Crazy in the Garden

Let’s get to know the author of Allie Aller’s Crazy Quilting a bit better, shall we?

What was your career prior to being an artist?

This sounds weird, but my husband and I were commercial dairy farmers. After 10 years, we sold the farm and he went on to become an airline pilot while I became a stay-at-home mom. The long years when he was away for four days of each week gave me a huge amount of time to devote to quilting. I spent 25 years honing my skills in quilting before I became a crazy quilter in 1999.

What was your first experience as an artist?

Making collages as a 5-year old with wonderful materials and supplies provided by my grandmother. My crazy quilting is a direct outgrowth of that.

How has your artistry changed over the years?

Because after all this time I am deeply familiar with my materials, I can approach my work quite intuitively at this point. I am enjoying using fabrics, supplies, and techniques that are way outside the range of traditional cotton quilting now, too. All the genres of quilting that I have passed through over the years—bed quilts, Broderie Perse, stained glass quilts, and landscape quilting—are now finding a new synthesis in my crazy quilts as well. I think that is what makes my work unique, this deep “sane” quilting background combined with breaking out into this rich and complex format: crazy quilting.

What do you love most about your work and your community?

I just love working. Being in the sewing room, engaged in the design and execution processes, bringing a project to fulfillment–this is supremely wonderful for me.  As they say in baseball, “I live for this!” Crazy quilters are extraordinarily kind, generous, funny, and warm people.  I love them, and getting to know many of them has been one of the joys of my life.

Summer Lake Day

What is your favorite project?

Probably Summer Lake Day, a large crazy quilt completed in 2003 (it’s in the Gallery section of my book). The reasons for this are:

1) This quilt came from very, very deep in my bones; the subject was hugely meaningful for me.

2) It was a major stretch artistically, my first attempt to combine both abstract and representational imagery in a crazy quilt.

3) I got to use a really wide and whacky combination of fabrics, and this was the first time I sewed rocks and sea glass to a quilt.  I discovered that I love doing that, finding inventive ways to incorporate necessary objects and strange fabrics.

4) I had done long term projects before, but the intensity of my relationship to this piece was way beyond anything that came before it.

I got two responses to it early on that I still treasure. One was from an architecture professor who, when examining it, said.  “It’s all there….everything…this is surface sculpture, you know.”  What a thrill that was!  I’ve thought of crazy quilting as three-dimensional work ever since. The other was from a pastor, who started crying as soon as she saw it.  I truly believe that she could tell where it came from in my soul. Also, the fact that it won First Place in the 2003 AQS Crazy Quilt competition was very validating for me.

Crazy for Flowers

Do you have a ritual for starting new projects?

I let a piece gestate in my unconscious for quite awhile, sometimes years.  Gradually it surfaces, coalesces in my conscious mind, and then I’ll start designing it in my head.  When it has to finally come out and get made, much of the work on it is already done. Then I completely clean the sewing room, start assembling my materials, and begin the discovery of how it will take physical shape. I am a serial monogamist, only outwardly involved in one project at any one time. I’ve learned to trust this process and stay sharp as a listener within.

What happens when you finish a project – do you celebrate?

I celebrate for about 10 seconds.  Then I start immediately on the next project, which by then is ripe and ready to get made.

What memorable moment can you share from your travels?

When I was at the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska (in my capacity as a board member for the Alliance for American Quilts), we were given a tour of part of their storage facilities. There was a huge rack of shallow drawers for quilts that could not be folded. Our guide pulled out one of the drawers randomly and the quilt inside it was My Crazy Dream, a very famous and inspiring quilt which is on the cover of Penny McMorris’s legendary book on crazy quilting.  So there it was, a quilt I had studied minutely for hours and hours on the page, was now right in front of me, in all its glory. I just about died.

What makes you really happy?

Color, love, friendship, fiber, flowers, family…oh, and strong hot coffee with pain au chocolat.

Thanks, Allie!
Have a peek at a few more images from inside her book in our Flickr gallery.

No related posts.

Love this distressed heart!

Last week I taught a class on working with Lutradur^® Mixed Media Sheets at Art Supply Warehouse in Westminster, CA. Everyone had a great time painting on Lutradur with Liquitex^® Professional Acrylic inks!™ and Derwent Inktense Blocks. I just wanted to share some of their work with you.

