a photo of each of the 25 pieces in the 5 x 5 grid. When you read the book, you can sort through the photos to look at all five of the umbrella pieces, or stack all the ones by a given artist, or lay them out in the 5 x 5 grid we used to display them.

The booklet, half-page sized, is (I think) 30 pages. It includes:

• About the Project
• About the Photographs
• Artists
  • Hannah Beattie
  • Deborah Boschert
  • Kate Cutko
  • Kathy Daniels
  • Sarah Ann Smith
• Suggestions for Similar Collaborative Projects

I’m so thrilled Deborah has prepared this book, and that I am a part of it, and that we are all a part of The Frayed Edges! Wooohooo! I hope some of you will order and enjoy the book…and as always, ASK QUESTIONS!

I just love our little guild chapter here in the Camden region! As I’ve probably mentioned many times before, the Coastal Quilters are a chapter of the statewide Pine Tree Quilt Guild. This year we decided to have a test-run holiday bazaar during our regularly-scheduled Second-Saturday meeting. WOW!

It was packed for the first 90 minutes, and I actually make some money, sold a totebag, a small piece (At Anchor, mounted and framed), a pattern and some glass ornaments (of which I would like to sell more, rather than have them in my basement!). Next year we are thinking we should start at 9:30 or even 9, rather than 10!

As we approached lunchtime, the crowd eased up and we sat and ate and knit:

I am also in serious lust for this woman’s jacket–the plum and greens in the center.. I totally love love LOVE the colors!

My friend Betty and I shared a table, and (lucky me!) I snapped up one of her pieces before we opened. Now I have my very own Betty Johnson!

This photo shows the right side of the room with Betty (in navy blue in the center), Jan P. (big tote, burgundy top), and Polly Schuessler (blue top, on right), who had some glorious rag rugs. If my bathroom walls weren’t so awful to paint (wood siding) I’d have bought the white and lime and yellow rug and re-done the bathroom that weekend! Maybe if I have cash in summer and she still has the rug then……

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We all decided it was worth doing, and worth doing again, perhaps with more advertising!

I’m not that great at drawing the human figure, but I guess I’m getting better. A while ago I bought some artists figurines (here, at Dick Blick). I posed the female into the positions I wanted for the naiads and sketched them. I then outlined the sketches with dark pen, taped them to a work surface, placed plastic over (acetate sheet), placed PFD (prepared for dyeing) white cloth over that and painted them, minus hair (which I’ll do with free-motion threadwork).

My first attempt, using Tsukinenko inks, was a bust. Somehow I can never get the blending I want with those inks, whether using the sticks or a brush. So I tried So Soft paints, from a kit put together by Bonnie McCaffery. They WORKED! The paints are very creamy and soft, leaving a fairly nice hand to the fabric afterwards–not stiff and board-like! I ended up appliquéing the figures to the quilt by hand, and it looks good! In the interest of keeping things sorta secret, I’ll only show you part of one of the ladies, appliquéd and with thread-lace-hair:

Eli loves his pug SO MUCH!

He is really pretty darn good about taking care of him, too. Recently, we were having a major rain, and Widgeon (the pug) really doesn’t like getting wet. So Paul decided to make a temporary rain coat for him out of grocery bags (that hairy mop in the lower left is Yeti’s tail….)

Here’s Eli delightedly showing Joshua Widgeon dressed for rain:

Later on, as we were having the first fire in the woodstove for the season, Widgeon decided to play cat and stretch out.

It got really hard to keep the eyes open,

and finally, impossible to stay awake a moment longer:

and just because he is SO CUTE!!!!!!!!:

A bit over a year ago, I was dumbfounded and elated when Larkin Van Horn invited me to participte in an art quilt show she is curating to be titled “It’s Good to be Green.” All quilts are to be 18×45 inches, and please, no Kermit the frogs, she said. Almost instantly I had an idea to do a quilt about the water spirits that inhabit the streams and lakes. My first thought was the ruselka from Russian mythology, but after doing a bit of research, learned they aren’t such nice creatures, so I amended that to Naiads.

The show will open in March (In Tillamook, Oregon, I think), and we’ve been asked not to share the finished products until after the show opens. Best of all, Larkin will be producing a CD catalog of the show so you can all go see it, even if just “virtually.” However, Larkin did say it would be OK to share pictures of in progress, so here you go. This first picture is of a very rough sketch for the overall piece (the left white paper—use medical exam table paper!), some sketches for the naiads, batting cut a bit larger than finished size in the center with an extra bit of batting on the left for the tree, and on the right, possible fabrics for the background:

It’s kind of interesting since I initially thought the entire quilt would be green…green ladies (remember the “green naked ladies” from my Tree Spirits 2 quilt?), green hair, green water, green sky. But after having made Windows of Hope for my Journal quilt this year, I felt the need to add color! I also decided not to crop out the sides of my design wall…I’m always curious bout other people’s studios, so thought this would be “honesty in blogging”…teeheee… lots of stuff gets stuck up there!

A while ago, artist and art quilter Thelma Smith surprised me with a box of manna from heaven, aka hand-dyed fabrics! I was so thrilled! This glorious piece had a perfect spot for the banks of the river (that’s the part that is missing), but before I cut it further, I wanted to take a photo. Isn’t this a glorious piece of cloth? Thanks Thelma!!!!!

I got the background together, fused to the batting; the stuff pinned to the lower right and left are sheers that will go on top of the water, which is made from the fabrics I worked on during the dye workshop with Carol Soderlund (check my blog entries for October 2007):

I’ll post about the naiad figures in my next entry on this piece….