Starting into the busy season - Fall art shows

I've got 4 art shows coming up in the next 5 weeks, so I've been busy getting ready for them.

First up is the 5th Annual Mason Arts Festival which takes place this Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010 from 11 am-5 pm at the Mason Municipal Center, located at 6000 Mason-Montgomery Rd. in Mason, Ohio.

Coming up next:

Sat., Sept. 25: The Center City Studios Art Show at the Liedertafle Club in Springfield, Ohio.

Sun., Oct. 3: Hyde Park Square Art Show in Hyde Park, Ohio.

Sat. & Sun. Oct. 16 & 17: Yellow Springs Artist Studio Tour in Yellow Springs.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Buying Fabric on the West Coast

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop in Ferndale, CA

This summer we spent 3 weeks in July on the West Coast. Our main reason for going was to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sister, Oregon, which I had a quilt in. (Many of these links go to my travel blog, Pack Up the Car.)

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The Stitchin' Post is a quilt shop in Sisters, and one of the main sponsors of the Outdoor Quilt Show. It is also the shop that Valori Wells and her mother Jean own. There was a long line to buy fabric during the show, but I toughed it out and bought 1 half-yard cut and 1 quarter-yard cut of batik fabric (above).

The Stitchin' Post is located at 311 W Cascade Ave. in Sisters, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. from 9 am-5 pm.

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While we were in Ferndale, CA, we went into a jewelry store. While browsing, the clerk asked where we were from. I told her we were from Ohio. So she asked what brought us out here and I replied that we came to go to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. The clerk, Holly, mentioned that she was also an art quilter and asked what sewing machine I have. I have a Juki, which is not that well known of a machine, and not only had she heard of it, she has not 1 but 2 Juki machines.

Holly’s parents operate a small quilt shop in downtown Ferndale, the Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop. So of course we went across the street to see her art quilts and I bought 2 half-yard cuts of batik fabric (above).

The Itsy Bitsy Quilt Shop is located at 580 Main St. in Ferndale, CA, (in the same building as the Kinetic Sculpture Museum) and is open Mon.-Sat. from 10 am- 5 pm and Sun. from noon-4 pm.

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The Fabric Depot, located in Portland, OR, is the largest fabric store in the nation, with over 1.5 acres of fabric and over 800 batiks. I bought 14 quarter-yard cuts (12 novelty and 2 batiks) and a one-yard cut that was also a batik (batiks above). And I managed to get out of the store after just an hour and 15 minutes.

The Fabric Depot is located at 700 SE 122nd Ave. in Portland, OR and open Mon.-Sat. 9 am-9 pm. and Sun. 10 am-7 pm.

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The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located in Tillamook, OR, which is on the Oregon coast. They have a research library, exhibition space, a gift shop that sells items made by the members. There is also a room with several looms set up for the members to use. I bought a few small items in the gift shop, including a fat quarter of the hard-to-find North by Northwest Postcard fabric by Timbleberries (above).

The women there also asked why I was in the area, and when I told them that I had a quilt in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. They asked if I had photos of the quilt and since this was after the show I had something better, I had the actual quilt. I got my quilt "Twilight Descends" out of the car and they all oohed and aahed appropriately which I appreciated.

Tillamook County also has a “Quilt Trail” which is a driving tour of quilt blocks that have been painted on barns and other interesting buildings. The women at the center were very proud of this trail, which is the first Quilt Block Trail on the west coast. I had to mention that I’d met Donna Sue Groves, the woman who originally came up with the idea for the Quilt Block Trails and lives in Adams County, Ohio.

The Latimer Quilt and Textile Center is located at 2105 Wilson River Loop Rd. in Tillamook, OR and is open Mon.-Sat. 10 am-5 pm and Sun. noon-4 pm from April to October, and Mon.-Sat. 10 am-4 pm and is closed on Sundays from November through March. The Quilt Trail is always open but best viewed during daylight hours.

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And finally, this is a photo of the very colorful bedspread in the Motel 6 that we stayed at in Redmond, OR (half an hour drive from Sisters).

Apparently Motel 6 had some fabric made that has their logo in it (I added the yellow box to the photo), and they had bedspreads made using this fabric. We stayed at another Motel 6 in Seaside, OR and it had the same bedspreads.

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The new wine glass coaster sets I made from the 12 quarter yard cuts of novelty fabric from the Fabric Depot.

