What a glorious sight!  Hubby said look at the sunset, so I dashed for the camera, went out on to our COLD and breezy porch (current air temp is 50 but feels about 42!)to take pics, then turned around and saw this

Sunset to the west, rainbow from end to end over Hope and the midcoast to the East.  The rainbow was so large I couldn’t fit it all in one photo!

So here are left and right:

Rainbow…left side (northeast)

Rainbow, right, southeast

Makes me want to pull out the paints!

Sunset, west (duh!)

I’ve been busy (what else is new), this time writing an article on  the bane of my quilty existence, for Machine Quilting Unlimited, but don’t know if it’s OK to tell you the subject, so I will refrain for the moment!

Eli’s track season is in full swing–here is the last meet.  At least we went prepared this time:  long sleeved shirt, fleece lines vest, winter down jacket, gloves, hat with earflaps and stadium blanket.  And needed it.  By the time we left the field it was 39, with wind chill about freezing or below!  How the kids could function in tanks and shorts is beyond me!

Eli at the end of the 400 metre, ran it in about 58 seconds which, given the cold, was pretty good!

Javelins in the ground

A mistake of a photo, but I kinda like it….would abstract well into a quilt….

Not the best photo, but it is rare that I actually get Eli and the javelin in the same photo! Though it looks light, it was pretty late in the afternoon and using the Sport setting doesn’t always work well that late in the day, but I need to remember to re-set the camera to sport and TRY! 

And Eli was the first leg on the 4×400, which of course is the last event of every meet which means we stand around for hours in the cold!

Getting ready for the 4×400

And more of the sunset, because who can resist those colors?   I’ll share more about my Amaryllis before too long!

The view from the end of the front porch, looking west

What a SKY!

Hi all!   Just got a Quilting Daily email which you can see here saying that (wheeeee!  Yipppeeeee!) that my DVD is among the most popular in March and that it is currently on sale for HALF OFF!   Use this link to get to the right place.  I don’t know how long they will be on sale, so if you’ve been waiting, now’s a good time to swing by Interweave.com and get it!

my video workshop that takes you from your photo to a finished art quilt

You can also get it from me, but alas at full price.  To all those who have ordered direct from me, thank you!  To all those who have ordered anywhere else, thank you!   It’s all good!

I’ve got a detailed description on my store page, here, and just below is a video excerpt you may enjoy:

At long last I can share!   I still can’t believe that I am amongst those juried in to the Living Colour Textiles exhibit curated by Australian Brenda Gael Smith.

Amaryllis by Sarah Ann Smith (C) 2014. See the Living Colour Exhibit at http://livingcolourtextiles.com/

To see the full exhibit, click on the link in the caption.

I knew I wanted to do something big and bold.  At first I wanted to do a lily, but when I began working on this piece it was mid-winter—not the ideal time of year to go out in Maine and snap pictures of lilies.  Then I realized I had the perfect image right in our own dining room:  an amaryllis.  So I waited patiently for the blossoms to open, took a ga-zillion phiotos, then selected the right ones.

I dyed the red fabric as well as the green/yellow in the centers (and used commercial batiks and my hand-dyes in the background).  I thread-sketched the amaryllis onto batting and backing, then cut away the batting/backing underneath the background, added a second layer of batting (Matilda’s Own Wool-Poly, and thrilled that this wonderful Aussie batting gets to visit “home”), quilted the background densely and around the petals and stamens.   Finished size pieces in the exhibit is 40 x 100 cm, or about 16 x 39 1/2 inches.

Here is a detail:

Amaryllis, detail, by Sarah Ann Smith (C) 2014. See the Living Colour Exhibit at http://livingcolourtextiles.com/

Brenda has a full listing of where the quilts will be on display on the website.  You can also buy an exhibit catalog (published by Blurb) directly from Brenda or, more conveniently for those of us in the US, directly from Blurb.  I’ll add that link here, but at the moment I gotta run!  Spring break has arrived and we are heading out the door to take Eli on his first college visits!  Back soon!

WOOT!   My quilt for Joshua caught the eye of the Glorious Color Blogger, so of COURSE I said yes they could include it in a blogpost!  Glorious Color is the source of all things related to the Kaffe Fassett collective, so you can buy fabric (and more fabric), books, and all sorts of goodies.   Anyway, they’ve done an entire POST on diamonds, starting with Marilyn Monroe–check it out here (PS…you have to scroll down a LONG way to see the quilt!).  Here’s a photo I took and shared not long ago:

It’s a miracle…it’s not even a full year after Joshua graduated and got his GED and his quilt is DONE!