Using water to remove color in areas of this abstract floral

What do I love most about using these particular mediums on this particular surface? The beautiful, intense colors you can get with water-based techniques, and how the colors can bleed and blend along Lutradur’s fiberous surface without clogging or obscuring its translucent texture. Whether you’re painting something realistic or abstract, if you’re creating a background or an all-over surface design…it’s just good fun for anyone and everyone!

The fibers add interesting texture and dimension to a lion's face

Your finished work can be used for just about anything…frame it as is, layer it into a mixed-media piece, use it as part of a handmade greeting card, sew it into an art quilt…the possibilities are endless.

Surface design

Mixing colors with both inks and blocks for a vibrant background

Bold streaks become a dragon

Experimenting with chopstick-style patterns!

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Original orphan blocks

Quite a few years ago, I took a design/improvisational piecing workshop presented by my guild. I made these three blocks, which have been sitting in my “I don’t know what to do with these” drawer since I made them. While editing Rayna Gillman’s book, Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts, I started thinking about applying her process to these blocks.  I sliced them up and started adding in other fabrics, following her “don’t think, just sew” advice. All of the piecing was improvisational, no rulers, just cutting and sewing. I made a bunch of units and put them up on the wall.

Individual units

Then I started sewing the units together. I was merrily sewing away and I realized, uh oh, too much. Way too much going on here. I put everything up on the wall again to take a look and think about what I wanted to do.

Way too much!

I took out the sashing that I had added in, and started working with the four “blocks.” One was still way too busy, so I ended up cutting it into 2 postcards and a little quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.

I liked the remaining blocks and decided to keep them as separate units. I also decided that even though I usually don’t do hand quilting, these needed big stitch quilting with perle cotton thread and embroidery floss—it would add line and texture without being distracting and competing with the piecing. I didn’t want them to have individual frames, so I finished each with a facing instead.

My finished blocks

My next challenge will be to decide how to hang them…keep them as individual units or group them on a backing? Stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. This week’s giveaway—it’s all about free-form!
2. A taste of free-form quilting
3. Wednesday Night Live – replay!

Lisa Fulmer (left) and Rebekah Meier inking and stamping on mul•tex

I’m visiting the Craft & Hobby Association’s Winter Conference and Trade Show this week and there’s so much to see and do! Connecting in person with so many designers, resellers, and manufacturing colleagues is always such a treat. This show just oozes creativity and inspiration—from sewing to quilting to knitting to papercrafts to scrapbooking to mixed media to kids’ crafts—there is something here for everyone.

Rebekah Meier and I demo-ed at the R&M Distributors booth, showing off a very cool new art surface that we are releasing this April called mul•tex™. And we were so delighted to see that everyone loved it!

Rebekah has done some gorgeous work with mul•tex, it’s such a versatile surface. You can paint and stamp on it, stitch through it, distress it, fuse it to fabric or paper. It’s translucent and looks quite delicate, but it’s actually tear-resistant. It has a lovely mulberry tissue texture on one side, with a glossy coating on the other side. We’ll be sharing lots of great project ideas and tutorials using mul•tex here on the blog next month – watch for it!

Journal and patchwork sampler made from mul•tex

We gave folks a sneak peek of Rebekah’s new sequel book, also coming out in April, More Fabric Art Collage. Get your own sneak peek—click here for the Flickr gallery.

The show lasts a couple more days…I’ll be taking lots of pictures of the people, the products, and the booths to share with you soon!

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We had an occasion to commemorate—Carolyn was retiring from C&T! Well, not retiring exactly; more like transitioning into retirement. She went from being a very-valued full-time employee to a very-valued freelancer. But we were going to miss seeing her in the office every day. She’d worked for C&T for 13 years and was a great resource as she knew everything a technical editor needed to know, plus some. Carolyn is the type of person who is not only a co-worker but a friend, too.

So what do we do at C&T when someone retires? (Or has a baby? Or gets married?) We make them a quilt, of course!

Here’s Carolyn with the quilt after we presented it to her last week.

Oh, and just for fun, here’s my dog, Ollie, loving the quilt, too. I had the quilt at home to sew the label on and thought I’d snap a photo.

