My second cover!

Wow! How cool is that to have my first two covers on the store shelves at the same time!

You can see the whole quilt here until you get your hands on the magazine. Or you can see it for real at the International Quilt Festival- Chicago next weekend in the Cloth Paper Scissors exhibit "True Colors" of mixed media paper quilts.

Ready for Metal

These are all set to have the pewter metal stitched to them.

A note to the universe

Happy birthday Dad, I miss you.

Today was my dads birthday, he died just after midnight a year ago today. I wish that I could have shared with him my accomplishments this last year. I know in my heart he knows, but I still would have liked to see his face and hear him say "ay yup" with his strong Maine accent and his pipe in the corner of his mouth.

I made this book after he died. My dad had the longest obituary I think I have ever seen, full of all his accomplishments as a Mason. I cut up his obituary and collaged it into the book and painted Masonic symbols to go along with it.

He came from a long line of Masons. Growing up I never really understood what he used to do at all those meetings. Over the years I asked my dad about the Masons and found it to be a really interesting organization full of symbolism, ritual and mystery. It was his path to living a good life with moral integrity. The Masonic organization was the most important thing in my dads life, it defined who he was, and I think it made him a great man.

CPS Studios is here!

I love seeing where people make their art, what inspires them and gets their creative juices flowing. Well evidently Pokey does too, she created this incredible special issue. You are going to love this, there are studio vignettes (little sneak peeks into CPS and QA artists studios), and a section featuring some fantastic studios that are the ultimate in art making environments. Pokey has a to-die-for studio make over and then there are some fun projects to personalize your studio.

Boy, was I surprised to see myself on the table of contents page, but just look at all the artists and good stuff included in this issue. Click on the page to read it.

I admire Jane Davila’s custom designed studio with furniture she built herself. I can't believe how perfectly stacked her fabric shelves are, come on Jane how long does it really look like that? lol. Mary Fisher has the ultimate dye space, that sink, I am so envious, and wow what a studio! Jane Wynn’s space is filled floor to ceiling with bins and drawers that you know are filled with the coolest (and creepiest?) stuff on the planet. Sara Lechner wins the award for the studio with the most artistic charm, a European white washed hayloft. Oh, I swoon.

There are so many wonderful studios in here with great ideas for organizing, I could go on and on. You have to run out and pick up a copy, it is supposed to hit store shelves April 1st, but I have noticed many stores put them out earlier.

Here I am in my studio, it’s a rare thing to see my table this clear. At least I have it documented to prove that it was this clean once.

Prepping for CPS Open Studios at IQF Chicago

I am working on a new batch of Fiesta Ornaments for Open Studios. I will demonstrate painting fabric on a couple ornament designs on Friday afternoon (2:30-4:30) and I will be sewing and embossing metal to finish the ornaments on Saturday (2:30-4:30).















The painting takes a long time (especially when talking to people).
The sewing and embossing is much faster, so I want to have plenty of ornaments ready to do the final metal work.
These ones are ready for quilting, trimming and edge stitching.

Happy Easter

When I was a little girl in Massachusetts, we used to go to my grandmother's house in Lowell for Easter and we always had eggs poached in pure maple syrup. My grandmother was French Canadian so maybe that is where it comes from. As strange as many people think it sounds, it sure is good. If anyone else knows of this tradition please comment I would love to know where it originates.

Since my kids are now teenagers we decided to forgo the chocolate bunnies and jelly beans this year and make chocolate zucchini cupcakes. This cake is my families favorite, it is so moist and chocolaty with a hint of cinnamon. If you would like to try this cake you can find the recipe here. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

New designs for painting

This week I have been working on designs that could be used for fabric painting workshops.