Well that was FUN!  Got home yesterday from errands, gathered up the mail from the box, and found this in the pile!

Publicity card for the Out of the Blue exhibit at the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, Mass. Yep, that’s MY quilt! SQUEEE!

I just checked, and apparently I forgot to announce here (as opposed to over on Facebook) that TWO of my works have been accepted into the Out of the Blue art quilt exhibit this summer at the Whistler House Museum of Art.  (If you click on that link you’ll see a thumbnail of my quilt; click on that for more information.) Yes, that Whistler, James McNeill Whistler, the one who painted Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1, better known as “Whistler’s Mother.”  Can you say GIDDY!   When I first moved to Maine, I learned about the Lowell Quilt Festival and the exhibits in town at the Whistler and the Brush Gallery.  So I went and thought:  I’ll know I’m making it if I can ever get in there.   Well, early this summer (I had signed up eons ago to be on the email list) I received a call for entry.  I thought:  why not!   All I can do is send the entry fee, and it will support art quilts no matter what.  Imagine my delight when I got in!

Yep, my art quilt Koi is the publicity image for a museum show!  My self-portrait “Clothed in Color” is also in the exhibit.  Here’s the back side of the card (minus my home address because this is the internet):

The exhibit will be open Aug. 12 to Sept. 19th of this year. The Reception is Saturday, Aug. 15th from 2-4. I love that they included the materials, including MistyFuse! 

And here is Clothed in Color:

A self-portrait –hmm…. just occurs to me there is some symmetry of a sort here, as Whistler is famous for his portraits– anyway, a self-portrait in no natural colors (well, other than the blue of my eyes, but my eyes are a bit more blue gray than blue….)

That weekend is also the Mancuso show in Manchester, NH.  It will be a VERY LONG day, but I’m thinking I will try to drive to Manchester (several hours away), spend a couple hours at the Mancuso show, then about 1 pm get on the road to Lowell to arrive shortly after 2 for the reception, then begin the trek home (about 4 1/2 – 5 hours).

Congratulations to the other artists in the ehxibit–I hope to see  some of you there!  And thank you to the jurors for accepting my works and to all those involved in the decision to select the publicity image!

And to round things up, here is the back side of Koi!

Koi is actually a two-sided quilt. This photo was taken before adding the hanging sleeve to the top of the back (imagine lying on the bottom of the koi pond looking up at the fish bellies and the trees above).  I made the top facing so that if anyone were to purchase it and wanted to hang it so you could see both sides, you can insert a metal slat and have it hidden.  Then I had to add the requisite 4″ hanging sleeve for standard display.

(c)Sarah Ann Smith 2015; quote (c) Mirza Khan, used with permission

In my last post I shared my most recent work and the good news that Descended From the Stars has been juried in to Affinity, the 2015 Dinner@8 exhibit which will premiere in Houston.  Today I thought I’d share how it began.

It began with an idea and Procion MX dyes…..and a pyrex pie plate (yes, dedicated to dye only use for safety) in the center.  Here is the first round of dyeing, with the pie plate to elevate the yellow center and prevent tendrils of green from sneaking in to my sun.

When my sons were little they attended Children’s House Montessori School in Friday Harbor, Washington.  The teacher asked me to dye a (GULP) hand-tatted doily of her grandmothers.  Made in natural cotton color, she wanted it yellow because it looked like a sun.  When a child had a birthday, she would place the doily on the floor, and the child would walk around the “sun” once for each year of their young lives:  four circles for four years.

I then thought about a labyrinth.  What is life but a labyrinth?  It  twists and turns, going around the center/sun, in the same place but not really, through the changing seasons.  That led to thinking about the tree of life.  Finally, I wanted to include Mirza Khan’s quote (see previous blogpost, here) in the deep blue of the heavens.

I knew I would never find fabric like I wanted, so out came the PFD (Prepared For Dyeing) cloth and the dyes and my color “bibles” from classes with Carol Soderlund (her website has info) to figure out which pure dyes I needed to get the colors I wanted.  The photo above shows the yellow and green.  The next photo shows when I added the deep blue to darken the edges.   I ended up doing a second dyeing to get the deep, deep dark blue on the edge.

