Published in Hebrew!

This is just amazing. Ami Simms, curator of The Alzheimers:Forgetting Piece By Piece exhibit (among other things) sent me a copy of this publication. It's in Hebrew! From Israel! From their Alzheimer's Association. The page on the right, with a quilt by Kate Laucomer, is the cover. My quilt, "Leaving Us" is pictured inside. I told Ami if she is heading to Israel, I would be happy to carry her bags! (She's not.)

















Ami has many irons in the fire. Check out the website: http://www.alzquilts.org/ . There are lots of small quilts for sale. There is merchandise for sale with the logo on it and the most exciting thing is a quilt smack down! Quilts by noted quilters, Hollis Chatelaine, Sue Nickels, John Flynn and Becky Goldsmith are for auction and the competition is heating up. Check it out and see all the wonderful work Ami et al has done to raise awareness and money for Alzheimer's.

The Joy of Teaching

I received an e-mail last week from one of my students from a workshop I gave at the
Loose Threads Quilt Guild in Spring City, PA. Linda Hamel sent me a photo of her finished project. Woo hoo Linda, you did a great job. There were a lot of people that attended the workshop and it was a lot of fun for me to share my knowledge, teaching them many tricks that they didn't know their computer could do.

It has been a little frustrating for me this Fall, because of a wonderful opportunity that I have. The bad news is that I have not been able to share a lot of what I have been working on recently. And I have been working on a lot. The good news is that I am working on a book to be published by Martingale. It is slated to be released in January of 2011. I do really love to share what I know about quilting with others, especially the design and inspiration part. The computer is an integral part of my process and I want everyone to be able to get more out of it.

This year, I made a concerted effort to get my name out there and actually started getting booked for guild lectures and workshops. I am pretty eclectic and have several topics that I talk about. You can check them out on my website under lectures. I have been thrilled with the response.

When I do teach, I feel that anything that is in my head is yours for the asking. I know that not every teacher feels that way, but I feel that if you go to the trouble and expense to bring me to your guild: if I know it, I'll share it. One of the best parts of teaching is when you see your student's work, like Linda's.

Here are samples of what people can make in my Personalize It workshop. Learning to use the computer to manipulate photos, make fusible alphabet appliques, print on fabric and do embellishing are all part of a chock full day.

I would love to come and speak to your group. Quilters are the most warm and wonderful people. It would be fun to meet you and share what I know. Drop me an e-mail.

It Was A Martha Week

Martha Stewart, that is. And I am not afraid to say that I admire her. She has elevated cooking, crafting and cleaning from a housewifey thing to something to be admired and taken seriously. Her self-promotion gets on my nerves sometimes, but you have to take the little bit of bad with the good.
On Monday, Martha was doing a book signing for her new book, "Martha Stewart's Dinner At Home". It was at a Williams Sonoma Store at the King of Prussia Mall - once the largest mall in the US. You had to purchase the book from Williams Sonoma to have the privilege of getting a ticket to stand in line to see Martha. Free mini cupcakes, baked from a recipe in her book, were available to help pass the time waiting on line. The line snaked through the mall. It was so exciting and the time passed pretty quickly. As I was debating about who to have her inscribe the book to - do I give it as a gift or do I keep it for myself? - we were told that Martha was not personalizing the book. Decision made! That was easy.
As we got closer and closer, it became more and more structured. Have the leaf flap of your book here, no photographs here, only photographs there, etc.... Considering how many people were there and that we were close to the end of the line, she was delightful.
That's me in the blue. Can you see one of her bodyguards in the background?

So if that wasn't enough Martha, Wednesday a gang of us had tickets to go to the Martha Stewart show in NYC. I had to leave my house, in suburban Philadelphia at 4:30 AM. Our fearless leader, who obtained the tickets, got us to Manhattan in record time. We grabbed some breakfast and got on line at about 8 AM. Once we were allowed inside, we signed in, had our purses searched and then waited.

If you watch the show, you're familiar with Joey - a kind of goofy sometimes sidekick. Well, he was our warm-up guy. He instructed us on the finer art of hand clapping and sound effects like Mmmmmmmmm!During our wait, we could purchase items from the Martha wall. Who couldn't use a Martha hoodie? (It's a good thing.)


Then we filed into the studio.
It was huge and was laid out in a horizontal orientation. The audience was much larger than I expected. I think it was about 165 people. There was seating on the floor right in front of Martha. We found out that you had to "know somebody" to be seated there. (That's our fearless leaders next goal.)
Emeril was a guest, cooking from his new book - 20, 40 60. And YES! we got a copy of his book as a freebie. The show is live in NY, but not in Philly. The hour flew by. It was so much fun . We're all ready to go again. It IS a good thing.

Crochet As An Addictive Art Form

The most recent meeting of "Layers", my small art quilt group, led us on a field trip to The Wayne Arts Center in Wayne, PA to see a calligraphy exhibit, called "The Artful Letter". It definitely was not your wedding invitation type calligraphy. Many of the pieces were truly works of art, taking a quote, handlettering it and then somehow enhancing it with a drawing/painting.

