Something About Nothing

Thank you everyone for your entries! Congratulations to Kit Lang,  winner of Martha Sielman's book, Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits !!! Email me your address Kit and I will pass it on to Lark books so they can get you your book!

I played around a bit more with color, gradient and texture in the zen doodle from my last post.  Here's the before texture photo:  The color and lines makes this one feel more masculine to me. My friend,  Anneliese , suggested turquoise with red so I drew a new piece and started on the turquoise.  I then decided that I didn't like the dots and lines in the flowers so I removed them all with photoshop and then. . . . . . somehow ended up adding yellow instead of red!  Next time I will play with the red! Anyone have another color combination they think I should try?

Inspired by this month's Sketchbook Challenge  I sat down to doodle this evening.  I grabbed a plastic card from a the fun center I went to yesterday to use as a straight edge and ended up tracing around the entire card in various places around the sketchbook page.  I liked the base the rectangles gave me on the page.  I doodled around, filling every available space  and when I finished. . .  . . .I felt like I overwhelmed the page. It was time to take what I learned and begin again. I started with the smaller spaces. . . . . .and then decided to fill in the larger spaces with oversized flowers. Before I went too far I uploaded a photo of my garden doodle  to play around with it in photoshop. Some I saved and some I didn't,  but I had a lot of fun and stayed up WAY too late. I really like using complimentary color combinations. I like that the large flower sections are colored in  but the smaller...

First off, if you need more fabric for your stash, or even if you don't, Craftsy is having a fabulous Flash Sale today until Midnight.  40 to 70% off!   Click here and go check it out!   NOW!   I'll wait! When you're done shopping come back  and see what I've been up to this week! My kids are out of school and I feel like I've been busier than ever! And I suppose I shouldn't say they are out of school because they decided to take summer school classes.  Between classes, volleyball conditioning and hanging out with friends (theirs AND mine)  I feel like I rarely get out of the car! And I certainly haven't been in the studio!  Boo! Oh well, I did spend two days with this view. Two days at a volleyball tournament 40 minutes from home.  Thankfully they had wireless access so I could check email and such in-between the games.   Shayna came with the second day and enjoyed the extra attention. When I have been ...

 I'm excited to be a part of Lark book's blog hop for Martha Sielman's book: Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits.   Martha filled the book with the work of over 100 quilters.  There are also more in-depth features of 21 artists.  One of those artists is Maria Elkins .  I've been an admirer and follower of Maria's work ever since I first saw her on Quilting Arts TV in 2009.  She has inspired me  in many ways through the years.  I am honored to be able to share my recent interview with Maria and then to give one lucky reader a copy of this book! Many Art Quilters come to the medium through traditional quilting and as you like to reference traditional quilts in your art quilts,   w ere you a traditional quilter before you started creating art quilts and if so what led you to making art quilts? No, I've only made two or three traditional quilts. I was first introduced to traditional quilts in the 1970's. There was a natio...

I know some pretty amazing quilters. They belong to the same guild I do. I wouldn't be doing the quilting I am doing today without them! I'd like you to meet just a few of these great people: This is Alice, she is 96 years old and she is still hand quilting everyday. She just bought herself a new Bernina sewing machine because her two other machines finally gave up on her. Alice is who we all want to be when we grow up.  This is Anne . Anne is a fabulous artist. She inspires, encourages and uplifts me.  This is Florence. Florence used to be in the military and is very regimented in her work. She does some of the most amazing piecing, appliqué and quilting. She was the first person who taught me how to quilt with a walking foot. This is JeanMarie. She is a wonderful person. JeanMarie designed and made this quilt for her grand baby. Hand appliquéd with flannels.  This is Mardi. Mardi is the chair of our Charity Committee. T...

I've been asked to share my experiences with mono-printing on Gelli Plates over at . . .And Then We Set It On Fire.   I hope you will stop on over there and have a look!  I've spent the last week and a half creating my first video tutorial for this post.  I had a lot of fun and a lot of headaches getting it all together but, believe it or not, it makes me want to do more video tutorials!  Anyone have an idea for what they would like to see next?

I've done a lot of sun printing with Setacolor Paints but I recently heard that you can do sun painting with ANY textile or craft paint. "What?!?! NO WAY," you say, "that's IMPOSSIBLE!!   You have to have specialized paints that contain special,  fancy chemical stuff in them to sun paint!!" I didn't believe it either so I pulled out the Setacolor, Jacquard Textile paints and cheap-o acrylic craft paints and tried them side by side.   Guess what?   They ALL worked! Here are my experiments so you can see for yourself: 1. Pfd painted with watered down Setacolor, Jacquard Textile and Acrylic Craft paints.  2. Add various resist items and set in the sun to dry. 3. Remove items and see the amazing results! You can't see it in the photo but there are some pale images in the Jacquard section.  I thought the textile paint had already been watered down when I used it but perhaps it hadn't so I decided to do another experi...