Changing Times. Embracing Technology!

This is Jane. My blog post this week will start from a message from us all.

 It is our utmost desire when having our retreats at Zephyr to give you the optimum experience….where you are able to learn, laugh, and enjoy the company of the other sewists in the beautiful setting of Lake Tahoe. We three, Jane, Heidi and Sandra have been in constant communication with Zephyr, and between ourselves, about the fate of the September retreat in light of the Covid virus. We want, more than anything, to be able to go forward there in safety and assurance of a positive experience for you all. When we were in discussion about this issue we came to the ultimate conclusion that we cannot assure these objectives. In many ways it is out of our hands and for that reason we are postponing our September retreat until 2021. Your safety and positive experience are our primary goals.

  

We know how disappointed you are, as are we, but you surely understand where we are coming from in postponing the retreat. Please email us for any questions you may have. This is unprecedented territory for us, and we pledge to be fair and equitable going forward. We want 2021 to be a fantastic year with a retreat that is the best yet.

Lake view from Zephyr Point

It makes us sad to have made this decision but I feel we can all now move forward and focus on the retreat for 2021. As a traveling quilt teacher I have just about written off 2020. I still have a few things on my calendar but I shall have to wait and see if they go ahead. As I said in my blog title, even I am now having to jump on the technology bandwagon, something a few weeks ago I just wasn’t interested in doing.

Fabric Journal, one of the samples for Artistic Alchemy retreat

As for technology I recently presented my lecture ‘Living a Creative Life’ to the San Francisco Quilt Guild using Zoom! My Power Point lasted 30 minutes, followed by Q & A, and went down well, I believe!  We had 138 attendees and all stayed till the end. I will say I did miss the audience reactions and participation though.

Precious

And I am now working on putting together an online class called Love of Pets Fabric Collage. This wasn’t something I had considered but as time goes on and reality sets in I know I won’t be teaching in person for a while. When I think about the opportunities that this opens up, its pretty good. Quilters from all around the country and world will have the chance to take my class.

Fabric selection ideas for Love of Pets online class

The good thing that has come out of this pandemic is reconnecting with family, and friends using either Messenger video groups, Instagram Live or Zoom. I come from a large family, all of them in the UK and for the first we have been catching up virtually. Pokey Bolton has a daily chat with quilters and artists on Instagram Live at 1pm pacific time and I was on with her a few weeks ago talking about this very subject, teaching cancellations and ways to move forward. Then lets not mention the funny glasses my close friend Ronnie and I found on Messenger video!

Porch time during lockdown

Staying at home I think is made easier by creating routines. I will work in the morning, have a family lunch and play Yahtzee on the iPad, listen to Pokey’s 1pm chat, work the afternoon till about 5 when its “Beer O’clock”. This is our family time for a beer on the porch and daily card game challenge! Our favorites are Wizard, Knaves and Phase 10.

Big Frank 46″ x 69″

Now that I have had more time for sewing I will share what I’ve been working on over the last couple of months. With the deadline to enter the World of Beauty quilt competition at IQF Houston coming up, I decided to make a couple of large quilts. I always think a quilt needs to be big to look impressive hanging in a quilt show. So Big Frank was created! I’m pretty happy with him and am now working on Little Frank and perhaps pattern I can share.

Detail of the eye, approx 9” x 6”

Here is a detail of his eye and really I don’t think it looks as impressive close-up as you just see the different fabrics I included. Some are pretty random! When I started this quilt my intent to use scraps and those old fabrics I have but never use. Pretty much the ugly ones! I started with a grey, brown and blue palette but as the quilt grew I would get bored with using these same fabrics and so I’d look through my stash and grab a bunch in another color. So now as he progressed I added those greens, ochres and even pinks!

Notes of Hope 81” x 61”

This is the other large quilt I have been working on and just finished.  I made it in response to the Mountain Art Quilters Spring challenge. The category that spoke to me was ‘Colors of Emotion’

Small ‘messages of hope’ attached to the railings on the Foresthill Bridge, CA

The story behind this quilt. In 2018 I remember hearing on the news that a lady from Auburn, Brittney Hendricks, organized for volunteers to make ‘Notes of Hope’ that they attached to the railings on the Foresthill Bridge. This bridge is located just outside Auburn, CA is the highest bridge in California and fourth highest in the USA and has been the scene for 90 suicides since it was built in 1947. These ‘messages of hope’ attached to the bridge are an attempt to convince people that life continues to be worth living. I walked the bridge with my son James in the new year and took many photos.

