Heads up!  Dijanne is beginning a new lino-cutting class on March 8th! To sign up, visit her blog and contact her by clicking here.

I’ve been trying to work on my online lino-cutting class with Dijanne Cevaal during the Olympics and breaks from working on that quilt I can’t tell you about yet.  I’ve been having FUN! One of the exercises was to cut a monogram / initial.   As part of that, I decided to print up some stamps I had carved in the past and share with the class, so thought I’d share them here, too.  The older stamps are all done in either Speedy-Cut (a somewhat soft, rubbery material, or a generic version of same), an art eraser (the grass)  or the cuts-like-a-hot-knife-in-butter MasterCarve (the bunny and leaf in the top row are on opposite sides of the same block).  The sheet below is an 8 1/2 by 11 inch (about A4 size paper) piece of paper.  The rose block is about 3 1/2 inches square, the bunny maybe 1 1/4 inches across (printed on point).

Here are the carvings for class (the “S”) and an older tree of life design printed onto paper with textile paint (brown) or stamp pad ink (black):

I also did an owl in Dick Blick (online purveyor of art supplies) Wonder Cut, a type of linoleum.  It is about 1/4″ thick, and feels like tightly compressed sawdust.  It is harder to cut than the rubbery stuff, but easier than the Golden cut or battleship gray linoleum.  Since I have (I think) incipient arthritis and other issues with my hands, I used that first:

I didn’t really like the three echo lines to the left of the owl, so I subsequently removed them.  I’ll share prints made with the revised version a few blogposts down the line…..The lino cut is at the bottom, the paint on paper prints at the top, and paint on cloth to the right (along with a few attempts with the “S”).  I need to get a better print on cloth… I think I figured out the trick.  It is called buy MORE paint supplies, the kind suitable for lino-printing! More on that later, too….. you get the same exploring and learning curve I had!

Last, a stamp I made a while ago to use on labels.  It is large… 5 1/5 by 8 inches (half a sheet of paper).   I traced my hand then drew inside it, then carved the whole shebang into the soft-cut rubber.  I had thought I would need to make this into a Thermofax screen for screenprinting, as I was not having luck getting such a large surface colored up with textile paint and printed before the paint began to dry.  However, with my buy-more-stuff discovery, maybe I don’t.  Hmmm….I’ll have to go try the new stuff with this stamp….hmmmm……

Anyway, hope you like my total collection of stamps, which will be growing!  I like the lino-cutting!

I received quite the lovely e-mail a few days ago from Vou Best of the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) about the piece pictured above.  It said:

“Congratulations!  Your piece in “Meet the Artist: SAQA 20th Anniversary Trunk Show” has been chosen to be one of the 55 pieces archived in the permanent collection of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  It will be available to researchers and students as a record of the art quilt in 2009.

“Sandra Sider selected the works for the IQSC collection.  “One of the best parts of the 2009 SAQA conference was the three hours I spent in my hotel room, with the 20th Anniversary Trunk Show spread out over beds, tables, chairs, and floor.  What an explosion of creative energy! My curatorial task was to select approximately fifty pieces that would be donated in 2010 as a SAQA collection to the International Quilt Study Center. This collection documents the various techniques, processes, materials, and artistic styles in quilt art during the early 21st century, and the SAQA Board envisions these quilts as research tools, far into the future.  Your quilt was selected because it represents a particularly distinctive or original approach. Congratulations! Sandra Sider SAQA Vice President.”

“During the past year, many people have viewed the Trunk Shows in venues across the United States and in several other countries.  They have been shown at SAQA Regional meetings, to Quilt Guilds, in Gallery shows, at IQF receptions, and I’m sure to neighbors and friends wherever the trunks have visited. Everywhere they’ve traveled, they have received an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

“The SAQA Exhibition committee and I wish to thank you for supporting this endeavor during our 20th Anniversary year. Each and every piece represents the outstanding artistic quality present in the membership of SAQA today.

Vou Best

SAQA’s 2oth Anniversary Trunk Show Curator”

To say that I am thrilled is a serious understatement!  When I saw the names on the rest of the list, here…wow!  I am humbled, pleased and utterly astonished to be in such good company!

A.W.O.L, for my non-US readers, is an acronym that comes to us from the military meaning Absent WithOut Leave (i.e. going off without permission).  So, I have been AWOL a bit.  What have I been doing?  Alas, I can’t tell you, well not much anyway.  I was invited to submit a quilt for a juried invitational exhibit.  That means you make a quilt to theme and size, and it may or may not get in.  Anyway, the past 2 1/2 weeks I’ve been quilting like a madwoman!   I’m thinking my entry will get in, but if it doesn’t, I’m OK with that because honestly I think this piece may be one of the best things I’ve ever done (so it is KILLING ME not to share it!).

What I can share, is the thread.  On a quilt that measures 12 square feet, I used 46 threads on the top (in the green bin) and 16 threads on the bottom (in the bag on the right…also one thread was used both top and bottom), for a total of 61 threads.  Here they are all laid out nicely, with the 16 bobbin threads in the top row (including four cones), and 45 of the 46 top threads below; the repeat was the lime green bobbin thread–aren’t they pretty????

and as always, I like the line drawing on the back side of the quilt almost as much as the front.  I will have word in about a month about the exhibit, and can share (either way, whether I get in or not) then…..
In the meantime, I hope to be a bit more regular at blogging.  You can always tell when either I’m slamming on a project OR too much life is happening…blogposts become scarce! Will try to do better,

Cheers, Sarah

Hi all! I’d like to invite you to visit the page for the FiberArt For a Cause fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society. This may be the final one ever for the FFAC, and I’m pleased to have been part of the FFAC efforts for several years. This year, I’ve made two donations. You can see both here, along with the other MANY generous donations by many quilt artists. (Click photo to see it larger.)

For the Tote bag part of Tote Tuesday: I have donated a copy of my Threadwork Unraveled book, the January 2010 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited with my last design series article, some of my hand-dyed fabric, a pair of my funky hand-dyed socks, and a spool of Rainbows variegated thread from Superior Threads.

I also made and donated an 11×17 inch quilt made from one of the lino-cuts I made recently. You can see details in the post below! Thanks for taking a look, and for popping over to the FFAC Tote Tuesday page to take a look.

Using the leaf/bud prints from my lino-cutting class with Dijanne Cevaal (link in Reading on left sidebar), I decided to make two quick art quilts (instead of just a small postcard) as part of my donation to the FiberArt For A Cause (FFAC) fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society.

I offered Virginia the choice of pieces (they are each about 11 inches wide by 17 1/4 inches long), and she chose the blue-green one on the left for the auction.  The multicolored one, on the right, will be for sale here on my website after the auction.

The blue-green print is the “positive” image which I shared in this post.  I fused the print to some batik, then quilted the daylights out of it.  Here is the quilt:

and a close up of the center panel:

The multicolored quilt is similar, but features the “negative” panel where the main motifs (not the background) are cut away.  I was surprised at how much I liked this one, since usually I am enchanted by the lines of the cuts in woodcuts and lino-cuts.

and a close up of the center panel of this quilt:

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a BLAST in this class, and hope that my results will lead to a generous donation to the American Cancer Society.  Thanks in advance to all for browsing the FFAC site/auction, and to those who have helped not just this year but in past years, too, to help combat cancer.