Leslie Tucker Jenison is one seriously talented artist and a seriously BUSY lady!   Just reading her various blogs and posts and website leaves me exhausted, so I’m thrilled she was able to squeeze in some time for little old me!  Visit her personal blog, here, to participate in her segment of the bloghop and giveaway.   I first “met” Leslie on the QuiltArt list–gosh it must be nearly a decade ago!   Way back when, Virginia Spiegel was organizing a cancer research fundraiser, FiberArt for a Cause, where you donated a modest amount and got to pick a fabric postcard donated to help raise funds.  I chose Leslie’s, made of her artcloth, and it still is on display in my studio!

Papyrus #1 by Leslie Tucker Jenison, a fiber art postcard that lives in my studio and is admired frequently by me

Leslie and her friend Jamie Fingal (who kicked off this bloghop and giveaway) are the “Dinner@8” artists, and blog here.  I’ve been honored to be invited to participate in an exhibit juried by them for the past several years:  Beneath the Surface (2010), The Space Between (2011),  Rituals (2012), and this year’s An Exquisite Moment.  DO go visit this blog and see the incredible art quilts, which are (as always) even better in person.

Leslie’s work ranges from Art Cloth,

Leslie’s Art Cloth 9. To see more of Leslie’s surface design work, visit here.

to Mixed Media,

Joy by Leslie Tucker Jenison. To see Leslie’s Mixed Media work, visit here.

to Art Quilts,

Leslie’s award winning Amsterdam Alley. To see Leslie’s art quilts, visit here.

as well as teaching, and sketching!   In just a couple days she will be teaching at the Art and Soul retreat, and not long after at International Quilt Festival in Houston!  Remember when I said it sounded exhausting?

Visit Leslie at her personal blog to read her review of the DVD and enter her segment of the giveaway by visiting  LeslieTuckerJenison.blogspot.com .   You can see more of her work over at the Sketchbook Challenge, including this inspiring recent post.

Thank you so much, Leslie, for taking time from your crazy-busy life to be a part of my bloghop!

What a thrill–another one!    Janome has featured my DVD giveaway on their blog today!   See it here (post dated September 25, 2013).

Visit Janome’s blog today to see the write up! Right click to see this larger.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to be sponsored by Janome and sew on one  of their fabulous machines for nearly a decade.  THANK YOU, Janome America!

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Vicki Welsh (blog) and thank her for participating in my bloghop and giveaway to celebrate the release of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork (available for pre-order here or as a download and pre-order here).  Please pop over to Vicki’s blog and leave a comment there to be entered in Vicki’s part of the giveaway!

Although I’m mostly about art quilts, from time to time I’ve blogged about the fact that I love ALL Quilts and Quilting—traditional, contemporary, modern, art, you name it!   Like me, Vicki crosses the lines but in a very different way:  she is all about dyeing fabric and surface design, worked into more traditionally piece quilts.

Vicki Welsh’s blog is aptly called “Field Trips in Fiber” and her Etsy shop of hand-dyes is a Visa Accident waiting to happen!  So much fun! Vicki’s quilts are clearly inspired by tradition, but they are definitely a contemporary take on the traditional.  One of her quilts that makes my heart go thumpity thump is Illuminated Blocks…all I can say is it’s a good thing I live far away because I could SO be tempted into a little larceny!

Illuminated Blocks by Vicki Welsh. WOW…just WOW. Her blogpost is here. Right click for a larger look!

This quilt, made from Paula Nadelstern’s printed fabrics, has me wondering:  what if you dyed fabric in mandalas and shibori style, using a coordinated palette of colors.   How would it look to piece an Ohio Star, as in this quilt (look carefully but also go visit her blogpost about it, link in caption), but using one’s own hand-dyed fabrics?

Two of Vicki’s recent tops are Grandmother’s Choice Shibori top (read more about it here):

Vicki Welsh’s Grandmother’s Choice quilt using her shibori and hand-dyed fabrics. Her Etsy shop is here.

And another recent top fascinates me–I’m usually all about the color, but I love the muted tones and kaleidescope effect in this quilt top, her Grandmother’s Choice Symmetry:

Vicki Welsh’s Grandmother’s Choice Symmetry quilt top. Read more about it here.

I love the play of patterns, the secondary designs.   I feel a traditional phase coming on thanks to her inspiration!
Thank you, Vicki, for being a part of my bloghop!   Here’s to meeting you in PERSON one of these days!  In the meantime, we can all go visit her on the web.

The essence of Cross Country: running through the Maine woods, here near the Medomak middle and high school fields. That is, of course, Eli!