Final fabric count: 16 quarter-yard cuts, 3 half-yard cuts and 1 one-yard cut for a total of 6.5 yards. And none of it had the Motel 6 logo on it.

If you're interested in reading more about my trip to the Pacific coast, visit my travel blog here.

"Textural Rhythms" Quilt Exhibit

Last week my husband mentioned that the Cincinnati Reds were doing pretty well this year, and would I be interested in going to a game? "Actually," I responded, "There's a quilt exhibit at the Freedom Center that I'd like to see, and it's only going to be there for another week."

So we got our tickets and yesterday we went to The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which is located next to Great American Ballpark where the Reds play in Cincinnati.

"Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz Tradition" unites two artistic forms, quilts and jazz. The exhibition features 64 quilts from African American quilters. This show is FANTASTIC! If you like art quilts and can get to Cincinnati by this Sat., Aug. 14, I strongly recommend it.

The Freedom Center is open Tues.-Sat. from 11 am-5 pm and ticket prices are $12. The quilts are in the changing exhibit gallery on the third floor. The admission price includes all the exhibits in the museum.

There is an enormous raganon quilt by Aminah Robinson titled "Journeys I & II" that is a permanent part of the museum's collection and is located on the second floor across from the elevator. If you've read my blog, you might remember that I was a docent at the Springfield Museum of Art last fall when they had an exhibit of Aminah's quilts and paintings.

If you don't live in Ohio, there are two more venues coming up:

The Hub-Robeson Galleries at Penn State University, in University Park, PA.
Sept. 24-Dec. 6, 2010

The Museum of the African Diaspora, in San Francisco, CA.
Jan. 20-Apr. 3, 2011

And if you're wondering, the Reds lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 8 to 4. Oh well, at least the quilts were good.

Art on the Lawn, this Sat. in Yellow Springs

This Saturday, Aug. 14, is "Art on the Lawn" at Mills Lawn, 200 S. Walnut St. in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It goes from 10 am-5 pm. It will probably still be hot, but there is a lot of shade at Mills Lawn, and hopefully I'll be in some of it!

I'll be bringing the 3 Glen Helen art quilts that are still available, as well as "Twilight Descends" which was displayed at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Oregon last month.

One of Many: My Art Quilt at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

This is me and my quilts "Twilight Descends" at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon on July 10, 2010.

They had over 1300 quilts and hung them all in 1.5 hours.

One thing that might have made the hanging task easier was that they don't use hanging sleeves, they use clothespins. I appreciated that because when I shipped my quilt to them, I didn't have to worry about shipping the hanging rod. So that makes the above quilt "Every Quilt MUST Have a Sleeve" by Karen Flamme even more humorous.

For you non-quilters, the sleeve is a piece of fabric on the back of a quilt that allows you to put a hanging rod through the back and hang it on a wall without any of the hanging hardware showing. In the above quilt she shows a pattern and a sleeve like you'd put on a shirt or a dress. And for those of you who don't know me well, I have NO idea how I'd make a sleeve for a shirt or a dress.

One of the things I noticed was that some of the quilts were grouped by color or theme. I especially love the colors of the quilt on the right, with a little appliqued flower on the bottom left corner.

Other quilts were arranged by the quilt block used. It was really neat to see how different some quilts can look even though the quilter used the same quilt block. Here's part of the Log Cabin section.

This quilt was really impressive. I didn't get an actual measurement, but I think the individual blocks were about 3" x 3", and they seemed to be mostly applique.

To see more photos of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, visit my travel blog Pack Up the Car.

Fireflies at DVAC, First Friday event this week

My art quilt "Fireflies" is in the 19th Annual Open Members' Show at the Dayton Visual Arts Center. The show runs until Aug. 19.

Since I wasn't able to go to the artist reception last month, I am planning on being at the August First Friday event at DVAC this Fri., Aug. 6 from 5-8 pm, although I will likely be there for the earlier part.

The event includes back-to-back, 5-minute gallery talks by weveral local artists. It is also Game Night, and they will have the ping pong table up in the street if it's nice, or in the backroom if it's not. DVAC is located at 118 N. Jefferson St., Datyon, Ohio

McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge quilt

My quilt, Twilight Descends, is in the McCall's Quilt Design Star challenge.

Here's a link where you can go to vote for my quilt. Voting ends on Tues., Aug. 3, 2010 at 1:00 am, and if you're really ambitious (or really like me a lot) you can vote once per day.