I just received word today that Lark Books has accepted my quilt, Fossils IV, to be published in their upcoming book 500 Art Quilts!  Lark received over 2000 entries for this project, and the jurying was done by Karey Patterson Bresenhan, of the International Quilt Festival

Here is the selected quilt!

Submissions went out just about a year ago, so it's been a wait to hear, but I am excited to be included among all these other talented quilt artists!

The book is due out in March, 2010.

Just a quick entry to let you know where I will be out and about this fall:

I will be giving a lecture at the Thames Valley Quilt Guild in Gales Ferry, CT on Tuesday October 6, 2009!

The lecture will be a show and tell of some of my art quilts, and then a demonstration of how to print photographs and other items like letters and drawings onto fabric that can run through the inkjet printer.  I will then show how to make some small art quilts or art cards using the photos I've printed on fabric, incorporating beads, buttons, charms and other embellishments.

Magpie-art quilt in progress

I will also be giving a lecture at the Farmington Valley Quilt Guild at Eno Hall in Simsbury, CT on Wednesday November 18, 2009!

This event will be more of a trunk show of my art quilts rather than an actual hands-on demonstration.

 Fossils IV

In my last entry, I talked about those wonderful batik blocks I purchased at an antique store while on the Cape.  I promised photos of the experimentation, so here they are!

What I decided to do was use the remaining inks I had mixed up prior to vacation and print the blocks onto the fabric I had already monoprinted.

Here I've used the funky half of a star shaped block to add some linear elements to this ethereal piece:

In this next one, I just wanted to see how the leaf blocks would print on this relatively plain piece of fabric:

I think they look pretty good, but I really like how they look here, when I kind of over-inked the blocks!

I like the ghostly nature of the right hand side of each leaf; reminds me of old cyanotype prints.

This next one I was just goofing around with the flower block...it looks as though I've made stylized flowers with blue stems!

The circles on the bottom right were some bubble wrap prints for good measure.

This final one just shows the same flower blocks printed on plain fabric but inked with multiple inks allowed to bleed and blend together:

Some of these may get quilted into art quilts in their own right, others may be cut up into fragments and used as cards, backgrounds to other pieces, or strips for other quilts.  Regardless, it was definitely fun experimentation and worth the blue hands I've had for almost a week now!

This time last week I was still on vacation on Cape Cod.  Everytime I go, I'm always picking up bits of inspiration, sight-seeing, beach combing, thrifting, antiquing, just being.  There's been no single time that I've gone to the Cape without coming home with pockets laden with shells, rocks, seed pods. Or, having hit  my favorite antique and thrift stores, added just one more quirky item to the car to bring home to the studio.

This particular trip, my husband and I stopped at this rambling antique store in Eastham or Truro, where I found a selection of old wood blocks for batik printing on fabric.  My heart skipped a beat when I saw them laid out on the floor on some paper under an expensive chaise.  I have some of these blocks already in my collection, but there is always room for more.  I found one right away that I had to have, so I grabbed it and set it aside.  Then, from somwhere behind me, the proprietor of the shop piped up "You know, there's another whole bag of those printing blocks right next to you under that table, if you want to rummage some more...."  Did I!  Once the bag was hauled out, I was quick to make my decisions, and pulled out 2 more blocks.  These three were by far the most graphic blocks I had seen, and I knew I had to take them home for some experiments.

Here is the first one I found, a tremendous stylized leaf shape:

Next was the simple but graphic flower design:

And finally, this nifty half of a star type shape:

Before vacation, I had mixed up some thickened inks for printing on fabric, and saved some of it in the fridge for just this kind of experimentation!  This weekend I will be testing our what I can do with these batik blocks, and will show some results in my next entry. Stay tuned!