"Art on Easy Street" festival

Today was such a scorcher! Still that didn't stop many folks (including me) from visiting the art festival on Easy Street in Salisbury, this show just gets bigger and better every year with 102 vendors this year, wow! A special treat for me today was visiting the Looking Glass Art Collective down on Lee Street. I had not visited their shop, and was surprised to see the quality and variety of art for sale there, from funky upcycled clothing, to beautiful jewelry and paintings, hand-made baskets and pottery, there is something for everyone there. I also ran into a couple of old friends, and who knows? I may join this very talented group myself!

As it is now, I currently have my fiber art in 3 galleries/shops; I just sent my newest batch of geode pins to a museum shop in Lincoln, Nebraska yesterday, and I think this was my prettiest group yet! I used some of my own hand-dyed fibers for several of the pins, mostly blues, limes, & greens, and I love the way the colors pop...you can see them at the bottom of this page, just scroll down & enjoy!

NC Quilt Symposium '09

I barely had time to fill orders and catch my breath before it was time for NC Quilt Symposium 2009 in Raleigh! What a wonderful show it was, gorgeous quilts, great vendors, inspiring classes and teachers, and busy, busy, busy! I had never vended a show in the Triangle area, and I met some fantastic folks there, as well as seeing lots of friends I knew. One of the highlights for me was meeting Rachel Clark, she is just as funny in person as you would expect! And what a talent she is; she was judge and host of our Wearable Arts Fashion Show at symposium that Friday night, and I was so shocked when my "Tribute to Hiroshige" jacket won Best of Show out of 26 awesome entries! What an honor, it really was very humbling. (See photo of my jacket with Rachel and the 1st-place winner of the jacket category at left.) Then we had a treat: entrants got to model Rachel's wonderful trunk show of jackets, coats and capes, and what a feast for the eyes! Her eye for color and design is truly amazing, and the attention to detail on each garment was so special with unique buttons and embellishments on each and every piece. The final garment in her show was her most recent entry in the Bernina Fashion Show, a breathtaking blue floor-length cape that was a real show-stopper! What an inspiration you are to us all, Rachel!

Pittsburgh Quilt Market

International Quilt Market was held in Pittsburgh, PA this spring, and what an awesome show it was! I had never been to this beautiful city, and was pleasantly surprised to see how artsy it was: lots of gorgeous architecture, history and culture. We were fortunate enough to stay at the historic Renaissance Hotel downtown, located right across the street from the Allegheny River (see photo at left.) If you look just under the arch on the right, that is where our room was, and we could look out the window and have a beautful view every morning. The hotel itself was extraordinary with its exquisite winding staircase and elegant decor, and we were close enough to the quilt show to walk back every evening (we caught the free shuttle in the morning.) One evening we were walking back and noticed so many pretty girls in long gowns around the hotel, some of them accompanied by tuxedo'd young men, and found out our hotel was hosting their high school prom! What lucky ladies to have their prom pictures taken on that glorious winding staircase.

The quilt show itself was just up the street, also just across from the river; at left is a photo of one of the beautiful bridges we had a view of from the 2nd floor lobby of the convention center, the front of which was a wall of windows, and so you could see for miles. The quilt show was just huge! To give you an idea, my booth was #2655...that is a lot of 10' spaces! I met so many wonderful people there, so many nice shop-owners from all over the country, and I had a great response to my new pincushion patterns and also the hats, everyone seemed to know someone who needed a hat, often due to cancer, and they loved how quick and easy these projects were. One highlight came at the end of the show when Eleanor Burns strolled through my booth and ordered a Cozy Cloche pattern to make a hat for someone close to her, what a nice, very classy lady. I also met some fabulous vendors, both in the fabric area and in publishing, and also ran into lots of old friends! I did notice some trends: lots of vibrant color this year, brighter hues to bring joy and happiness to our world with its sluggish economy, limey green, teal & turquoise, richer shades of warm colors saturated in sunshine, warm toasty browns...I also noticed a lot of bird themes, my "Peacock Pincushion" fit right in, as did all my newest pincushion patterns with their bright fresh colors! National Nonwovens introduced their new line of XoticFelt, made of bamboo and rayon, gorgeous colors and softly drapeable. All in all it was a great show, and I'm looking forward to seeing folks again this fall in Houston.

Spring "bling"!

Here in the South we are having lots of natural "bling" this spring with a profusion of flowers, budding trees and lots of green! Must be contagious...in my classes my very talented students have added their own brand of bling to their projects, from the gorgeous wool fibers and hand-dyed silk velvet used to "upcycle" felted wool sweaters into unique needle-felted purses, to the gossamer beauty of finished nuno-felted scarves, and the perfectly wet-felted wool bead bracelets (with no wrinkles, wow!), I am so proud of each creative soul I've been privileged to share my inspirations with. I'm posting a few pics from classes at left, and looking forward to seeing what works of art future classes will bring about!

"Hats for the Cure" Workshop

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to be a part of a wonderful group of gals who devoted their day to "sewing for the cure". We made a beautiful assortment of about 20 hats which will be donated to cancer patients going through treatments at a local hospital. A huge thank you to the ladies who gave their time for this worthy cause! And also to Randy's Quilt Shop, who was so gracious to host the workshop - a benefit was that we got to shop Randy's great sale! Thanks to all who made this gathering such a success; I've posted a photo of some of the merry stitchers at left.

Winter Quilt Shows

What a crazy, wonderful time I've had in the last few weeks at the quilt shows! Although I didn't really expect things to be quite as "wintry" as they turned out, I can think of worse scenarios than being snowed in at the Embassy in Hampton, VA (^_^) We saw so many amazing quilts, made some wonderful and talented new friends and ran into lots of old friends, and found inspiration everywhere we went. I was especially gratified to see folks from last year's shows who had caught the "felting frenzy" from me, and brought their own magnificent felted creations to share with me...wow! For me, there is nothing better than seeing my students' success. A special thanks to Alby and my family for putting up with me and my crazy schedule.

Wool Beads Bracelet Class

We had such fun in our class at Ben Franklin's yesterday, the girls made some gorgeous bracelets, and one of them even sent me a picture, you can see it below left - isn't it beautiful? Margaret chose rose and chocolate brown for her 2 fiber colors, and with the addition of some Angelina fibers, her finished wool beads reminded me of frosted raspberries, so pretty. The artsy glass lampwork beads she chose as spacers gave a nice Rennaissance feel to her bracelet, a true little art piece she finished in class.

Another bracelet was made with earthtone colors,a creamy ivory and mocha brown; we were thinking how pretty the ivory beads would be if you needle-felted little animal stripes on the lighter beads with the brown fibers, a great way to cover up any little wrinkles BTW. Her bracelet also turned out so pretty with some nice earthtone beads that pulled together both colors. Great job, ladies! And we had fun trading ideas about all sorts of other creative venues as well...a great class!