Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, special exhibits

The quilt show this year was packed with so much talent and inspiration! I didn't have time to see it all, but I was able to zip around Sunday morning and see some of the show. Here are some photos of some of my favorites from a few special exhibits, the dolls and the wearable art challenge. I entered an outfit in the full ensemble category, sort of a work in progress I called "50 Shades of Green" made up of some upcycled sweaters I assembled thanks to a DVD by Barb Originals, a little colorblock dress of knit and some funky green chenille, and my woolfelt hat featuring a discharge method on the top and based on my #174 "Lady O' Chapeau" pattern. So many beautiful things there, here are just a few.

Mid-Atlantic Felting Classes

I had the best students in my classes at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA! Many of the gals in my Wool Geode class had never felted before, and I was so proud of them, they did a wonderful job on their geodes. This class is a little bit physical and takes some patience too, as they have to wait until their geode dries completely before cutting it (lol, ask me how I know!) But they were real troopers, and several of them came back a day or 2 later and let me cut them, they were absolutely gorgeous! I know this looks like a simple project, who can't felt a ball? But it really is a challenge to get that nice shape and felt it through all those layers even to the inside...they did an awesome job.

The next class, my Mini-felted Bag, was completely different. Oh, we still had the most wonderful students, in fact, some of them took both my classes. But this project had about, oh, 15 steps as opposed to the handful of steps in the geode class. The girls got to choose from my basic kits of coordinating hand-dyed merino wool fibers and a stronger fiber for the inner bag for durability. Then they all visited my "embellishment buffet" of goodies: hand-dyed bamboo fibers, lace, silk threads, metallic Angelina fibers, wool nepps, metallic mesh, curly fibers, and so forth...all sorts of yummy things to add some punch to their bags. I also brought in photos of flowers I had taken for their inspiration. What artists they were! And they learned to felt with a resist. Their bags turned out just gorgeous! I was so proud of each and every one, and I think they learned quite a bit too. We're already planning out next year's classes!

Statesville Show 2013

The next weekend was the annual Quilting and Fiber Art Extravaganza in Statesville, a wonderful show sponsored by the Quilters Gallery. It is not so much a show as a shopping extravaganza, we have the most wonderful vendors hand-picked by Cindy and Patty, sisters who have been in the quilting biz for many years on both sides, so they know how to treat us vendors (they have doughnuts on set-up day!) I feel so blessed to be a part of this show, as I always see so many friends there, both vendors and shoppers. This year was no exception, as I was set up right across the aisle from my dear friend Madeline of Textile Treasures, and right beside of 2 lovely ladies from the Wilkes county guild who had the most charming yo-yo projects. I was also thrilled to see Lisa and Angie from Friends and Fiberworks with a booth there with all their yummy yarns and goodies, my pal Alby, and some great new vintage booths on the front row with Jan Shore and her sweet sisters, along with Dusty's Vintage Buttons. It was just an awesome lineup..but you never quite know how the weather is going to behave for this one, and we did get some snow this year. Didn't hinder the shoppers too much, they came early on Friday and later on Saturday, making for a wonderful show...as usual in my booth, my customers had their hat parties and we took some fun pics!

Also, Andi Reese bought my little #175 "Fascinator Fun" hat pattern on Saturday and went home and made this adorable black hat and sent me this photo on Sunday! I just love what she did with it, the primitive black feather, steam-punk plaid and black rose trim, way to go Andi...and I am so impressed you made this that night, wow! So cute.

Winter Retreat 2013

Wow, I am finally catching my breath after a whirlwind of shows, classes and travel...2013 has sailed in like one big roller coaster ride! After a homey holiday spent with family and friends, I was off to Asheville to teach and enjoy our yearly winter fiber retreat sponsored by Friends and Fiberworks at Biltmore Square Mall. This year I arrived a day early, as I had some filming scheduled at their local news station WLOS. They have a nice little Craft Corner segment airing a couple of times a week, and had invited me to tape a few more of the 3-minute segments. We taped spots on Dyeing Wool with Kool-aid, Needle-felting Denim Wear, Faux nuno-felting, and another that will air later; if you'd like to see them, you can go to http://wlos.com/shared/community/features/craft-corner/stories/wlos_faux-nuno-scarf-311.shtml and also http://wlos.com/shared/community/features/craft-corner/stories/wolos_needle-felting-denim-wear-315.shtml

