“Fat Tuesday,” carved wood, oil stain & mixed media, 68″ x 23″ x 4″, 2006 (click image for larger view)
If you think it’s a challenge to create a beautiful quilt with needle, thread, and fabric, how about this wooden quilt carved by artist Fraser Smith? Every detail is complete, right down to the dimples caused by the “stitches” in the “batting.” Click on Fraser’s name to see more of his awe-inspiring sculptures.
Planning to visit the San Diego area this winter? Don’t miss the Quilt Visions 2008 exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art, which runs until March 1, 2009. Two of the art quilts on display are by our own authors, Katie Pasquini Masopust and Charlotte Ziebarth.
Katie’s latest collaborations with C&T are her book, Design Explorations for the Creative Quilter, and DVD, Katie Pasquini Masopust Teaches You Simple Steps to Dynamic Art Quilts. Charlotte has a book scheduled to come out in Fall of 2009.
Terry with his winning quilt, "Mediterranean Cosmateque"
This fabulous quilt by Terry Minchinton, co-owner of Patchwork by Sea quilt shop in Brighton, Australia, won first prize in the Traditional Quilts—Amateur division of the 2008 Sydney Quilt Show. Terry’s design was inspired by the Venice Rose quilt in our author Norah McMeeking’s book, Bella Bella Quilts. Congratulations, Terry!
Our long-time author Jean Wells is one of those people who accomplish so much that you have to wonder how they find enough hours in the day to cram everything in. In addition to writing more than a dozen books with C&T Publishing, she has founded two successful retail stores (The Stitchin’ Post quilt shop and The Wild Hare gift shop, both in Sisters, Oregon), organized the wildly popular Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, and teaches and lectures all around the world. Whew!
Now Jean has taken on a new challenge—helping quilt shop owners prosper in a very difficult retail environment. Jean’s new online club for shop owners, Jean Wells’ Secrets to Retail Success, distills everything Jean has learned about merchandising, shop management, hosting events, and running classes, into a 12-month club, complete with monthly articles, photo gallery, and question-and-answer forum.
Click here to sign up for a free trial membership.
Creating quilts that do a bit more than lie on a bed and look good is a must for nationally known machine-quilter Laura Lee Fritz. “I want people to pick up my quilts 100 years from now and learn about our culture,” she says. “I don’t quilt to make something pretty, I quilt to tell a story. I believe quilts should express the humanity of the human heart.”
One of her favorite quilts, Signs of Summer, is designed to be a visual time capsule showing future generations how the people of today spend their summers. Some of the many images stitched into the quilt are people playing baseball, surfing, riding the rodeo, scuba diving, sailing, kayaking, and climbing, with whales, sharks, sea planes, kites, flowers, birds, and the Golden Gate Bridge thrown in for good measure.
Signs of Summer by Laura Lee Fritz
The Storyteller’s Own Story
Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Laura is a self-taught machine-quilting enthusiast who knew from an early age that she wanted to be an artist. Going to art shows as a young child, she learned that artists could in fact make a living, and later realized that fabric would be her medium. She began machine quilting in 1989. At the time, she was one of only two people in California who owned a long-arm quilting machine. She taught herself how to make the continuous line designs that brought her fame as a quilter and formed the basis of her four books with C&T Publishing. Her most recent releases are: Creative Classics: 250 Playful Continuous-Line Quilting Designs, and Mindful Meandering: 132 Original Continuous-Line Quilting Designs.
Today, Laura splits her time between Northern California, where she keeps a full teaching schedule at Napa Valley College, and rural Bitterroot Valley, Montana, where she raises bluetick hounds, Navajo-Icelandic sheep, and just recently picked up a few cashmere goats because they were cute. “If you saw them, you would have brought them home too,” she explains. Laura practices spinning and weaving as a form of cross-training to keep her thinking from getting too narrow. “I like to reach out beyond quilting and work in different media,” she says.
