CQMag Online is Out

I am behind the news again this morning because CQMag Online has been out a week or so. So make a cuppa and settle back to browse and read. What is in the latest issue? I am picking the eyes out here but to give a brief and quick overview of what this issue contains first there is a continuation of Barbara Blankenship’s Ideas and Inspiration Challenge. Don’t miss it as Barbara assembled interesting seam treatments and motifs for inspiration in your crazy quilting. An article My Favorite Crazy Quilt Embellishments by Dean Deerfield ties in with this.

Allison Aller writes about a method for finishing blocks in Mounting Crazy Quilt Blocks Onto Foam Core.

Leslie Ehrlich has started a new Yahoo group to promote Crazy Quilting with CQ Promoters.

Stephanie Novatski gives us the fourth installment Creating a Memory Quilt from Ties. Stephanie Novatski has also written a step-by-step tutorial for the tissue paper transfer method in Transferring a Design onto a Dark Fabric Using Tissue Paper and in Using a Die Cut Machine for Appliqué Shapes Stephanie uses a die cut machine for quilting.

Barbara Blankenship introduces a technique for edge-dyeing ribbon and Julie Yonge shares an idea for spooling ribbon in Wind ‘Em Up

Gail Odegaard has translated an idea from the world of paper crafts into Crazy Quilting with Quilted Tags.

Marie Alton has produced a pattern for making CQ pincushions.

These are just a few articles in this issue. There is heaps more. As I said make a cuppa and pop over and see for yourself what is on offer in the latest issue of CQMag Online.

 

Work in Progress crazy quilting, samplers and chatter!

Hi all grab a cuppa, as you can see I have done a little more crazy quilting work. Not much stitching because work is busy and frankly from now until the end of the year it just gets busier. I am also polishing my latest online workshop that is on offer at Joggles so for the moment stitching time is limited

The other week I lay out a few of these completed blocks to see how they would sit together and this is what they looked like. Progressing and they look better once they sit together. As usual if you click on the photo it takes you to a larger version.

As I said above I have been polishing my latest class Studio Journals: A Designer’s Workhorse . Since this is a new course I will be tinkering with it until it starts! If you are interested follow the link to find out more about it. The other course that is available is the Encrusted Crazy Quilting which teaches people crazy quilting. It has been very popular and there has been lots of new hands to crazy quilting find their way to me. Once again follow that link if you are interested.

On another note who has been following the progress of Annie’s sampler over on Annies Crazy World. She was inspired to start it after I pieced mine together. Just to remind you what it looked like - here is the image again.

For years I have made and kept samplers as a personal reference and teaching aid. I just love them. I always make them 15 cm (6 inches) wide and long like a band sampler.

Pieces are worked on a number of different fabrics. Linen, aida and cotton are all represented on a number of different counts from 25 count linen to 38 count. I plan to just keep adding to the roll so this sampler will be forever a work in progress. Currently the sampler measures the sampler 33 ft 2 inches or 11.05 yards in metric that is 1010.92 centimeters or 10.109 meters but I have two more sections to add that I have worked since the start of the year.

The reasons for stitching these samplers together in one long roll is that it is easier to travel with them like this. A pile of teaching samples stored like this are lighter and more compact - think about how heavy they would be if this amount of teaching samples were housed in plastic slip files in folders. The main reason I did it however is that I like to hand out samples to students in workshops and lectures so that they can see and feel what a stitch is like. People learn by touching, but unfortunately in the past a couple of samplers were handed out but never came back. I figure if they are all stitched together no one can stuff it in their hand bag. So it is a security measure! It also means odd samples can not get lost.

Often along the way I have added a little bit of text stating the date or what has been happening. Like this

Now Annie’s of Annies Crazy World has taken this idea and really run with it. She has been documenting bits of her life on her sampler. The other thing I really like is that Annie’s sampler is 4 inches wide. It is just so appealing when you have it in your hand! Annie and I get together every week to stitch and I can’t stress how delightful her sampler is. I have fallen in love with the width. So much so I thought to start to another thinner sampler but decided against it because I felt that part of the appeal for me is that my sampler consistently tells the history of my stitching so I am still working on a a 6 inch width but attracted to the format that Annie is using.

Anyway thats a very round about way of saying a sampler (and the crochet rug I spoke about last week) are the other things I am working on.

On another note: Do check out the comments on yesterdays post as many new bloggers are leaving their details and its a great way to find new faces. Swing over, check them out, leave a comment and welcome them to the online community of fiber blogs. It is great to have the opportunity to share what we do but becomes very empty feeling if no one comments. So as I say check them out and let them know you have dropped by.

 

Time for the letter E

This weekend take some time to make a cuppa settle back and enjoy some blogs from another section of the big blog list. I am publishing a letter from the list every couple of weeks, so that people have chance to browse the blogs they may not have encountered.

I try to choose blogs are mostly on topic and written by textile practitioners and designers who do such things as quilt, stitch, dye, sew, embellish fabric, bead, use visual journals, and are interested in art and design.

Letters A , B, C and D have all been popular I hope you enjoy these. Let me introduce …. the letter E !

Earthtone Studios Sue is a mixed media artist working with collage, assemblage, altered books and various paper arts

El Blog de Gabi Campanario Gabi is an illustrator and he blogs page spreads from his fantastic sketchbook

El Cielo Studio Journal Susie Monday describes her blog as being about “stitching and dyeing and printing of the craft of art cloth and art quilt

Elizabeth Creates Elizabeth’s interests cover mixed media and altered arts, crafts, beading, sewing and creating art dolls

eLoomanator is a blog about weaving on little looms but also touches on other craft and sewing interests

Embroidered Collage or Artist Perpetually in Progress by Beth Robinson documents her experiments in technique, her design process, including her visual journal, samples and her interest in contemporary textile work

Embroidered Prayers of Peeling a Pomegranate

Embroideress is the blog of Linn Skinner who researches historical embroidery and designs samplers. Her blog is really worth looking at as she turns up all sorts of interesteing textile related items

Embroidery and design work is a blog kept during the City and Guilds course in Embroidery

Embroidery Overlaps Barbara works with contemporary texilte techniques and embroidery to produce fabric postcards, journal quilts, and various other projects.