Well, if truth be told, the photos that follow are of the third official meet of the season!  I’ve been a bit distracted with the debut of the video and the bloghop, but wanted to keep up with life in general in the midst of all the quiltyness!   This last meet was particularly spectacular, both the day and the results.  Over the   years, the Camden Hills Girls’ Cross Country team has been a powerhouse in the state, among the top teams.   The boys have had some stellar runners, but have never been competitive.  In Coach Becky Flanagan’s seven years, while the girls have even had undefeated regular seasons, the boys’ hadn’t won a meet.  Until YESTERDAY!

Reason to celebrate: both Camden Hills Girls AND Camden Hills Boys WIN at Medomak!

Now that I’ve given away the punch line first, here’s a few photos from the boys’ race and the awards:

Looking towards the starting line as the gun sounds for the boys’ race.  A few of the trees are turning already, and the sun is low in the sky by now, about 4:45 p.m.

As the leaders went past me at the start, in the order nearly where they ended up at the end of the race: Ben T. (senior) in the lead, Caleb (freshman) and Eli (sophomore) all in red. Ben W. isn’t in this picture, but he was able to avoid getting boxed in on the course and finished in the top ten for the first time this season!

Eli didn’t run last week because of his illness earlier in the week, and the cough was still bothering him in this meet. Not the best photo, but it shows the kid’s determination and grit.

And pushing all the way to the chute and the finish line, next to the tent.

Coach Becky taking a picture of first place girls’ team

The boys’ individual medal winners (it was Medomak’s homecoming weekend, hence the medals), with Eli in 7th, Caleb in 4th, and Ben T. with a commanding lead for first. It was another good day for the Trapani family, as his sister Emma, a freshman, won the girls’ race!

A FIRST! The boys team WINS…smiles for sure! And look at that early autumn sun setting through the trees. Maine is so wonderful!

I just wanted to say to each and every one of the kids on the team:  every single one of you inspires me!  Thank you so much for letting me, the total non-athlete, be a part of your season, cheering from the sidelines.  Ben T’s insurmountable leads, Caleb’s lightning speed as he joined the team this year, Eli’s seemingly bottomless reservoir of determination and hard work, Ben W’s steady, strong racing.  But it isn’t just the fastest runners who are graced with the physical ability to run fast that I admire.   Crockett and Josh turned in performances of determination and guts in the past two meets.  Nick D. may be the last of our team to cross the finish line, but his heart is huge:  he DOES cross the finish line, he supports the team, he’s out there DOING IT.

Each and every member of the team, boys and girls, no matter where you place, you are doing something every practice, every meet, that teaches you things you will use for the rest of your life.  Your results depend on YOU and no one else–and what matters most is what you put into it, what you get out of it, not the minutes on the clock as you cross the finish line or who finished before or after you.  What matters most is that you are learning that you can depend on YOU to succeed.  Well done!  Thank you to Becky for years of coaching and work with the team, thanks to all the kids.  You inspire me!

Today is the second giveaway of my video workshop, Art Quilt Design from Photo to Threadwork, and is hosted by my friend Deborah Boschert.  Her website is here, and her blog and the giveaway post are here.  Be sure to surf over and comment to enter the giveaway!

Haze and Hope by Deborah Boschert

When I moved to Maine in 2004, the first thing I did was find the quilters, especially the art quilters.  Maine has a great statewide guild with many regional/local chapters and a few statewide groups, including  Art Quilts Maine.  At the very first meeting I attended, I met Deborah, whose husband was then in the Navy and assigned to Brunswick.  I didn’t realize for quite some time that Deborah was also relatively new to Maine.  We began emailing back and forth, and within a couple of months decided to start our own mini-group, The Frayed Edges, with our dear friends Kate Cutko and Kathy Daniels.   If you click on the categories, you can see the many wonderful times we have shared over the years.

Fast forward many years:  our kids are growing rapidly, we’ve both been published in journals and books, made DVDs, exhibited at national and international venues!  I think if you had told us as we chatted in the parking lot after that meeting what we would have done in less than a decade, we would never have believed it!

Deborah is a member of the amazing group known as the “Twelves.”  You can see tons of their inspiring work, here, and find the book, Twelve by 12:  The International Art Quilt Challenge, here.

Twelve by Twelve: the International Art Quilt Challenge

The first year the challenges were by theme, then by color.  As someone who lives for color, I was surprised that one of my favorites of Deborah’s is this monochromatic beauty, In Light Of

In Light Of

Deborah has filmed the DVD workshop Contemporary Fabric Collage, been on TV segments for Quilting Arts TV, as well as done some great web seminars for them.   You can find all the QA/Interweave offerings with Deborah here, at the Interweave Store.

Thank you Deborah for being part of the bloghop and giveaway, but most especially for the gift of being my friend.