Laura’s newest adventure in quilting is hosting an online club for machine quilters with C&T Publishing. The club, called It’s Quilted! Laura Lee Fritz’s Continuous Line Club, offers monthly in-depth machine quilting lessons for both long-arm and short-arm machines, plus new quilting designs, a blog, Q&A forum, and a quilt gallery.
What’s next? Definitely more quilting. Laura says quilting is like eating and breathing to her. “Quilting is a high, a total adrenaline rush that I can’t live without,” she says. “It’s in my blood. I will always play with fabric and love the art.”
We always knew Laura was a winner, and now it’s official! Her new quilt, “Housing Department #7,” has just won a prize in the Miniature Art Quilt category at International Quilt Festival. If you’re going to Festival, be sure to stop by Laura’s Booth #1225, and say hello. She’ll no doubt be selling her latest book, Fuse-and-Tell Journal Quilts and her new DVD, Laura Wasilowski Teaches You to Create Fused Art Quilts.
Side Note: Laura recently started a blog, so if you’re a fan of hers like we are, go check it out!
The All-in-One Quilter’s Reference Tool, for one. The November/December issue of Quilter’s Home recommends keeping our handy tool on your shelf to answer those tricky technical questions that always seem to come up when you’re quilting. The tool is packed with tips from top quilters like Harriet Hargrave, Sharyn Craig, and Alex Anderson.
Here’s a news flash from Diana Taylor, creator of fabulous fabric Ficklesticks and author of Fast, Fun & Easy® Fabric Ficklesticks:
A Fabulous Ficklesticks necklace created by Diana Taylor
Ficklesticks, the Full Monty, is on the road again, headed to the Houston International Quilt Festival October 30–Nov 2. Dotty Oliver will be helping me handle all the Ficklestickers in booth #1215. Lots of gorgeous and outrageous jewelry will be available for sale, as well as some large and luscious wall flowers, weavings, and baskets. Naturally, signed copies of my book, Fast, Fun and Easy® Fabric Ficklesticks, will be there for the purchasing, along with the wire, turners, kits and other supplies needed for making your own Ficklesticks. As Ms. Ficklesticks, I will teach a bracelet-making workshop with Janome Sew It and Take It at 6 pm on opening day, October 30. Be sure to come by for that!
The new museum shop at the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, will be selling Ficklesticks jewelry very shortly! Ficklesticks were discovered by buyer for the shop during the brand new American Quilter’s Society quilt festival in Des Moines, where she hand-selected some of my one of a kind patchwork fabric and wire Ficklesticks pieces. They will offer for sale several of my new designs, including swirly girl, ponytail, twentyfiori, and S&O necklaces, the new daisy bell pins and those infinitely versatile double posy bend-and-wrap bracelets.
We’re offering a 25% discount to the first 100 bloggers* who add ctpubblog.com to their blogroll! Here’s what you do:
*The fine print: Any person with an active blog related to quilting, fiber arts, needle arts or papercrafting is eligible for this offer, with the exception of C&T Publishing employees, authors, freelancers and contributors. Offer ends 10/31/08. 25% discount applies only to retail orders at regular or sale prices; one order per household. Discount does not apply to shipping, sales tax, wholesale orders, photography services, or e-clubs. Order must be placed directly with C&T Publishing, either online or by phone.
The Grand Junction, Colorado Daily Sentinel recently profiled the 18-year design collaboration between appliqué artists Linda Jenkins and Becky Goldsmith. Although they live in different states and only meet in the flesh about four times a year, Linda and Becky have still managed to create more than 20 books and 150 patterns, nine fabric lines and a DVD, with more projects in the hopper. How’s that for productivity? Read the full article here.
Lina and Becky’s latest project with C&T Publishing, Aunt Millie’s Garden, is an appliqué quilt with 12 blocks and appliqué borders in the trademark Piece O’ Cake style. Here’s a block from the quilt:
These blocks make a great block-of-the-month program for shops.
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