Emma Kirsopp is an Australian artist who holds a bachelors degree in Art and a Masters degree in contemporary art (visual art) Her blog contains images of her drawings and works in progress

Empty Easel houses articles on art, painting tips and advice for artists on how to market their work online

Enchanted Art Elizabeth is a fiber and mixed media artist who says she enjoys “traditional patchwork quilting as well as incorporating other materials such as paint, beads, wire, and more

Enter the Stitcher Lisa is a cross sticher who blogs her work

Ephemeral Alchemy Kelli dyes, stitches, collages, makes books and creates assemblage pieces

Ethel’s Blog covers Ethels interest in paper arts quilting, sewing, knitting and craft

Everyday Revelations Kate is a crazy quilter who posts images of her blocks

Everything is Contextual Juj frequently draws and publishes images of her yummy sketches on her blog.

Exploring Color and Creativity Nita paints and teaches watercolour and blogs about this topic as well as art and creativity.

Expression Studio Gail is a photographer who is also interested in mixed media and fiber

Extraordinary pencil is a blog that features some extraordinary drawing skills from the hand of Marsha Robinett don’t miss checking it out as this blog is a gem!

Extreme Craft covers contemporary and Indi craft

Eye Level is a blog produced by staff of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

 

Make a sewing kit

This tutorial on Mackville Raod shows you how to create a small traveling sewing kit bag for toting around sewing supplies. It is a cute wallet made up of three handy pockets to hold things like threads, scissors, needles, etc. For those who carry a visual journal in your hand bag it is also an ideal pattern that easily be adapted to a wallet to carry a modest amount of drawing supplies. So as a fabric stash buster check it out.

 

My new online course is available!

I am bouncing around this morning as my new online class has been announced. Yes the news is I have a new course to offer via workshops at Joggles.co

Drum roll please …. It is called …. Studio Journals: A Designer’s Workhorse

The aim to help people keep and use a studio journal and hopefully students will not only put stuff into it but develop designs from that ’stuff’ and take what they design into a fiber form of some sort. Here is a a description taken from the blurb …

Keeping a Studio journal is a process for catching ideas, developing those ideas into designs with the aim of realising those designs in fiber. Unlike an Art journal which aims to be an aesthetic object in its own right a Studio journal is a designers workhorse.

This course covers the process of using a Studio journal to create designs suitable for textiles such as contemporary embroidery, or quilting. To use a Studio journal as part of your creative practice you do not have to know how to draw but there are some tricks to establishing a process that leads to a design that can be applied to textiles. This workshop covers the process of how to keep a studio journal, how to develop and idea further, and how to turn it into a design suitable for a project in fiber

Painters keep a sketchbook to take visual notes of what they see but their finished paintings and their sketches are very different. Writers keep notebooks but their published book is not the same as what is first put down. Notebooks are starting points for more developed ideas. Both writers and painters go through a process using their sketches and notes as a starting point. Fiber artists do the same thing when they develop a design. Studio journals can be used as the starting point for textile practitioners. This is what this course is about.

Each week a series of design exercises are introduced. Students work though these in order to develop designs that can be applied to fiber. They aim to develop design skills and the habit of using a studio journal.

Please note that this course is about keeping a studio journal as a work horse not about creating an art journal that is a finished object in its own right. The emphasis is very much on using a studio journal as part of a design process to produce something in fiber. The course contains design exercises and techniques and discusses how these might be applied to textiles. It is a course where students spend their time designing for textiles and working in their Studio Journal rather than working a step by step project. That said I am definitely not going to discourage anyone from jumping in and making something!

This class will begin on June 27 and click here to order it from Joggles.com

Also my Online class Encrusted Crazy Quilting will run again

Also taken from the class blurb …

One of the delights of crazy quilting is that there are no rules. This is liberating on one hand but for those who are beginners they often get stumped as to where to start and how to control what they do to start! Encrusted Crazy Quilting offers students the opportunity to learn how to piece, develop and heavily hand embellish a crazy quilt block with hand embroidery, beading and exploring different embellishing techniques while solving design, composition and colour issues. This class is suitable for beginners to intermediate crazy quilters.

Encrusted Crazy Quilting will start on June 19th Click here to order or find out more

How the classes work
There are two major components of online classes, the lessons themselves, and the forum. The lessons are the guts of the class. The lessons are an Adobe PDF document are disseminated to the students by joggles.com. Each student is given a User ID and password as well as the URL to the class webpage where they are expected to go and download each lesson. There is a one lesson per week. I have designed the lessons so that people can work at them as much or as little as they choose. Some people have more time to put into them others do not. I understand this, for this reason I have designed the lessons to be self paced.

The expectation is that the students download each lesson weekly and progress through the class. They can choose to just do a few hours stitching or more. It’s up to the student.

Each student is invited to register at the forums, which is where all class communication takes place. While not real time chat, you can post messages. I check the forum daily to answer questions and join in on the chat. Students can post images of their work online so I can give them feedback. Participation in the forums is totally voluntary but I think this is the fun part of the process as it is where students get feed back from me, bounce ideas off each other and share pleasure in learning a new skill.