Deep navy is brushed on to the fabric to provide a gradation of color from pale in the center to deep dark on the edges.

Once dyeing was complete, I enlarged a labyrinth design onto paper, then transferred that onto my dyed top.  Then I spent several episodes of DVR’d MasterPiece Theatre cutting out stones from batiks pre-fused with Mistyfuse.   I used an old ice cube tray, putting one type of stone (cloth) into a cup.  That way I could choose fabrics to be sure I got a fairly random patterning.

You can see a faint white chalk line on the edge of the green/blue that gave me my center square.  On the left, you can see an idea that didn’t work out.  Initially I planned to applique items onto the labyrinth that represented important phases in my life.  But once the quilt took shape, I realized that would simply be too much clutter!

Next came the lettering, which was done with a dip pen and Liquitex acrylic Ink! in gold.  I figured out how large I wanted the lettering to be (counted all the letters in the quote, divided by four to see where I would need to break at corners, etc.) and after a second try, got the size correct.

Here I have pinned the text, printed onto paper and cut apart, to see if it will fit. It does (on the second attempt).  I chose a font I liked since I more or less copied the font in my lettering.

I chalked in guide lines:  top, bottom, top of lower case, like on a second grader’s paper.  I find that as you go along, large writing tends to want to get small and closer to normal size writing, so I needed the guidelines.  I used the SewLine ceramic chalk mechanical pencils, then erased the lines when done.  I covered the outer edge of the cloth with the text strips (seen above) immediately above where they needed to go so I could also keep my spacing consistent and accurate.  I placed freezer paper underneath in case I had any blobs.  Sigh.  My first blob happened on my second letter!  But I was able to fix it (used a little of the blue acrylic ink after scraping up the blob and that made it look like part of the dye patterning!) and learned to be more careful.  It took a few hours for each side, so I only did one side on any given day.

The lettering is done! next, on to the trees.  You can see the chalk guidelines in this photo.

And yes, I did have a practice piece!

It’s quilted in this photo, but I had a scrap of blue fabric and tried various ways to write, from a chisel brush to the dip pen and crow-quill (metal) nib that I ended up using because it gave the crisp look I wanted.

In the next post, I’ll show the trees and quilting.

I’m thrilled to be able to share my most recent major work along with the news that Descended From the Stars has been juried in to this year’s Dinner@8 exhibit, Affinity, which will debut at International Quilt Festival 2015 in Houston, Texas, this coming October.

(c)Sarah Ann Smith 2015; quote (c) Mirza Khan, used with permission.  Click to open slightly larger.

You can find more about the exhibit and the other artists here.  I am blushing to find myself in such company, and humbled to be in this exhibit for my sixth consecutive year.

The theme is Affinity, and the call for entry reads:

Detail of the lower right corner, showing the autumn tree of life.

Detail of the lower left corner, with the winter tree kissed by snow.

Wanna come play with me?  It is time to look forward after a very busy winter and spring! I’ll be teaching at Vermont Quilt Festival at the end of June.  I’m so looking forward to it…pretty much my three most popular classes and a new one.   Balinese Garden teaches you decorative machine applique in your choice of pillow top, small quilt or table runner.   Fussy-Fiddly is about how to use those  (not really) challenging threads successfully; we’ve got so many wonderful thread choices available to us now, so let’s USE them!   Birch Pond Seasons teaches you skills and techniques to make not only this “north country” pattern, but go on to work on your  own designs.  Finally, Sunday’s half-day class, Easy Peasy Inside Out Bags, is about making quick and easy, lovely bags:  any size you want, easy zipper installation and addicting like potato chips–bet you can’t make just one!  I sure couldn’t–I keep making (and giving) them!

