Featured artist: Joyce Coley

For the month of February, my friend Joyce was the featured artist at a local art gallery.

In the above photo, Joyce is seated.

ALL of the pieces you see in these photos are hers.

If you'd like to contact Joyce about purchasing any of her pieces, or pieces you'd like to commission her to create, you can click here to go to her blog.

Inspiring quilter

Have you seen this?

Speaker at a local quilt guild

Last Wednesday, I attended the regular monthly meeting (or at least part of it) of Piecemakers, the Middletown, PA quilt guild. They were hosting a speaker, that I'd heard was a published author, and had some beautiful quilts. I'd heard right.

The quilts Gyleen Fitzgerald brought with her for her trunk show were almost entirely from one of her latest books, Quilts: Unfinished Stories with New Endings. In essence, she discussed how many quilts go unfinished for one reason or another, and she chose to focus on quilts from the 30s for this book. She talked about being given or purchasing finished quilt tops, unfinished quilt tops, quilt blocks, etc and making the decision to finish them. She emphasized the importance of not getting bogged down with issues that might keep you from finishing--a fabric that you may be anguishing over that you don't feel is quite perfect; imperfectly stitched seams; the possibility of cutting off the tips of points to make the quilt fit; and so on. She pointed out that an imperfectly finished quilt is better than an unfinished one. But, to look at her quilts, you would not suspect that she had done any compromising when finishing them; they are beautiful. I bought the book; let me tell you, it is worth it. Great, full color pictures of the quilts; patterns; stories.

She briefly discussed a couple of other books/quilts. She wrote a book (and displayed her beautiful quilt) about house quilts--In This House: If Walls Could Talk. She also published a house quilt pattern. I bought three of these little books; one for me, and one for each of my daughters. She signed these, as well as my Quilts: Unfinished Stories with New Endings book.

She also discussed her latest project, pineapple quilts. She has written (or is in the process of writing it) a book about it, and she also created a tool/ruler for making them. She said that she could not find the right tool for making the quilt, so she simply designed it herself. She has an engineering background, so this was a no-brainer for her.

I enjoyed her presentation. You can contact her, to see if she is available for coming to your quilt guild meeting. It will be well worth it!

A very powerful quilt

As we kick off Black History Month, I thought it might be appropriate to share something that I recently discovered. April Shipp created a powerful, stunning, quilt.

Strange Fruit: A Century of Lynching 1865-1965

She embroidered the names of 5,000 documented lynching victims over a 100 year period. You absolutely must view this video; it is very moving.

Color Mastery from a master

On Monday, February 9th, Maria Peagler will be stopping by my other blog (http://harperacademy.blogspot.com) to offer expert advice on creating quilts with visual "bling" through color choices. She will most likely be offering excerpts and juicy tidbits from her new book, Color Mastery: 10 Principles for Creating Stunning Quilts. I have a copy of it; it is eye candy at its finest! Fabulous color illustrations, step-by-step processes, lots of great detail and explanation--and for those of you who are intimidated by the use of THE color wheel, she explains this very clearly! Maria is eager to discuss the incorporation of fine arts into the homeschool environment, by using a craft as practical as quilting.

Hope you can drop by; see you then!

We met M'Liss Rae Hawley!

When our local Joann reopened last month as a superstore (and what a needed upgrade that was!), M’Liss Rae Hawley came as part of the grand opening. If you do not know who she is, she is a quilter, designer, author, lecturer, and instructor. She has published a number of books, and she has her own line of fabric at Joann that she has designed. And my daughters and I got the chance to see her and meet her!

She spoke on some general quilting topics, and, the best part of all, she had brought a number of her quilts with her for “show-and-tell”! It was really something to see in person the quilts that have been featured in the pages and on the covers of her books! Afterwards, I got the opportunity to talk with her a bit, and to ask her some questions. It was an awesome experience.

She of course took an interest in the girls. I mean, how many 10- and 12-year-olds do you know that sew and quilt? She encouraged them to keep up the quilting, and she recommended her beginner’s level quilting book to them:

I decided to purchase this one (I'll let you know how it turns out, if I ever attempt it):

One thing I need to mention is that, when I heard she was coming, I decided to buy a couple of her fabrics and stitch up a quick tote. So, she told me later that, when I first walked up to hear her lecture, she noticed my tote right away. AND, the blouse she wore was made of the same materials as my tote!

Who knew??!!! So she wanted a picture, and so did I of course, but I didn’t want to ask, so I’m glad she volunteered. She gave the girls and I pins to wear–no one else got any–and she gave us her business card. I was honored!