-
It's officially summer, and that means blueberry season. I'm lucky enough to live right next to my father-in-law's blueberry patch--more of a field, actually. While they last, I just have to walk out my back door and down the path to have access to fresh blueberries for breakfast, a snack...
-
I love to read: fiction, non-fiction, romance, instruction--you name it. And I love it when other hardcore readers suggest books they love and think I would enjoy, too. So today, I thought I'd give you a list of some of my favorite books of the art and craft variety, the ones I have on my studio...
-
At about this time last year, I was setting out for a month-long trip to New Zealand and Australia. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with this region, full of friendly people, beautiful sites, and delicious kangaroo meat. But I was also impressed by the vibrant textile art culture that exists...
-
My entrée into the world of contemporary art quilting began with a timeless needlework technique: hand embroidery. From there my repertoire rapidly expanded to include modern machine embroidery, free-motion stitching, machine needle felting, and much more. But I often return to the simple joys...
-
Is there such a thing as too much texture? I don't think so! Texture is what we art quilters are all about. Texture is what excites the quilt artist and it's what entices the art quilt viewer to come up and take a closer look. Plus, adding more texture to our quilts gives us a great excuse to...
-
Every time I'm planning one of my crazy "Surviving the Runway" retro themes for Make It University! TM and we start scrounging up '80s prom dresses and Halloween costumes, the members of the staff who were teens in the '70s start going on about adding fringe trims to their bell...
-
I started Cloth Paper Scissors magazine back in 2004 in part to give voice to forms of art that mixed fabric and stitch with paint, glue, and embellishment but were not strictly speaking art quilts. Forms like altered books, fabric and paint collages, shrines, assemblages, and paper quilts. One of my...
-
I thought that headline might grab your attention. I recently took a brief three-day break to a beach before our publishing schedule vamps up this summer, and decided to turn my vacation a Stitch-cation. As summer approaches––and so do vacation plans––no road trip or spa break...
-
Since falling in love with the art quilting world more than a decade ago, I've seen thousands upon thousands of quilts. Despite the fact that each one is unique, I've noticed some themes and motifs that attract quilt artists repeatedly: nature, the sea, faces and memories of loved ones, and geometric...
-
It’s officially spring, and not a moment too soon for me. I already traded my boots for open-toed shoes a few weeks ago--and I'm not going back! Now it’s time to open the windows, do some spring cleaning, and let some fresh air into my studio in the hopes that fresh ideas will float in...
-
I'm packing my suitcase again, getting ready to fly to Cleveland to tape the sixth season of "Quilting Arts TV." As hectic as the shooting pace is, I always look forward to taping, because I get to learn new tricks and techniques in person from the guest artist. This season we'll visit...
-
We received so many fun and interesting Let Out Your Inner Animal Challenge quilts from readers that the Quilting Arts editors decided we had to play, too. You might recall my experiments in frog mutations (art quilt-style) on my editor's blog. I enjoyed reading all the feedback to my outlandish...
-
There isn’t normally a great deal of crossover between acting and art quilting , but textile artist Lalla Ward has crossed this unusual divide. Well-known for her role as alien Romana in the BBC television series Dr. Who, Lalla now devotes the majority of her time to fiber rather than film. And...
-
We’re kicking off the new month with a new online feature: the Quilting Arts Community Spotlight. These spotlights will give us the opportunity to focus in on the work of some of our talented QA Community members, to share the stories behind their pieces, as well as their experiences as art quilters...
-
We're introducing a new feature to the Quilting Arts Community... Every month I will be cruising the site, noting what people are posting in the galleries and forums, and essentially looking to see how you--our cherished members--are utilizing our community. I will feature some of notable finds the...