Here are my classes:
115    Balinese Garden                                                                    Thursday, June 25
218    Tame Fiddly Fussy Threads for Machine Quilting        Friday, June 26
314    Birch Pond Season                                                               Saturday, June 27
410    Easy-Peasy Inside Out Bag                                                Sunday, June 28

To sign up, click on this link:  http://www.vqf.org/all_classes_view.php .  Once there, look just below the purple “Basic Sewing Supply List” for “view by instructor.”  Use the dropdown list to select Sarah Ann Smith, and it will pop up information on all these classes.   Also, I’m happy to answer emails with questions!

Balinese Garden Table Runner–Class is Thursday June 25.  As always, I encourage students to cut loose, be creative, and make the project their own.

115    Balinese Garden  Thurs June 25

Here are four versions of my tossed leaves. You learn to make a freezer paper stencil and paint on cloth. While the paint dries, learn key tips to success with metallic, holographic, heavy and shiny threads, then free-motion quilt your piece.

Here’s a closer view:

The original quiltlet which happens to be on the cover of my book!

218    Tame Fiddly Fussy Threads for Machine Quilting        Fri June 26

Learn all sorts of fun tricks for making free-form fabric collage quick and easy

And the autumn view. I encourage students to personalize their quilts. Bring a photo of your favorite mountain and make it the featured hill. Make it any season you want! Be creative!

314    Birch Pond Season        Sat June 27

These bags are so easy and fun to make. They are wonderful to use (in all sorts of sizes), to give as gifts, and can even be turned into iPad or notebook covers.

If you watch Quilting Arts TV, these may look familiar, as they are on one of my episodes in season 1400 AND were in the 2014 Quilting Arts gifts magazine.

410    Easy-Peasy Inside Out Bag  Sun June 28

For all my classes, you can check here on my “Classes” page for more information and PDFs of the supply lists, or look on my “Resources” page for the downloads.  I’d love to have you in class!

I am SO excited to share with you the first of two new workshops that will debut with the Charlotte (NC) Quilters Guild next week!   The first workshop, From Photo to Flower Collage, can be a one or two-day workshop.  This time, it will be two-days (click here for more information, there are just a couple spots left).  The second workshop, ThreadColoring the Flower (click here) is booked this time as a one-day class.

Orange Daylily collage in batik, part of the Photo to Flower Collage / Quilting the Garden workshop

I designed these workshops so that a guild can book what will work for their guild:  a single day or a two-day  workshop for either of the two.  With a little added content, the workshop can be expanded to a full five days allowing students to really work in depth, with one-on-one assistance, to create their own collaged and thread-colored art quilt.  I’ll post in detail about the ThreadColoring workshop in two days.

The students learn how to see value (light and dark) and how to translate the imagery in a  photo into their own working pattern.  I provide two photos, the day lily (taken by the roadside near my home) and the water lily (taken by me at the Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor) for the Day 1 class project, which will finish about  9 x 12 inches:

The water lily photo for the workshop. Photo (c) SarahAnnSmith

The Close up of the wild Day Lily, also used in the workshop. (c) Sarah Ann Smith. PS: Sorry about all the watermarking and copyright notices–after the incident where someone created derivative copies of my work, I’m being even more diligent about marking stuff. So sad to have to do this!

When I created the class sample, I wanted to do one in fabrics students can get, such as the batiks in the example above.  However, I also wanted to try the image using only hand-dyes.  This next sample is just that.  I used one of my thermofax screens, Squiggles (available here at Fiber on a Whim) and textile paint to create the green on green background on my own hand-dyed fabric.

Another verion of the day lily, made exclusively with my own hand-dyes and thermofax screened hand-dye.

And no, I don’t know which one I like most!

Here is the water lily, made from both commercial batiks and my own hand-dyes:

Pink Water Lily (c) SarahAnnSmith

The second day in this workshop, students will bring their own photos (or use my second photo), select one, and create their own larger art quilt.  I’m so excited to be able to teach my collage process and help folks learn to see and create their own artwork by understanding some of the basic elements and principles of design with strong composition, lighting, and fabric selection.