Liz
Hi everyone, thought I'd leap in and introduce myself too before procrastination gets the better of me!
I'm Liz, I'm the same age as Marion, and I live in Newport, South Wales (the one by Cardiff). I have three teenage boys (aggh!), a husband, three hens and a 21 year old cat. I've been blogging since 2005 and flagging a bit: my blog is called Dreaming Spirals. The last few years I've been mostly screenprinting large pieces of work and not stitching very much but I'd like to get back into smaller pieces as I think I work better that way.
Jane
I'm Jane Davila from Connecticut in the US. I live about an hour north of New York City which gives me the best of all things - a quintessential New England small town that's just a short train ride away from Broadway and the biggest art scene in the world. I've lived in a lot of different places (Miami, Dallas, Woodstock, Lima Peru, etc) but I can't imagine living anywhere else now. Of course it was 104F in NYC yesterday, so somewhere cooler sounds lovely in this second, lol.
My mom and I opened a quilt shop in 1990 and I learned to quilt and began teaching quilt classes there. In 2003 a friend and I developed a series of art quilting classes that grew into 2 books with C&T Publishing, Art Quilt Workbook and Art Quilts at Play. Since then I've written another book for C&T and another will be released in OCtober 2012.
Two years ago we closed our shop (after 19 years) and now I work as a freelance teacher, traveling all over the world, author and designer. In January I accepted the position of freelance editor of the digital emagazine Quilting Arts In Stitches. My husband and I continue to sell all of the fun art quilting, mixed media and surface design supplies that I used to sell in the shop but as vendors at quilt shows and online, so we do a fair amount of traveling for that too.
My husband is an artist also, working in oils and in sculpture. He emigrated to the US from Peru and is from a family of artists. His father was a well-known abstract expressionist in South America and one of his brothers is a surrealist. Our daughter lives about 15 minutes away from us and is super creative also (she hasn't embraced the label "artist" yet) and is a whiz at etsy and online selling of her crafts.
Because I started out as a printmaker, a lot of my fiber work incorporates printmaking techniques and I tend to work fairly small. A lot of my recent work has been for deadlines (books, magazines, teaching proposals) and I really need a place and a reason to do some work for fun and just for me. I am so looking forward to our challenges here and seeing what we all come up with!
Angela
I'm Angela...the same age as Marion & Liz and I hail from Cheadle - the one in Cheshire, not Staffordshire. I've lived there for 30 years with my husband, two children (who've now flown the nest) and an assortment of pets including rabbits, hamsters, goldfish and an adopted cat...who are now all in pet heaven. I work part time as a medical secretary for our local GP surgery but the rest of my time is taken up with quilt/textile design.
I've been blogging since 2008 - Angela's Textile Art . I love to create smaller pieces of work - mainly journals - but my latest project, which many of you will already know about is a wedding quilt for my son's wedding next June. This has been a huge project for me and started life as Jennifer Chiaverini's 'Sylvia's Bridal Sampler', but I couldn't cope with piecing all those small pieces and cheated by duplicating the easier blocks and making up a few of my own - so it's now the 'Wedding Quilt' ! It makes a change from textile art but I'm really getting withdrawal symptoms now.
My favourite textiles to work with are Lutradur and Tyvek.
Paula
Hello everyone, my name is Paula Rafferty and it's my friend Claire's fault that I'm here, thanks Claire.
I'm a full time art/craft teacher working in the Irish Prison system and a mother of two. I also make quilts in my spare time.
My background is fashion, I trained as a fashion designer in Limerick School of Art and Design back in the last eighties. I specialised in stretch fabrics and ran my own design business for six years before returning to collage to train as a teacher.
I started quilting in 2002 after years of collecting fabrics and Kaffe Fassett books, due to the fact I joined a local quilt group.
Totally obsessed I've become with a purpose built studio at the side of the house which is bursting with my fabric stash, and is my haven when I need to escape!
I make both traditional and contemporary quilts, my traditional quilts I call my therapy quilts ( usually squares that I piece in random patterns )as I usually make several of these while or just after working on a contemporary piece ( lots of painting, dyeing, printing, etc and thinking).