I was so glad I went up a day early, as we had some bad weather, a bit of ice and a lot of rain. Luckily there wasn't too much snow and ice in the area I was in, there was some flooding though and very nasty weather for traveling. By the end of the day it was about over though, and so I was able to go and set up my classroom in one of the empty storefronts in the mall. We had a very large room, big enough for several classes to go on at one time in different sections of the room, which was kind of nice as you could see what everyone else was doing. My classes were all wet-felting, we had a couple of Nuno-felted Scarf classes and also a Strappy Shoulder Bag class. The students did some amazing work! I love the emerald green of the one scarf, and the bright happy colors in the other. And the felted bags both turned out beautiful and so different! Check out the fun yarn in the warm-colored bag, it almost looks like fish netting...part wool, and so it embedded itself right into the wool fibers..a very clever idea on this student's part. Great job, girls! And I was fortunate to again room with Suzanne Morgan, we always have such a good time, and this trip was no exception. We even got to visit our fave shops, Bellagio and New Morning Gallery in the Biltmore Village, and then made a little trip to downtown Asheville for some wonderful Spanish food and gallery visits. As usual, this was a fun and very inspiring fiber retreat! I'm looking forward to our fiber cruise to the Bahamas next July, we sail the day after my birthday, woo-hoo!!

Houston Goodies

Here's some more of the mouth-watering workmanship I spotted at Houston Quilt Festival last fall, I loved the wearable art and also the art dolls! This year there was a special display by The Silk Experience, with beautiful garments, accessories and all sorts of fun stuff. The red lobster you see in the photo with the light-colored shibori-dyed kimono is actually also a vintage shibori piece, the dyer tied his item up to resemble a lobster, I thought that was just too clever. And I loved the new addition of the steam-punk dolls in the art doll exhibit, my daughter likes steam-punk, so she really enjoyed that as well. How about that big life-sized doll? Pretty awesome. Also including a pic of my Nuno-felted Shawl that won a ribbon at the Stitch in Time Fashion Show luncheon, this is the class I'm teaching on the Fiber Cruise next July (more info on the Schedules page of my web-site www.annieskeepsakes.com)

Trend report: As a designer, one of the things I keep my eyes open for in Houston is upcoming trends. Houston Market is the big wholesale show of the year, and this is the place where many new trends are started, either in color, motif, fabrics, a new tool, etc. I took notes on new ideas, and here are some of the things I spotted:

* Wool...OK, I know I'm all about wool, but there was a ton of it at this show! Woolfelt, hand-dyes, you name it, it was there. Easy to work with, lots of designs on the market, and all colors.

*Vintage: I noticed a very strong trend for "mid-50's" motifs and colors, and I do mean the 1950's. Whimsical takes on 50's-style funky shapes, flowers, animals, clear happy colors like cherry red and that nice retro jade green (like my grandma's counter top), buttery yellows, black and white graphics. Have you noticed the little pictures of retro-looking women with tongue-in-cheek sayings like, I haven't had my cofffee yet, don't make me kill you! Like that.

* Polka dots. Ties in with the 50's retro look. They were everywhere: quilts, ribbons, buttons...there are even polka-dot zippers on the market! Try adding a bit to your next quilt for a bit of punch. I love the black and white ones.

* Color: pastels, soft brights, happy cheerful hues. Black and white graphics too. Turquoise paired with tangerine, I saw this combo in several booths.

* Motifs: Owls continue to be popular, also butterflies.

* Stitchery: by hand, or software for the machine. There was lots of redwork, much of it channeling that vintage feel. Another fun trend was tinted stitchery, where you stitch the outline of the design, then color it in lightly with very pastel shades of color like crayons.

* Modern quilts. I do think we're going back to simpler projects that don't take so much energy to make or view.

So that's just a few of the trends I spotted at the Houston shows, we'll just have to wait and see what lies ahead in 2013...I know I'm ready for some new creative ventures!

Houston Quilts

Finally getting around to posting more pics of the jaw-dropping quilts I saw in Houston, what a busy holiday season we had! I'm actually glad it's over, ready to start out a new year with a fresh new outlook. But I couldn't close the chapter on 2012 without sharing these pics of these gorgeous pieces, these were some of my favorites from the show. Notice the pretty ruched handles on the basket quilt, I thought this was a very clever technique. And I love the pineapples in this pineapple quilt, so bright and cheerful! The black and white and graytone quilt was so much fun with it's take on old-fashioned characters. And some of the quilts looked like classic paintings by the masters; note the arch art quilt, reminiscent of Monet, and the more graphic wave quilt brought to mind the vintage woodcuts by Japanese artist Hiroshige. So much inspiration, it was hard to take it all in!