Something About Nothing

Lots of exciting news last week! The Quilting Arts TV DVD, Series 1700 ,  arrived as well as the Feb/March 2016 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine .   I have two episodes on the DVD which were filmed back in September. . .  . . . and an article in the magazine! Both of these dreams can now be checked off my bucket list. I love teaching and am very excited to share my knowledge about cutting stencils and sun printing. Both items can be purchased at the Interweave Store .

The Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild presented a fabulous trunk show at the Quilter's Holladay meeting the other night.  I love Modern Quilts and really enjoyed seeing everything they brought.  Modern Quilts are mostly functional quilts with a modern feel to them.  They often use bold colors and graphic designs, and lots of negative space, but they can also be traditional quilt patterns which have been greatly enlarged or reduced.   Click here for a better definition .   I have tried to get everyone's names connected with the correct quilts.   Hopefully someone will let me know if I need to make any changes. JaNean Frandsen created this quilt for a challenge.  The challenge was to use a Dresden plate ruler.  I thought this was a very clever use of the ruler, and a beautiful design. Some members of Quilters Holladay put together a few charity strip quilts last year and they were commenting that none of their strip quilts looked as goo...

Want to see how a stamp is carved? Click below to view the sped up and condensed video of me carving.  The original 20 minutes is shortened to 2 minutes.  The video is not intended as a tutorial, but you might learn something new.  Enjoy!

The most important part of a stamp is the rubber that it is carved from.  Depending on how long you want to use the stamp and what detail you need, almost anything soft enough to carve will work.  A few years ago I collected a number of erasers as I was getting ready to teach a class on stamp carving.  It was fall and there were lots of back to school sales, so why not buy all the stamps? Just kidding.  I did manage to restrain myself but it was still a lot more erasers than I needed and I am still using them.  They have been decent little stamps and are easy to find if you don't have an art supply place near by, but there are a couple of issues with eraser stamps:  1) It can be difficult to tell which eraser is going to carve nicely until you try it out.  Some carve just as well as the rubber made just for carving and some are crumbly.  If this is your only resource then buy one or two and give it a try before stock piling the eraser...

Carving rubber stamps has been a lot of fun over the years but not as much as it has been this past month where I have carved every single day.  Carving has been relaxing and challenging all at the same time.  I feel as if I have stretched my creativity by exploring different materials and types of stamps.  Someone asked how many stamps I created during Carve December and to be honest I am not exactly sure.  At least 31! I know there were some days when I carved two, or four or maybe five stamps, so I'm sure it is closer to 40.  I will have to go through and count them all.  I have plenty more stamps to post still. Another question I have been asked several times is "what are you using to make your stamps."  I thought I would cover this question in two posts.  This post will cover the basic materials and the second post will cover the types of rubber I used. So first of all, the two things which have helped me most to create my own stamps wer...

The beginning of a new year always makes me ponder things. Today I am pondering inspiration. Where does your artistic inspiration come from? Is it real life. . . perhaps a color, a shape, a scene? Is your inspiration pulled from your own imagination? Maybe it is a combination of the two? What inspires you most?