I've no ideas yet for the challenge as I'm frantic trying to finish my collection for the Fashion Sans Frontiers fashion show for the Festival of Quilts in a couple of weeks.
Terrified and excited I am as I haven't made garments in a number of years but looking forward to seeing all the quilts and the shopping, there'll be no stopping me as I'm taking the car so no weight restrictions!
Delighted to be part of the group and cann't wait to get started,
Paula Rafferty
Claire
Hi everybody,
I'm Claire - based in County Clare, in the Mid-West of Ireland.
I work full-time as an Environmental Scientist/Engineer at an aircraft maintenance firm.
In my spare time, I love nothing better than to mess around with fabric and paper. Really like dyeing and printing fabric.
My blog is at http://millypenny.blogspot.com
At the moment, I'm Editor and Webmaster for the Irish Patchwork Society (IPS). I only have 1 more newsletter to do, and then I can hand over to my new sub-editor, so should have a lot more time on my hands.
I'm also the Editorial Rep. for the Mid-West Branch of the IPS and look after their blog as well.
I have an idea for the "lights and shadows" theme in mind. Based on a photograph from a holiday in Spain that I've always wanted to do something with, and now's my chance. Just have to get my thinking cap on and figure how to turn it into a textile piece though...
Looking forward to seeing what everyone is going to make for the challenge - it's going to be very interesting!
Julie
I thought it was about time I said hello to everyone here, especially as I see from the list that I am one of the last to do so. I know quite a few of the names here and am a bit overawed by the calibre of the participants but I am looking forward to the challenges and to learning and sharing in this environment.
As some of you probably know I don't work as I have CFS and I came to quilting by a circuitous route but one that I am finding is quite common. For about 6 years in the early 2000's I concentrated on painting in oils and watercolour but gradually got drawn into looking at fibre art and thence to quilting. You can see my work on my blog at http://mixedmedia-jem.blogspot.com My original idea was to paint on fabric but so far I haven't done much of that. Maybe this is my chance to try?
It was a random visit to the Festival of Quilts in 2004 that set me off on this whirlwind path of joyful play with farbics, dyes, threads and embellishments. I still don't know where I am going but I am enjoying the ride.
Lisette
hi all
i am a bit awed at being part of this group - so full of people whose work i admire and find incredibly inspiring. i have been making art textiles/quilts for about 5 years and am really moving away from the 'quilt' aspect to more freeform layered pieces. my blog is textileseahorse and has been rather neglected over the last few months as i reassemble my life after a marriage disintegration, resigning from my job, meeting my new partner and moving house.
the timing for this challenge is fabulous for me - i am really moving from a time of shadow and low creativity back into the light.
playing around with some ideas around light and shadow, i made this piece this afternoon. i am interested in the play of light over textures and in manipulating fabrics in different weights to distort and disconcert.
Sue
I live in a village between Bristol and Weston-super-Mare.
I'm 57 and have had ME for 24 years, before which I was a zippy social worker and young Mum to Sarah (now 24 and living away from home). I also have arthritis and had a hip replacement op in October 2011. Harout and I also have Anna (20) and Ben (15). I am not really a patchworker although I have dabbled a bit over the years, and especially when I took C&G Embroidery. Thus I guess I'm more of an embroiderer but I'm a technique tart and dabble with many different methods of working. I have also started painting again, having found a lovely teacher within reach who is helping me achieve acrylic paintings I'm well chuffed with
Lots of possibilities to explore, aren't there? This is going to be fun!
I'm 57 and have had ME for 24 years, before which I was a zippy social worker and young Mum to Sarah (now 24 and living away from home). I also have arthritis and had a hip replacement op in October 2011. Harout and I also have Anna (20) and Ben (15). I am not really a patchworker although I have dabbled a bit over the years, and especially when I took C&G Embroidery. Thus I guess I'm more of an embroiderer but I'm a technique tart and dabble with many different methods of working. I have also started painting again, having found a lovely teacher within reach who is helping me achieve acrylic paintings I'm well chuffed with
Lots of possibilities to explore, aren't there? This is going to be fun!
