Ghost Quilting Article in AQS Magazine

When I first posted blog entries in July and August of 2011 about what I call "ghost quilting," Iris Frank, a freelance writer from California, contacted me about collaborating with her on an article for American Quilter, the magazine of American Quilter's Society. Of course I was excited and thrilled at the opportunity to appear in this prestigious publication and we began working on the article. I made a similar project to the one she had seen, taking step photos along the way and writing cutlines for each. We tweaked and edited over several months and I sent work to Paducah for photography. What a happy trip I made to my mailbox this week when the January 2013 issue arrived at the end of November! Imagine my surprise when I saw the top line on the magazine cover: "Ghost Quilting--A Scare-Free Technique."

American Quilter January 2013

     When I first began doing these, I referred to them as "expanded flowers" or "extended pictures" or a similar uninteresting-sounding name. In that earlier blog, I said: "I call it Ghost Quilting. I start with a square or rectangle of printed fabric as the focus, then I add borders all around and imagine what is out off the edge of the focus fabric and complete the motifs with only stitching or with Neocolor II water soluble wax pastels (by Caran d'Ache, available at art supply stores) plus stitching. The focus fabric can be fused onto the center of a larger piece or borders can be sewn onto the center."
     To purchase a copy of the magazine from AQS, call 800-626-5420 now, or watch for it in mid-December at quilt, book, craft, and fabric stores.
     It is really an easy and fascinating technique. I have shown this to friends and many of us now look at each piece of fabric in the light of "I wonder how this would work with ghost quilting."

Thanksgiving 2012

My maternal grandmother's wooden biscuit bowl holds squash and pumpkins

    Thanksgiving was always my dad's favorite holiday because he said he had so much for which to be thankful. For many years our family marked the day at my brother's home in Austin, Texas. Some years we would drive through East Texas to pick up my parents on our way from Mississippi to Austin. The family is smaller now and these gatherings are a distant but wonderful memory.
    In addition to the obvious blessings of family and friends and faith, as an art quilter I have to recognize what a wonderful time we live in with today's fabrics, thread, tools, machines, books, the Internet and contact with like-minded individuals who share so freely with each other. 

Houston Quilt Festival 2012

George Brown Convention Center

I've just returned from the 2012 Quilt Festival in Houston. It's my first trip in several years, and the sights were just as amazing as I remember. The George Brown Convention Center is about the length of five football fields, with five entrance halls--A, B, C, etc., to help visitors get some sense of where they are. The first floor is filled with vendors and quilt displays. In addition to the judged show--Quilts: A World of Beauty--there are about 35 other exhibits. The second and third floor contain registration, information booths, classrooms, lecture halls, coffeeshops, cafes, outdoor patios, and the list goes on and on.

 One of the most unusual exhibits this year was one of photographs of recognizable famous sites with quilts superimposed onto the buildings!

I love pictures of people looking at quilts, and when someone offered to move out of the way for my photograph, I encouraged them to continue to look!


Quilts, Inc. will have picture galleries of winners; also, many bloggers have posted pictures online, such as Trish Casey-Green's excellent ones: http://smu.gs/QmbuvW. 

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) had two beautiful exhibits--A Seasonal Palette and A Sense of Scale. These were accompanied by printed catalogs of all the pieces, and the Seasonal Palette included a journal/workbook by each artist describing the process used. These workbooks were on a table in the middle of the exhibit and available for handling and reading at leisure. The curators conducted tours of both exhibits, with many of the artists available to describe their works further.  Very inspiring!

It was much easier to see the quilt show when we were younger and healthier, but we continue to do what it takes to be there!