As you might guess by my silence, I’m madly working away on a quilt for a deadline.  As soon as I surface I’ll be back.

Thanks Glorious Color for liking my quilt enough to feature it on the blog!

This post continues my earlier one, here, about taping three segments at Quilting Arts TV Series 1400, which will begin to air in July 2014 in the US on PBS.  For information on how to see this show, please check my earlier post.

With Susan Brubaker Knapp, the new host of Quilting Arts TV,on the set (you can see the top edge of the set in the background)!

My three segments are episode 2 (gifts), 5, and 12 (I think).  The topics are:

1. My Inside-Out Bag with Easy-Peasy zipper (with a web-extra pattern/instruction on the steps to make the bag–when the episode airs and the instructions are available online, I’ll share here and on my Resources page),
2. Thread and Needles
3. Free-Motion Quilting

Getting ready to roll tape for my first segment on Quilting Arts TV, Series 1400. (and yes, you saw this photo in the last post!) I show you how to make my incredibly versatile Inside-Out Bag so you can customize size, pockets, techniques for the outside (pieced, applique, surface design). The bag is quick and easy so it also makes a great special gift.

The bag demonstrated is the one on the right.  If you LOVE that ribbon, it is made by Renaissance Ribbons.  I used about 24 inches to make this bag, and the ribbon is (YIPPEEE) available here.   In the bag on the left, which has both bluebird fabric and ribbon, I used their birds ribbon which is  still available.  Can you tell I love it? My favorite ribbon designers are Phillip Jacobs, Laura Foster Nicholson and Sue Spargo, but there is a LOT of ribbon to swoon over on this site!  Sue Spargo, by the way, has some “supporting cast” narrow ribbons that are fab!

At the start of a segment, the producer sets things out on the table so they look good.  And you get fitted for a mike.  I knew the mike would distort the neckline of my blouse, so

I suggested to the audio guy (whom I had just met about a minute before) that we could perhaps pin it to my bra strap.

At that point…hilarity ensued:

Then I said, gosh, how am I going to explain to my husband that I asked a guy I met moments earlier to play with my bra strap! Thanks Kristine for this great shot (yes, she was there with multiple cameras around neck and cell phones opened to camera mode on the table!)

Here’s another great shot for that first segment–this may be the best current photo there is of me! Good make-up (hides much, so does not standing in profile to show the chin and neck!)  And I gotta say, I wasn’t nervous because having a friend as host made me SO comfortable with the process.  Having done the DVD in Colorado last year also helped a ton!   I knew what to expect:  be prepared and know that the cast and crew and all the Interweave folks are SUPERB!

Then

Time for a wardrobe change and getting re-fitted with the tiny mike. It picked up the sound well I guess, as we didn’t have ANY do-overs, but the prongs definitely pricked–like staples poking into you–because the backing tape moved.

And here’s the requisite on-set shot for segment two.   Bought the blouse–sandwashed silk and YUMMY–at Coyote Moon in Belfast, Maine, on sale!  the week before taping.   I don’t usually wear colors this dark near my face, but just loved this blouse.

On the set. We’ve changed clothes for a different episode of QA TV.

Next, the final segment:

With Susan Brubaker Knapp, the new host of Quilting Arts TV,on the set.  Bought my top from Brie Kriebel at Quilt Festival Houston in 2013.  I think my first stop at Festival this coming year is going to be her booth!   Bought my button necklace at Festival several years ago.  Can you see I’m relaxing as we get farther along?

Yeah! I was still there when Lyric Kinard arrived! Does ANYone have such an infectious, impish smile as Lyric?  I’m lucky to have run into Lyric many times at assorted teaching venues and shows.  We took turns looking first at my phone camera, then hers to take this tandem-selfie!

And then it was time to pack up and head home.   I had realized shortly before leaving for Ohio that a student in an online drawing class I’m taking (we’ve taken several from Val Webb, teacher extraordinaire) lives the other half of her year in Ohio.  We’ve met here in Maine (she lives several hours from me, but four of us met up in a middle-zone place); it turns out I was going to pass by her exit on the way home, so we got to meet for a late afternoon sip before I started racking up the miles to go home:

Carole Jurack came to meet me at the McDonalds at exit 200 in Ohio on I-90. What fun!  It was great to see you, Carole.  Here’s to sketching at the Botanical Garden in June.

So now all we need to do is wait for the series to air!  I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime, I’ve unpacked, slept, started to catch up on my online classes, and get ready for the next round of articles to write and quilts to quilt.  It is going to be busy in April and May!