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Living Colour Textiles-Amaryllis

May 10th, 2014

The Living Colour Textiles exhibit (you can see it online here and blogposts here), including my Amaryllis quilt, is going on tour–wish I could go with it!  And good news for us in the US, it and the exhibit will be at AQS Grand Rapids s next year, 2015.  I, alas, won’t make it, so if you get to the exhibit, I hope you enjoy it!

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

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

Here’s where it is going:

  • QuiltWest, Craft & Quilt Fair: 21-25 May 2014 with curator floor talks at 1.30pm Wednesday-Friday (inclusive)
  • Sydney Quilt Show, Craft & Quilt Fair: 9-13 July 2014
  • Bunker Cartoon Gallery, Coffs Harbour, NSW:  8 August (opening 6pm) – 13 September 2014
  • Brisbane Craft & Quilt Fair: 8-12 October 2014
  • South Australia Festival of Quilts: 13-16 November 2014
  • Supported by BrotherGrenfell Art Gallery, Grenfell, NSW: 22 November-20 December 2014
  • Quilt Symposium Manawatu, Palmerston North, New Zealand: 15-21 January 2015
  • Northart Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand: Wednesday 28 January (opening 6pm) – 11 February 2015
  • Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford: 21 March (opening 2pm) -22 April 2015
  • AQS Quilt Week Grand Rapids, Michigan: 12-15 August 2015

Thanks to  Brother International Australia for generously supporting Living Colour!

You can order the catalog directly from Brenda (good if you live in Australia) or Blurb (good if you live in the US or Canada or not-Oz), a lovely small book (about 6 or 7 inches square) with a page for each of the 32 works that includes a full photo and information about the quilt/quilter.  Photography is great, layout is great.  Price in the US is a modest US $17.25 plus shipping!

From Quilting Daily: Demystifying Mistyfuse

May 7th, 2014

Mistyfuse is by FAR my favorite fusible!  I’d been thinking (for years, sigh) of doing a good long post about using this wonderful product, when what should appear in my in-box on May 6th but this post, which is reprinted in its entirety with permission.  If you’re interested in the Mistyfuse Kit click here or, even better, click on the Interweave button on the sidebar to the left (just below my book/dvd/print):  type “fabric fusing fun” into the search box, then use the code in the button on the left to get a discount!    Here’s the fused collage I demonstrate in my DVD, which of course uses Mistyfuse:

Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic, No. 1, the start of what I will call my Quilting the Good Life series!
Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic, No. 1, the start of what I will call my Quilting the Good Life series!
In the copied post below, the things that appear to be links in the text below did not all copy.  To read more of Vivika’s blog, click  you can read the post below on Vivika’s blog, here.   To order Mistyfuse direct from the source, find Pigwidgeon, our pug, in the left column (where it says Sarah Ann Smith Mistyfuser) and click on him to go straight to the Mistyfuse site. And to see Jamie Fingal’s blog, visit her at Twisted Sister blog.  Jamie is also half of the Dinner@8 Artists who have curated some great exhibits for the past five plus years, and I’ve been quite lucky to have been part of the past four.  Check out Dinner@8 here.

And if you’d like to see how I use Mistyfuse, click here to see a preview of my DVD (available on my store page and as a download through Interweave–use the Interweave button on the left to click through to Interweave to order with a discount).

Fusible Web: Demystifying Mistyfuse

5 May 2014

Many art quilters find fusible web indispensable for quilt making. Fusible web is basically a sheet of glue that melts when you press fabric onto it with a hot iron, sticking the pieces of fabric together.

 

jamie fingal uses mistyfuse for quilt making
Quilt artist Jamie Fingal uses Mistyfuse
fusible for all her quilt making.

Because art quilts are not meant to be washed, fusible web gives you the freedom to cut and press on small pieces of fabric without the fuss of turning under or satin-stitching the edges. You fuse your fabric, cut it as you wish, and make a quilt with little or no measuring or endless seaming.

Every quilter has his or her favorite fusible, depending on the types of fabrics they use, the kinds of quilts they make, and often personal preference.

On the sturdier end of the spectrum , fusible interfacing lends structure to quilts and 3-D fiber art projects that need more support.

Mid-weight fusibles that often come with a paper backing work well for general art quilting purposes. Fusible fleece provides lightweight loft and can be machine washed and dried.

When fusing sheer fabrics, fabric that you want to drape or shape on a quilt, or quilt art with many layers, many artists choose Mistyfuse®.  Mistyfuse is a gossamer fusible that virtually disappears when ironed onto fabric and doesn’t change the hand of the cloth.

It comes in white, black (good for dark fabrics) and ultraviolet. It comes in sheets or on a bolt, and there is no paper backing. You just cut the size you need, lay it on your fabric, cover with a silicone sheet (baking parchment or a specially made reusable “Goddess Sheet”) and press with a dry iron.

Jamie Fingal always uses Mistyfuse when creating her art quilts, because the product allows her a lot of versatility with her fabric choices, she says.

“It fuses beautifully to wool felt, other felts, silk, sheers, photo transfer fabric, cotton, metallics, and even leather and velvet,” she says.

mistyfuse fusible web
Mistyfuse fusible web is so sheer you can clearly see the silicone
Goddess Sheet and a cutting mat below.

Jamie offers the following advice for using Mistyfuse to make a quilt:

1. Use the ultraviolet variety on sheers because it disappears when you layer the sheer fabric onto another piece of fabric

2. Save all your leftover snippets for future use. “I store all of my Mistyfuse scraps in a gallon zipper bag that I keep at the outer edge of my table-away from the iron-because you never know when you will need a small piece.”

3. Pre-fuse several pieces of fabric at a time and store them for later use so you are ready to go when you want to start creating. “I store all of the fabric that has been Mistyfused in bins by color, for easy retrieval.”

To teach you how to make quilts using fusibles–including Mistyfuse–we’ve put together a Fabric Fusing Fun: Complete MistyFuse Kit. It includes Mistyfuse, a Goddess Sheet, and three Quilting Arts WorkshopTM videos that teach you how to quilt with fusible web, by Jamie, Sue Bleiweiss, and the team of Laura Wasilowski and Frieda Anderson.

There are limited quantities, so be sure to order your Fabric Fusing Fun: Complete Mistyfuse Kit now.

Living Under the Rainbow

May 5th, 2014

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

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…left side (northeast)

Rainbow, right, southeast

Rainbow, right, southeast

 

 

 

 

 

 

Makes me want to pull out the paints!

Sunset, west (duh!)

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 57 seconds which, given the cold, was pretty good!

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

Javelins in the ground

A mistake of a photo, but I kinda like it....

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!

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 4x400

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

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

What a SKY!

What a SKY!

 

My DVD on sale at InterweaveStore!

April 25th, 2014

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

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:

Amaryllis in Living Colour

April 20th, 2014

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/

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/

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!