Something About Nothing

The Book Arts Program at the University of Utah sponsors free workshops.  My friend, Dana Perez, introduced me to the program and I am in love!  My daughter and I went to our first Drop In workshop a couple of weeks ago and we had a grand time. First we went into the wet classroom and learned about Print Litho from  Allyn Hart .  We used black and white copied images that we covered in a liquid gum arabic.  The gum arabic acted as a resist.  We then rolled an oil paint over the image and the paint stuck to the copied image, allowing us to make a print of the image. There were a lot of people participating. Fun to see so many of all ages enjoying art! These are our prints and ghost prints: The two cleaner prints in the center are my daughters. Sigh.  She picked this up quickly. Next we went into the larger classroom and made . . . Gelli® prints! She really enjoyed trying out new things in her prints. ...

This months meeting at the Utah Surface Design Group was wonderful!  We had three demonstrations, each one just as wonderful as the last.  I got wrapped up in the first demonstration and forgot to pull out my camera until it was over.  I hate when I do that! Sally taught us how to make glue gun stencils and masks to use with painting and mono-printing.  These are a few glue gun stencils I made in the past, but I plan to make more especially because of three great tips Sally gave: 1.  Use a glue gun with a very small tip to get lovely fine lines.  The one she recommended is from Ad Tech  and can be used cool or hot.  It can also be used without the cord for about 5 minutes! 2. Once you draw out your design place a piece of parchment paper or a teflon craft sheet over the top of the creation to flatten the design.  A flat image is much easier to use as a mask! 3. Little blobs or circles of glue can be painted with nail polish and then glu...

No, this isn't a political post, it's all about a quilt retreat.  Last week I attended the annual Spring Retreat for Pie Plates Patterns and the theme was "Let Freedom Ring."   Sarah, Bonnie, Sylvia and Misty enjoying the retreat.  This was the first year I attended as just a student. I really enjoy teaching but it was fun being free to do my own thing the entire time. My friend, Helen, behind Sylvia's quilts. My main objective for the weekend was to get this Very Hungry Caterpillar top quilted. When I got there and unpacked I discovered I'd forgotten my Machingers quilting gloves . I can't quilt without them!!!!  I was at least an hour from any quilting store, what was I to do?!? Improvise. My friend Sylvia gifted me a couple of knitted dishcloths as soon as I arrived and they turned out to be a good substitute for quilting gloves.  Woohoo!  Now I only need to bind it. My other main objective was to get the wedding ...

Frances Holliday Alford and I have been friends online for some time and so it was wonderful when we were finally able to meet in person.  Frances came to Utah to shoot an episode for QNN tv's Quilt it: The Long Arm Quilting Show, and do some promotional shots for Handi Quilter.  We had a day of touring Salt Lake and then a day where I got to watch everything behind the scenes. Overlooking the Salt Lake Valley with a bit of haze Some of the deer population at the Salt Lake Cemetery A possible relative of Frances' buried here? We drove around the upper half of the valley, visiting a few cemeteries, and the University of Utah.  We ate lunch at the City Creek Center , did a little shopping and then took a tour of The Beehive House , before meeting up with other quilters for dinner.  It was a delightful day. Frances had her moment as a model for Handi Quilter the next day.   Look for her in magazines and advertisements everywhere! ...

I'm excited to share these newest stencils from Artistcellar with you:   Sacred Geometry 2 . I love me a good stencil and these are four great stencils. I had fun playing with the stencils in lots of different ways. I could break this post down into three blog posts, but I'll share it all here.  I hope you are ready! I wanted to see if I could create a repeat pattern so I pulled out the notebook and traced: I really liked the way the stencil design looked without all of the spaces traced.   I filled in the shapes with zentangly doodles. This was so relaxing. Next, I had to see if I could make a stamp from on the images.   I have been a little obsessed with stamp making lately.   The image was transferred on to the rubber by patting an ink pad over the stencil: I didn't want to waste the corner so I added another part of the stencil there.   No one said the stamp had to be exactly lik...