Studio Kit

Showing posts with label S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y-DAY. Show all posts

A rare Saturday post to share with you that:

my piece, "Fractured" is a featured piece in the exhibit called:

"Throw: Great Lengths of Innovation In Modern Quilting"

being shown at Union Art Gallery in Milwaukee, WI. It opened last night.

From their website:

Who is the modern quilter? Where do they find inspiration? Throw seeks to answer these questions and to expose the Milwaukee design audience to the forefront of innovation in modern quilt composition.

As the resurgence of craft continues in the US, design aficionados are fortunate to witness the inspired movement of modern quilting. Innovative piecing and quilting methods, collaborative interpretations of the medium, and a sublime deviation from the shackles of tradition all inform the modern quilter. True graphic design triumphs with tangibility, modern quilt designs will wake the sleeping memory of your favorite bed clothes with vivid style in form and function.

Featuring quilts, quilted accessories, and mixed media works from artists Maura Ambrose, Sherri Lynn Wood, Julie Floersch, Greely Myatt, Cindy Friedman, Kit Lang, and Valerie Joy.

If you're in the area, please do check it out! It runs from September 21 to October 12, 2012.

COMMENTS CLOSED - Thanks everyone!

It's a Saturday post and you know what that means... a surprise giveaway!

I'm participating in the Quilting Gallery's Blog Hop Giveaway and I'll be drawing on September 4 (my birthday) to give YOU a present!

I'll be giving away a copy of:

and four fat quarters of Kona Solids!

If this is your first time here, I hope you'll have a look around and maybe come back again - and please have a look at all the great blogs on the blog hop.

To enter the drawing, like my Facebook page and after you've done so - leave a comment here letting me know.

Good luck, and have a great time on the hop!

ETA: Please be advised, if you've "liked" my page and have neglected a step along the way, I won't get a notification from Facebook, and I don't get it, you're not eligible for the draw. Please ensure I get that notification if you want to win!

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I came home from work yesterday, and this was waiting for me on the counter. My BSP gave it to me to help celebrate the good news that's came in on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Wednesday, I had a request to exhibit Fractured at the Union Art Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a show called Throw: Great Innovations in Modern Quilt Design which will begin on September 21, 2012 and run through October 13, 2012.

And on Thursday, I had a request to create a piece for a show entitled "Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore" for the City Gallery at Waterfront Park in Charleston, S.C. to be exhibited from August 28th through October 28th, 2012.

Andddddd, "America Now: Walking While Black" debuts at InSea/USSEA Regional Conference United States Society For Education Through Art in Indianapolis, IN in a show titled "American Spring - A Cause For Justice" this weekend.

I've accepted both invitations and begin work on the mermaid piece as soon as I'm done this post!

In my 2011 Year In Review post, I said that one of my goals for this year was to start exhibiting, which is why my BSP got me that celebratory cupcake. I didn't know it would get off to such a bang - I haven't even applied for entry to anything yet!

I feel like I have a pocket full of starlight.

Say that five times fast!!!

I'm doing Jodie Carleton's Rag-Rug-Along at Vintage Ric-Rac. Thank goodness she doesn't have any due dates, because I've been working on this thing for months, (well, an hour here and there) and it's only the size of a dinner plate. lol That said, if you're a joiner, you can still do so, 'cuz she's cool like that. :)

And also - I told my friends last week I was pregnant (and they all said "Ooooo0000ooo???? Because I'll be 50 and menopausal - lol); but my baby arrived last night. May I introduce you to Tyler Jackson Lang:

A one year old Yorkie-Poo from one of our local pounds. He's loverly!

And don't forget - the giveaway ends tonight at midnight!

ETA: GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED.

Winner will be announced on Monday. Cheers, dears!

Would Barb and Sharon report to the front desk, please?

As you know, I don't usually do Saturday posts, but I reached a rather silly personal goal this week and I had always planned that if I achieved that goal, I would acknowledge it with a giveaway.

But first, I have to tell you a story. :)

Before I started blogging here under my own name, some of you will remember, I had another blog, Diva Quilts. It was where I began when I first started quilting in 2008, excitedly sharing what I was so proud of, with my horrible photos and quite badly made quilts. lol

And I was out here in the universe all by myself - so I was so excited when all of sudden, I had my first followers: Crystal at Sonnet of the Moon, and Elaine at La Belle Helene. I wasn't talking to myself any more!