In case you get the urge to make a quilt like this one—it’s from the book Super Simple Jelly Roll Quilts with Alex Anderson and Liz Aneloski.

Related posts:

1. The Editorial Team: Technical Editors
2. My Oldest Sister’s Quilt
3. Almost Woven, Super Simple Quilt

"Friendship Quilt" from "Heartwarming Possibilities"

Nancy Smith and Lynda Milligan began their business together in 1981. Their venture began with a successful retail store, The Great American Quilt Factory, then branched out to online sales, to book and pattern publishing under the Possibilities name, to designing fabrics, to making television appearances…they are two busy women! Their new pattern pack with C&T was released last fall, Heartwarming Possibilities—4 Quilt Projects to Celebrate Family & Friends. Let’s get to know them each a little better, shall we?

When was your first experience as a designer, and what inspired you to make a career of it?

Nancy:  Our first experience was designing a line of patterns under the Dreamspinner label in 1981. I was inspired to continue designing to keep our retail business afloat!

Lynda:  Yes, our first major line was a set of baby quilts for DreamSpinners. DreamSpinners became a very successful line of patterns that included quilts, stuffed toys, and kitchen accessories and more. Trying to please our retail customers who were craving new patterns, new fabrics, and books was key to keeping us moving with new designs. I am also inspired by working with a very creative design team.

What do you like most about your style—has it changed over the years?

Nancy:  Right now, my favorite aspect of my design is trying to push the boundaries of doing something new for each piece I create. I keep going to the “what if” mantra, which has become what I live by. My tastes have changed over the years and I am much more into mixed media now. Actually in the last 6 months, I have gone heavily into jewelry. 

Lynda:  My Pinterest board—Quilts and Inspiration—shows my love for all styles. I love patchwork, appliqué, and quilting! We had a very diverse store as far as fabric, with a great color wall and so much variety…I loved it all (as you would be able to tell if you saw my stash!).

"Starry Starry Night" from the book "Christmas with Possibilities"

How do you stay connected with your quilting community?

Lynda:  We used to only meet our quilt shop owner friends and design friends at Quilt Market and public quilt shows, but now I keep up with them through Facebook, their blogs, podcasts, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Pinterest. Social media is great to see what’s going on in the quilting industry, keep in touch with old friends, and it’s a great way to meet and learn about new faces that are influencing quilting today.

What happens when you finish a project – do you celebrate?

Nancy:  When I finish a project, I almost feel sad…no celebration, as for me it is the process and not the product that I love the most.  The true inner joy comes from the doing.

What is your favorite design or project?

Lynda:  I’d have to say our Pineapple Quilts. My husband and I invented the “Pineapple Rule” that allowed us to make Pineapple Quilts without using paper piecing or templates. Nancy and I have written 3 Pineapple books and have several patterns published that use our technique. We have taught the technique to guilds and shops and at shows throughout the United States. Another of my favorite projects was our children’s sewing series “I’ll Teach Myself”. The series originally consisted of 4 books—Sewing Machine Fun, More Sewing Machine Fun, Step into Patchwork, and Gifts to Give. We worked with a group of kids aged 5-14 to develop a wonderful set of books that won many awards!  C&T now publishes the books in two compilations—The Best of Sewing Machine Fun for Kids and Sewing Fun for Kids.

What new projects are on the horizon for you?

Nancy:  When I think about what comes next, I have a list a mile long that I can hardly wait to do. I have been collecting pictures and ideas along different themes for years and I’m always waiting to be able to have the time to begin the next series. For example, I collect different food ideas. I have a whole notebook on food that I have collected over the years and someday I will start to put those into some form. I am always on the lookout to see how things fit for me.  I’m also interested in exploring metal. I think that will be my next adventure, and then see how I can combine it with fabric, which is my first love. I love working with different textures.

Lynda:  I want to learn how to machine quilt on my sewing machine. I’ve taken classes in the past, but never dedicated enough time to really learn the techniques. I also want to do some blog tutorials. I really do love teaching and taking classes! Also, in my entryway I have a quilt hanger that needs some new quilts designed to fit that space—one of the first spots that let visitors know what my passion is.

What memorable moment can you share about your travels or teaching?

