C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.
Blank Canvas Books Go on a Cruise, Get All Dressed Up
Kathy Cano-Murillo, The Crafty Chica, took a bunch of lucky people on a cruise and made some fabulous embellished cloth books with them.
The foundation for the piece was our very own Ready-to-Go!® Blank Canvas Book. Isn’t it impressive that a few hours and some Crafty Chic paints, glitters, and iron-on embellishments can take you from blank to beautiful! Look at some of the wonderful art the cruise participants created:
Kathy has more about the books on her blog, plus (Continue Reading...)
Quick Fabric Postcard Project from “Field Trips in Fiber”
We’ve tested this out at the C&T research labs, and it’s true: everyone loves to get a fabric postcard. Blogger Vicki Welsh recently posted instructions for this great little postcard she made with fabric scraps, some Timtex interfacing, and a few embellishments. Try her technique when you need to make something that looks special but doesn’t take a long time.
For lots more fabulous fabric postcard ideas, check out Quilt-O-Grams or Fast, Fun & Easy® Fabric Postcards.
A Doll Quilt for the Princess and the Pea
Instead of doing taxes last weekend, I made something really important: a quilt for a Princess. My friend Rachel made this Princess and the Pea doll and her costume for a school fundraiser, and her husband Gary made the bed. The mattresses came from shirts bought at a thrift shop. Isn’t the whole ensemble adorable?
My contribution was the little Chinese Coins quilt on top of all the mattresses, which I embellished with lace, some of my sewing machine’s fancy stitches, (Continue Reading...)
Weekly Giveaway: Strip & Knit with Style
We’re proud of all our books and products, of course. But we are especially thrilled when one of our books makes international news. Mark Hordyzynski’s book, Strip & Knit with Style, was featured in The New York Times on March 28 for its fourth-place finish in the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year, sponsored by The Bookseller magazine. Apparently, our title caused a little confusion across the pond about what kind of stripping the book promotes. (Hint: (Continue Reading...)
Art Quilts at Play Review
Blogger and art quilter Diane Perin Hock just posted a review of Jane Davila and Elin Waterston’s newest book on the joys of art quilting and surface design. Here’s a brief excerpt:
I’m drawn to Jane and Elin’s work for a variety of reasons. I like the graphic quality of their compositions, their use of color, the perfect balance between simplicity and complexity that their work often shows. I can look at their pieces again and again, and always (Continue Reading...)
The Best National Quilting Day Idea Ever
Tired of always making the same boring old bed and wall quilts? The Shiner Heritage Quilt Guild in Shiner, Texas, thought of the perfect answer: make a quilted car cover instead. Take a look at this beauty:
Five guild members spent 80-100 hours putting together the quilt, seen here on a Chevy Blazer. Here are some of the ladies with their creation:
The quilt, unfortunately, is not for sale. The guild showed it off in several locations around (Continue Reading...)
Author Profile: Wendy Mathson
Have you ever noticed how many quilt designers got their start in an entirely different profession?
Wendy Mathson owned a printing and graphic design business, then became a freelance editor and illustrator before starting to design quilts. She also founded Prayers and Squares, an international prayer quilt ministry that now has 800 chapters around the world. Her new book, A New Light on Storm at Sea Quilts, and its coordinating trimming templates, fast2cut® Quilter’s TRIMplates, are out this month.
We asked her (Continue Reading...)
It’s All About Chintz: The Latest on Barbara Brackman’s eClub
Now up at the Clues in the Calico online club: everything you ever wanted to know about antique chintz. Members can read about its exotic history (including several stints as a contraband item), how to identify it, clues that will help you date antique chintz quilts, and how to shop for reproduction chintzes. As always, Barbara leavens her facts and dates with fascinating tidbits of social history that help bring old quilts and fabrics alive.
Author Profile: Jan Krentz
Jan is a very popular quilting teacher and the author of a number of books, DVDs, and tools with C&T Publishing, three of which just came out this month: Quick Star Quilts & Beyond, Quilter’s Design Mirrors, and Half- & Quarter-Diamond Ruler Set. We caught up with her long enough to ask her a few questions.
What was your career before you became an artist? I was a full-time military wife, homemaker and mother. We have lived in Texas, several locations in (Continue Reading...)
The Latest Thing in Green Quilting
When it comes to making something new and fabulous by reusing old materials, our author Wendy Hill has always been way ahead of the curve. She sewed this raincoat from recycled plastic bread bags decades ago, when she was in high school and green was still just a color, not a worldwide movement.
Wendy’s latest innovation is just as far out in front of the crowd: quilting and making jewelry with recycled zippers. See this article in the Bend, Oregon Bulletin (Continue Reading...)