By 2010 I had started to explore art quilting. I wasn't much good, and most of my regular readers weren't very interested in what I was doing - they seemed to want me to post finished quilts, go "Ta da!" and move on - or at least that was my supposition when former followers began fleeing my blog in droves! lol At one point, I had nearly 300 followers, but by December of 2010 it had trickled down to 128.

So I started another blog, where I would chronicle my art quilting experiments. I called it "Coneflowers In Leslieville" (I live in a suburb of Toronto, called Leslieville.)

That blog was pretty much a failure. (After a year, I had 27 followers.) I didn't tend it properly, felt torn between two worlds (quilting and art making) and after a year of doing both blogs and not making any great strides with either; I closed it, combined all of my previous content from both blogs here and I said to myself:

I'm going to do what I want to do and hope that SOMEBODY will like it. But even if they don't, I'M DOING IT ANYWAY!

There may have been some puny fist shaking as well. :D

It started off pretty slowly. A handful of people from my Diva Quilts blog followed me here, and a couple from Coneflowers too (bless their hearts!); but in the first month I had only 14 followers. And so it became a running joke between BSP and I that a blog I hadn't even blogged on in 2 months, 4 months, 5 months - not only had more followers than the blog I was actively posting at, but actually had more HITS although I hadn't posted there in 5 months!

When I hit the six month mark here, I had about 45 followers, and was finally getting more hits than Diva Quilts did. I figured I had reached a turning point, and set a secret goal for myself - I wanted to have as many followers here by my first anniversary as I did at Diva Quilts.

Well, thanks to Barb and Sharon at Wit's End, I reached that goal this week! Nearly two months before my actual goal date. You two are collectively my 128th followers! So, thank you for helping me reach that goal!

As for the REST of you - all of you are the ones who have helped me achieve this goal after all, so I wanted to thank you. One of you will win the stack of fabric as shown above (Buddha not included). :) There are two lengths each of two Kaffe Fasset prints, a Robert Kauffman floral and then two lengths of solid purple cotton (not Kona). Combined, there are a couple of yards of fabric.

Leave a comment on this post, and one of you will win that stack of fabric!

Thanks for coming along with me. I'm so glad you're here.

You're all awesome,

I'm doing a Saturday post because I want to remind you all of the giveaway. I don't have anything to say really, so check out this video I made instead:

and don't forget to check out the giveaway!

.

If you want to see it bigger - it's on You Tube as well. (I couldn't make it embed for some reason).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojdswzVSNFw&list=UUj0Z_Ilf0ssDu_iM1a0SsQA&index=1&feature=plpp_video

I live in an area that is "gentrifying", which is probably a fairly terrifying thing for the working poor who live here, as a neighbourhood that gentrifies never works out well for them. :(

The advantages for a family like ours though, is that the neighourhood is affordable, there are lots of amenities at our doorstep while still having a "family" feel, and there are all kinds of funky/cool things going on here. Real estate agents call our neighbourhood "vibrant" . I must say, it's a lot of fun to live here.

You can't throw a stick without hitting an art gallery or a bistro and unusual home-grown clothing stores abound, but it's still quite mixed use. There are some quite well off folks in the neighbourhood, lots of middle class people, working poor and some down and outer's all living quite happily together.

There's a women's shelter around the corner from the organic butcher, which is across the street from a park; where most Saturdays people from the neighbourhood play live music and kids play in the leaves, while other folks walk their dogs, or stop in at the neighbourhood coffee shop for a cuppa.

Next to the butcher is a wool shop where most days a group of ladies are knitting in their circle, which is beside an Indian take-away, which abuts an art gallery, which is beside a large applicance repair shop which is next to a high-end pet supply store.

Within walking distance, there's an assisted living centre, a library, a retirement home, several very upscale restaurants,

a diner, a run-down bodega that has just about everything, a shop that specializes in eyebrows only (which never seems to have an empty chair!); a second-hand goods shop, a tea shop, a charity shop, an adult puppet theatre that puts on shows four nights a week (no, I'm not kidding!);

two vets, a beach, a bird sanctuary, three big box stores, four shops that sell funky clothing made by the proprietors, and a consignment shop that sells designer-only clothing. And did I mention a bistro, pub, bar or high-end restaurant every few feet?

I think it's because four companies have their film studios a stone's throw from our neighbourhood that it's so artsy and mixed use. Perhaps as a result of this funky/cool vibe, one of the really fun things that happen here is Guerilla Art. It's everywhere, and as is the nature of it, constantly changing.

This was a recent installation. What do you think the artist was trying to say?