Lynda:  In late 2004, we were lucky enough to take a trip to South Korea to visit two printing plants that were printing our designs for Avlyn fabrics. We flew into Seoul and the next day took a train south to the printers. We took a guided tour of both facilities, and lo and behold, one of our designs was actually being printed that day. What an education that was, to see what actually goes into printing on fabric, and to see one of our own designs was just frosting on the cake! 

Lynda and Nancy

What makes you really, really happy?

Nancy:  I love to read but it has to be at the end of the day when everything else is done. I am definitely “an eat your peas before dessert” kind of person. But my family, friends, and fabric make me really, really happy. The 3 F’s.

Lynda:  I would have to say I’m always happy; I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl (but when I asked my son, he came up with “serious, yet sarcastic”…seriously?). Holidays make me really happy though, especially when all of the family can get together. We have kids in Southern California and in Ohio, so it’s not easy to gather together often.

Thanks you two!

Related posts:

1. Santa is on his way! A free project from Possibilities
2. Giveaway Day—Heartwarming Possibilities
3. Meet the Insul-Fleece Craft Pack and make a Christmas casserole carrier

Fantastic fat quarters up for grabs!  We’re giving away one of these Artisan Batiks fat quarter bundles from our friends at Robert Kaufman Fabrics to two lucky winners. To get you inspired, here’s a fun blog hop filled with fat-quarter-friendly project ideas from lots of great designers!

To Wear…

A new apron - you’d look great in this, you know you would.

prudentbaby.com

How about a headband - quite stylish and easy to match to your wardrobe.

simplemodernlife.com

Don’t you just love this handbag by Jennifer Ladd?

sewmamasew.com

To organize…

This trim organizer is the perfect way to keep those wayward trims sitting tight in one spot.

allbuttonedup.typepad.com

The poochie bag is so bright, so cheerful, and so totally useful!

thehappyzombie.com

To give…

Pointy kitty stands at attention and is ready to play…love her!

weewonderfuls.typepad.com

Baby’s soft book of colors…you know that baby’s going to drool over those fat quarters, as much as you did when you bought them!

homegrownhappy.blogspot.com

Hope you enjoyed that little blog hop! Now for the giveaway…to enter to win one of these beautiful fat quarter bundles, leave a comment here telling us about your favorite way to use fat quarters.

Deadline to enter is Monday night, 1/16/12 and the two winners (drawn at random from comments) will be notified by email. Good luck!

Related posts:

1. Fabric Dyer’s Dream Giveaway
2. Fabric Dyer’s Dream Giveaway Winners and Lunch Bags! Giveaway
3. Monday is giveaway day!

Beach Houses

Let’s get to know Mickey, author of Mickey Lawler’s SkyQuilts!

What was your career prior to being an artist?
Wow, that’s going back a long way! I have been an artist/designer for the past 38 years. At one point in my young life, I was a high school English teacher and enjoyed it very much at the time.

Tell us about your first experience as an artist.
I was 8 years old. My mother asked me to “go upstairs and draw” my bath – which I did. It was a pretty funny drawing, but I certainly enjoyed making Mom laugh! After graduating from college with an “approved-of” degree in literature and philosophy (while all four years secretly envying the art majors), I immediately enrolled in an oil painting class – and haven’t stopped since.

What inspired you to make a career of your art?
It began with a quilt my grandmother gave my husband and me as a wedding gift. I tell people that, after the third of our three daughters was born (and guided by my grandmother’s quilt), I took up quilting “in self-defense” – as a creative pursuit that allowed me individual expression beyond that of mother and wife.

Then I began selling children’s quilts at craft fairs, soon took a part-time job in a fabric store, started teaching quiltmaking for my town’s adult education program, and within 4 years opened my own quilt shop. During those 10 years I made over 100 quilts, many of which were my own designs, and all of which were hand-quilted. I soon became enamored of creating landscape quilts, and finding no suitable fabrics available at the time, I began painting white cotton fabric to use as skies, water, and other scenic elements. Customers who came to my shop suddenly wanted to buy more of my painted fabrics than the commercial ones, so I sold my shop and inaugurated my business, SKYDYES, painting fabric for quiltmakers for the past 25 years.