The big surprise was when we walked down the hallway to get to the next gallery. There was a dinner table set with everything crocheted. And when I say everything crocheted, I mean everything. (Click on it to enlarge it.)
We all stood there with our mouths open. It was quite a sight. Then there came the identification. First it was, oh look, the utensils are crocheted with metallic yarn. Then, look it's a hamburger with fries. Chocolate cookies, 2 eggs sunny side up with bacon .....and orange juice. Lasagna, pancakes, a half peeled banana. It was crazy. There was a green tossed salad, ice cream sundae, a piece of layer cake. It was such fun as each new item was identified.

Behind us were a few lucite display cases with more items. My favorite was the Thanksgiving turkey. I can't tell you why this exhibit intrigued me. But it was one discovery after another. Even though I haven't crocheted since I was a kid, I can imagine, perhaps, making a crocheted lemon. Then saying, that was fun and pretty easy, how about if I try creating an apple, then a banana and on and on until I was creating a Thanksgiving turkey! I could see it being addictive. I guess that is what is so intriguing to me. (I even brought a non-quilting friend back the next day and she was equally enthralled.)

The creator of this display is Joy Kampia O'Shell. Check out her website if you want to see more of her work.

Inexpensive Quilt Storage System

I have been searching for ways to store my quilts that don't involve folding. I have been creating quite a few quilts, thanks to my varied topics for my lectures. Up until now, if they were not hanging on my walls, they have been piled on the beds in our extra bedrooms. Clearly, a temporary solution.

My son is getting married next Spring. So we are doing what everyone does when there is a big family event coming. You look around the house and all of a sudden you realize that it's time to spruce it up. Things are looking a little tired after 17 years. OMG - did I say 17 years? I can't believe we have been here for that long. Where does the time go?

Anyway, putting on the backburner the types of things that require a lot of effort, thought and money, I have been focusing on those long ago deserted boys' bedrooms. So now I have to find a place for my quilts that have been residing on those beds. Inexpensive really appeals to me. I have used those foam swim noodles, available at the dollar store, to transport a quilt, unfolded. But what if I used them for storage. Not a unique idea, but what if I put many quilts on one noodle?

So I laid out a bunch of my smaller quilts (with the aid of my helper). Then I placed the longest one on the bottom, laid down the noodle and rolled.
Finally, I found a piece of fabric in my stash that I will never use and wrapped the roll in it.

And those little holes in the ends of the noodle were the perfect little place to tuck in the ends of that cover fabric.
I have done this with a few noodles and have piled them on a shelf in my closet. The best part is there will be no fold marks when I need the quilts for lectures/exhibits. I haven't rolled any of my larger quilts yet. The noodles are only 48" long. To store the longer quilts, my plan is to use a dowel as a joiner by inserting it into the holes in the end of 2 noodles. Tape the noodles together with a little duct tape, and voila! Another thrifty solution.

Fall Has Come To Pennsylvania

Fall in Pennsylvania is a beautiful time of year. The colors of the foliage glow and are just gorgeous. My favorite tree for color is the maple tree. So most people think that these wonderful colors means Fall is here.
I, on the other hand, don't really believe that Fall is here until I see a plate full of these most delicious pancakes:

Pumpkin Walnut Pancakes with Streusel topping. Only on the weekend. Offered at the sweetest, friendliest neighborhood restaurant. So special that I hesitate to name it. It is really a well kept secret. But I will share at the risk of annoying my friends. The Country Deli - in Gradyville, PA - with the best Fall breakfast. Yum!

Blogger On Line Fall Quilt Festival

Blogger's On-Line Fall Festival - This is my quilt: Family Musings in Blue


This is my first time participating in the on-line blogger's quilt Festival. To view more of the quilts click on this link, The Blogger's Quilt Festival. or the icon on my sidebar. I have only had a blog since February and I am very excited about participating and being part os this on-line community. This piece, called "Family Musings in Blue", was made to celebrate my family. It is really like a modern day crazy quilt in that it has many sections and lots of hand stitching and beading. The sun arch above the quilt is covered with beads and was result from inspiration from the Broadway Show, Fiddler On The Roof.

The song, "Sunrise. Sunset" was in my brain as I was trying to stitch my feelings for my family into this piece. Lyrics like :

"Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play ?

I don't remember growing older,
when did they?"

My family has grown, and it sure is bittersweet to let go and let them fly on their own. Here are some close-ups of some of the sections. This sections is made of hearts, covered with vintage buttons. The background is done by hand with chicken scratch.

This section shows what is hidden behind the doors along the bottom edge of the quilt. It's photos of my family.
And here's another section. The white squares are actually the old fashioned Shrinky Dinks material. It is now called Graffix Film. You can print on it and then shrink it in the oven. Before I shrink it, I punch holes along the edges. After shrinking I have small holes that I can then use to stitch the plastic onto my quilt. For this quilt, I included the story of the quilt on the plastic squares.