Quilting Arts Magazine February - March 2017

JOIN US FOR INTERNATIONAL QUILT FESTIVAL IN CHICAGO! SEE more than 600 great quilts and fiber art works in nearly 25 exhibits! SHOP at more than 350 booths! LEARN in classes for all skill levels! FREE demos and educational exhibits. JUST SOME OF THE EXHIBITS INCLUDE: •In Full Bloom •Fly ME to the Moon •Christmas Quilts, Christmas Memories •In the American Tradition: pleced •In the American Tradition: AppliQue •A Celebration of Color •Beauty in pleces •The Hexagon Revolution •Mod Squad Quilts •Traditional Midwest&Canadian Quilts Mexican Rose Democratic Rose, maker unknown. From the exhibit and book “Christmas Quilts, Christmas Memories.” Detail at Right: Tom and Alexei Share a Tube of Vodka by Luana Rubin. From the exhibit “Fly Me to the Moon.” Sponsored by Moda. CHICAGO Show Dates & Hours April 6&7(10am-6pm) April 8(10am - 5pm) Classes begin April6 At the stephens…

FEBRUARY IN NEW ENGLAND IS NOT THE MOST INSPIRING LANDSCAPE. If I were to make a quilt based on the images I collect in my head and on my phone in the dead of winter, I wouldn’t have to dig very deep in my stash. White snow melts into gray slush. Gray beech trees are adorned with last fall’s brown leaves that haven’t yet fallen. Once in a while a bluebird will perch on an empty branch or a cardinal might visit the bird feeder, but they are the only bright spots in a dull landscape. It is a good thing that I don’t have to rely on the bleak view outside my window, but have inspiration from the quilt artists, techniques, and galleries on the pages of QUILTING ARTS! When we…

Dear Quilting Arts, When I opened the August/September issue I smiled and thought, “I was right again!” You see, I have long believed ideas and interesting thoughts to be flying around the globe and then once in a while they happen to fall down in different places. I mean you can never be quite sure to be the only one to have a certain idea. In “Mini Mosaics,” Cheryl Lynch describes how she fell in love with mosaics on a trip to Israel, and then started making mosaics using fabric. I have a similar story. I have loved mosaics for a long time, and collect glass and porcelain tiles that wash up on the shore where I vacation in Gran Canaria (in the Canary Islands). I started to think about how I…

Ana Buzzalino is a fiber artist and quilt instructor living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Ana has been teaching a variety of quilting techniques for over 25 years. Her recent work focuses on surface design such as fabric dyeing, rubbings, stamping, and monoprinting. She is a frequent contributor to Quilting Arts, has appeared on “Quilting Arts TV,” and has two Quilting Arts Workshop™ videos, “Machine Stitching and Painting Quilts” and “Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity.” anabuzzalino.com Sharon Carvalho has a passion for fabric and design—and creates her fiber art on both a design wall and with a computer. She re-combines her abstract digital designs with her own hand-dyed and custom-printed fabrics with an interesting array of commercial cottons and batiks. She has two grown children and lives in Sisters, Oregon. sharoncarvalho.com Jane Dávila is a fiber…

One of my favorite new techniques is metal leafing. I started to experiment with it on fabric, as I wanted to see what the difference would be between metal leafing, foiling, and metallic painting. The term “metal leaf” is used for thin sheets of metal of any color that do not contain any real gold. “Gold leaf” is genuine gold that has been hammered into thin sheets. It is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used is 22-karat yellow gold. In my work, I use imitation gold metal leaf as real gold leaf is quite expensive. DIRECTIONS For this article, I focus on using metal leaf on fabric. 1. Cover your work surface with plastic. To prevent the metal leaf from being disturbed by air movement, make sure…

there are many different ways to transfer images and photos to fabrics and other surfaces. Some methods result in a near perfect duplication of the original image, while others have less precise results. Sometimes the art being worked on is best served by those perfect transfers, and sometimes an artwork calls for a transfer that shows variance in color, edges, or intensity. A transfer using a solvent and a laser-printed copy falls in the more organic, less-perfect camp. While many solvents work to transfer images, I prefer a natural, orange-oilbased solvent like Citra Solv for its non-toxic properties—and its great smell. Image transfer methods are broken down into two basic categories–direct transfers and indirect transfers. In the direct transfer method, the image is printed directly onto the final substrate, in this…