How has your style changed over the years? 
In 1984 when I began painting fabric and subsequently selling my fabric, I only painted a few different skies because there were no sky fabrics for quilters on the market at that time. Within a few years, however, I realized the need for water, garden, and other landscape fabrics. All in all, the biggest change has come through years of trying to master the medium of putting textile paint on cloth! Learning, change, and growth keep me passionate about my work.

What’s your favorite aspect of your work?
My favorite aspect of painting fabric is the ritual, for lack of a better word. First, mixing the paints, testing the colors together, envisioning a painting. Then, the physical act of stretching the cloth and dampening the surface. Next, being “in the zone” of applying paint to the cloth in whatever way works for that day’s piece. Finally, even folding the dry, finished work is a pleasurable part, the sense that there are boundless possibilities for someone’s use of this fabric.

When I make quilts, my favorite part of this activity is plunging through my fabric to find the one piece that will inspire a new quilt!

City Pillow

What’s your favorite aspect of the quilting community?
I believe – and have for the past 25 years – that the quilting community is an extraordinary phenomenon in our world today. I’ve thought a good deal about this over the years. I do believe that, because we work with such a pleasantly tactile material, and that because quilts by their very nature (whether on beds or on walls) exude a sense of warmth, those who are drawn to creating quilts have that same characteristic. While I always love teaching and talking with other artists and designers about our work, the absolute bottom line is the genuine depth of caring in this community.

What happens when you finish a project – do you celebrate?
When I finish a painting, I’m usually on to the next pretty quickly. As I get close to finishing a quilt, I have to say the best part for me is sewing the binding to the back by hand. There’s satisfaction and relaxation in this process as I see the quilt become real. Then, of course, I hang it up for awhile to enjoy it – and breathe.

What new projects are on the horizon for you?
I’m currently working on ten 12” X 12” somewhat abstract mini-landscapes inspired by small, but powerful, sections of painted fabric that I have stashed away over the years. These small “exercises” will hopefully become a way to move into a new, large quilt. In my painting, I am experimenting with new techniques for applying paints to fabric to create more abstract designs.

What memorable moment do you have about your travels or teaching?
This is a tough one to narrow down, there are so many. One of my fondest and earliest experiences in teaching “out of state” had me taking a ferry to Long Island and driving to my hostess’ house. She met me in the driveway and nervously explained that she had read an article in Quilters’ Newsletter about how to be a good hostess to a traveling teacher. She was determined to follow the suggestions to a tee, until their three grown sons showed up to spend the weekend. She was so worried that the house would be too noisy and disruptive because they loved playing games, playing guitars, and singing late into the evening. To this day, I’m not sure I ever had so much fun! When she and her husband retired for the night, I was still singing and playing Dictionary with “the boys.” We all remained very good friends over the years and have visited often.

What are some of your other interests?
I love having time to retreat to Cape Cod where I always find new inspiration. I also have been doing T’ai Chi for several years and find it renews my body, mind, and spirit.

Mickey Lawler

How would you describe your personality?
I think I’ve always been somewhat outgoing even as a child. I value humor and can’t imagine coping with the human condition without it. I’m pretty organized and write a realistic “to do” list each day, sometimes for the sheer pleasure of being able to check off items! After breakfast, I generally don’t sit down until evening.

What makes you really, really happy?
People! Laughing with my daughters, joking or cuddling with my grandson, walking arm in arm with friends, chatting excitedly with students and getting to know them. When all is said and done, it’s really all about love, isn’t it.

Thanks Mickey!

Visit our Flickr gallery to see a few more of her beautiful quilts. Check out the promotional trailer for her instructional DVD on YouTube.

The Mickey Lawler Teaches You to Paint Landscape Fabric DVD is also available to rent for 3 days to watch on YouTube…try before you buy!

Related posts:

1. Mickey Lawler’s SkyQuilts…with a giveaway!
2. New giveaway: I love architecture, don’t you?

We just released a really cool new product – the Faber-Castell Quilter’s Pen Set, inspired by Paula Nadelstern. This is the ultimate set of three essential marking pens with quilters’ needs in mind!

Paula uses these pens for marking her kaleidoscope designs onto templates and fabric. You’ll see how she does this in Kaleidoscope Quilts—The Workbook.

The perfect pen really does help make the process of designing quilt blocks, appliqué elements, and fussy cutting so much easier!

