News

My quilt "Wllflowers" was accepted into a juried show entitled "No Place to Call Home." The quilt show will be in ten national quilt events across the country over the next year. I am excited about my new whole clothes technique and I hope to do a whole series of people in different landscapes. This homeless woman is the first of the series.

This past month I have had some interesting quilting challenges.

I repaired a quilt that had been damaged by a moldy banana. I couldn't find the right kinds a plaids, but I found the right colors in polka dots and the patches look great.

I also finished a quilt that was lost and then found eleven years after the top was made. The baby it was made for is now eleven. I hope the big girl likes it!

And finally I was handed a crazy old quilt in tatters. The backing was destroyed. The batting was made from upholstry and was moldy and the top was made from different kinds of pants and sweaters. Some were in shreds. I went to the fabric store, my stash and my old clothes pile and matched the torn peices with cordouroy and shirt material and found a back material with the a similar striped purple color scheme. Then came the test - could my machine handle the bumps and lumps? Almost! I began quilting without a specific theme in mind and as I progressed I began to see a tidal pool theme - shells, seaweed, and bubbles. I wanted my quilting to lock down the old stitching so I also was going around the funky shapes. And where I couldn't quilt into the corners because the cloth was too thick, I hand sewed.

These three projects made me feel great because I was saving and completing someone'shard work and the quilts can continue to be family treasures. Thank you!

"From the Coolidge Bridge" was selected to be part of the upcoming juried exhibit LANDSCAPE: Scene and Unseen at the Hosmer Gallery of Forbes Library in October. The show will go up on Friday, October 2nd and run thru the end of the month. A reception is scheduled during Arts Night Out on Friday, October 9 from 5:00pm-7:00pm. Come and see it in person!

It isn't as warm as my rented studio was, but it is bigger, more convenient and much cheaper! Here I am working on a Roman shade for my parents. Thanks to my unconventional quilting it grew about ten inches longer than the window. Do I cut the quilt or ask my parents to put in a bigger window?

This month I am working on several commissions and I am starting to plan for the spring fairs. I also received news that I was accepted to be in our local library's gallery which will bring me a lot of local publicity - my show will be in April 2010. This seems like a long way off, but I have a feeling I should start planning now.

I'm in production mode. In the past few weeks I've made over sixty sewn cards, five birch tree wall hangings, a large maple wall hanging and I finished a VT commission which I had trouble sending to the person who paid me for it! I have a fair coming up at the Center School in Greenfield, MA and I am trying to put together a collection of work for some potential gallery shows at local venues and two shows in May including the Amherst Women's Club and a spring TWIST fair. All this mixed in with Mothering, LWV, AEF and a few side jobs!

TWIST was exhausting, exhilarating and a very good learning experience. The customers were friendly, supportive and plentiful and the organizers were caring and on top of things. I look forward to participating again in the spring. To top off the experience - I even made some money which will cover some of my start-up costs! Thanks!

On September 5th and 6th I am going to be part of a new and exciting craft fair - Chicago style - in Northampton. Come and check it out!

This is a picture of me at my first sales event. "Art Behind the Barn" is held at our CSA - Brookfield Farm in Amherst. I successfully sold my quilted cards and had some interested people take my business cards and look at my newly compiled portfolio. The cards will be a nice source of income once I get used to the process of mass producing them! Thank you to Liam for taking the picture.

Check out http://www.coolmompicks.com/ for a cool mom's review of my quilting! The review is entitled, "How to buy an American Quilt" and it was posted June 17th. After the 17th you should be able to find it archived under bedding. Thanks cool moms!

My Big Needle a.k.a. My HQ Quilting Machine was delivered two weeks ago. Since then I have quilted three baby quilts and loaded up a fourth! In the meantime I have learned how to legally bookkeep, bought a few essentials like a radio, a garbage can, a table and chair, accepted a sewing machine from my friend Jenn, taken a great chest of drawers of a college kid's lawn (with his help) and organized my cloth. I've decided everyone with any kind of art or craft deserves a studio - especially an air conditioned one with a view of apple trees.