The Quilter’s Pen Set comes with two black MultiMark pens (fine point and medium point) that are permanent and colorfast on fabric and paper, but are erasable (and also smear-resistant) on certain non-porous surfaces like glass or the Visi-GRID™ Quilter’s Template Sheets.

They have this handy little green eraser on the end – how awesome is that?

The third pen in the set is a metallic silver PITT Artist pen with a medium point, perfect for marking on dark fabrics. It really does flow nicely for a smooth and solid line. I also love how the silver pen writes on dark paper – bright and shiny, yet legible…perfect for addressing the black envelopes I have for my handmade greeting cards.

I experimented with using the MultiMark pens on metal and plastic surfaces. My writing was permanent and waterproof on all these items below, which was exactly what I wanted. Love it!

The Faber-Castell Quilter’s Pen Set will be available in just another week or two online or at your local quilt shop. You can put a backorder in now, if you want. Our shipment just arrived in the C&T warehouse and I was so excited to try them out and show you how they work – I think they’ll be your favorite set of pens too!

Now for a chance to win a set for yourself! To enter to win, leave a comment here with your answer to these questions:  What kind of gadgets or supplies for quiltmaking are at the top of your indispensable list? Anything you need that you cannot find anywhere?

Deadline to enter is Sunday night, 1/15/12. Five people’s names will be drawn at random from the comments on the this post; winners will be notified by email next week. Good luck!

No related posts.

"Night Fire"

We’d love for you to get to know Peggy Martin, author of Paper Piece the Quick-Strip Way. Peggy’s strip paper-piecing technique turns out gorgeous stars, circles, and borders. Click here to watch a video clip of her demonstration in one of our spring 2011 webcasts.

What inspired you to start a career as a quilter?
I have a true obsession with quilting, and I greatly enjoy teaching other people and making that connection with students. It’s wonderful to be able to travel to quilt shows and guilds to share my techniques and patterns with other quilters.

How has your design style changed over the years?
I began making quilts for my home, mainly in blues and burgundies. Now I enjoy exploring as many different color combinations as possible and playing with the interaction of colors in different ways in my newer quilts.

What do you like the most about your own design style?
I love trying out new paper-pieced designs and experimenting with new color combinations. I also enjoy using some unusual fabrics in my quilts—busy or “funky” fabrics, symmetrical fabrics, and ethnic fabrics are some of my favorites to add a special something to my quilts—and I particularly love using bright, clear colors.

"Snow Flurries"

Do you have a favorite design?
It’s hard to list a favorite, but one of the quilts I most enjoyed was my Night Fire quilt (shown above). I played around with using the block units in different ways, as settings and borders, and just stumbled upon the perfect symmetrical fabric for the borders late one night. It was one of those quilts that really spoke to me while I was working on it—when things weren’t meshing well, I just kept playing, and then suddenly it all fell into place.

What do you like the most about the quilting community? 
It is absolutely wonderful to be able to network and interact with other quilters, quilt artists, and teachers. We learn a lot about the “business” end of quilting, as well as sharing new quilting techniques with each other. The almost instant camaraderie that exists between quilters is truly phenomenal. Sharing our love of fabric and design is very rewarding!

Any memorable moments to share about your travels and teaching?
My favorite part is the wonderful people that I meet everywhere. We all share that common bond—the love of quilting—and I have met some of the friendliest, warmest, most giving people I could have ever imagined. I love getting to know someone and hearing their personal story. Many have had quite tragic events in their lives, but quilting and the fellowship of other quilters has helped pull them through. Being able to express ourselves through the art of quilting is truly a very enriching and healing process!

What other interests or hobbies do you have?
I have a music degree, and when I need a little break from quilting, I often play my piano, folk harp, or guitar . I also love folk music and attend concerts and folk song circles when I can.

What new projects are on the horizon for you?
I want to do more block designs that allow for many different possible variations in settings, and also explore different color interactions that produce special effects. I will be teaching at Quilting in the Desert in January, and I have appearances scheduled at quilt guilds and shops all around the country for 2012. I also teach a paper piecing class online at Craftsy.com.

Thanks Peggy! To see a few more project quilts from her book, visit our Flickr gallery.

Related posts:

1. Congratulations Peggy!
2. Wednesday Night Live – replay!
3. October Releases Giveaway!