These photos I printed onto fabric sheets and then Improv pieced everything together. Starting with the words, the dark black fabrics around them, included a small colorful border and then more black border. I will say it was a little tricky to square it up!

This little ‘Yorkie’ quilt is one of many samples started whilst demoing in the classes I teach. Having more time now I want to work on these. Once the collage was finished it was time to choose the background. I put these photos on my new Facebook group Fabric Collage School asking for opinions and although I love the busy background on the left I settled with the more restful blue one on the right. Its so fun to get peoples ideas and opinions while you are still working on something!

Time to clean this machine!

After spending a month making masks, and sewing everyday I finally decided it was time to clean out my sewing machine. I have a Juki 2010Q which is a straight stitch semi-industrial machine and I love it. Its a workhorse. Everyday I oil my machine and clean out around the bobbin but it has this little hatch underneath that was last cleaned out around Christmas. I think it was time!

Now its time to get back to sewing, video taping my work in progress for my online class and entering my quilts into World of Beauty. Although sadly we won’t be holding our retreat I do want to devote some time to fabric play and mark-making and come up with some great samples for next time. Out of interest is anyone up for some kind of virtual Artistic Alchemy event?

 

Kicking off the New Year with Creativity

This is Jane and what better way to kick off the New Year than a few days away at the creative arts retreat ‘Craft Napa’  I am in Napa! This retreat was founded 5 years ago by Pokey Bolton. Pokey is founder of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines, and founding host of Quilting Arts TV on PBS. More recently she started Crafting a Life and the Craft Napa retreat.

January 2019 Cruising by CIA at Copia in Napa with Lyric Kinard and Lynn Tubbe after a delicious lunch at the Oxbow Market.

Craft Napa celebrates the crafts of quilting, sewing, surface design, art journaling, and mixed media. It happens early January when we are all looking for a creative kickstart to the beginning of our year. The events location is at the Embassy Suites in Napa, CA and all the workshops, socializing and networking happens in the fountain courtyard around which the classrooms are arranged. Tentative dates for 2021 13-17th January

Jennifer Sampou, fabric designer and quilter, and husband displaying her quilts during her lunchtime lecture.

Including the workshops Pokey organizes various events; a welcome dinner, wine blending, and a speakers luncheon. Last year we watched ‘Tim’s Vermeer’ with the inventor Tim Jenison who was present for Q & A afterwards. Then Friday night is always the Makers Market. This event, open to the public, includes tables from many of the teachers selling unique products and works of art, as well as the work and products of other local makers.

Selling my handmade products at the Friday night Makers Market

I have attended Craft Napa for all five years since its inception in 2016 and highly recommend it. It can be pricy but I give myself an early Christmas present when I sign up in May or June. Sharing a room at the Embassy Suites with their breakfast included and their popular happy hour really helps to keep costs down.

This year I am taking two workshops by Joanne Sharpe and Pat Pauly as well as teaching two classes Pet Portraits and Beautiful Bovines. This year 2020 Craft Napa runs from January 15-19th and I will be there when this post goes out.

As part of my prep for my two classes I have been making samples to inspire my students to let them see the steps involved in fabric collage, hands-on . These samples are made using 8” x 10” photographs. The projects in this workshop are smaller and so hopefully students get finished or close to in the 6 hr class.

Ruby, a sample of one of my cow patterns for the Beautiful Bovine workshop.

Once I’m home from Craft Napa I have two focuses; my upcoming workshop ‘Faces’ that I am teaching in Dubai at the end of February at the Dubai International quilt Show and then prep for the Artistic Alchemy 2020 Retreat announcement when registration opens  in early February

Over the Christmas break I got to play with surface design with my daughter Lucy. We painted, stamped, carved lino-blocks and generally had fun with fabric paints and fabrics.  Here are a few photos of what we made.

 

Lino Cutting and printmaking

Applying paint in a loose manner results in beautiful fabrics

From this collection of fabrics I am going to use them in fabric collage. I really like the  layered look of collage on improv piecing. It a great way to use pieces and scraps of fabric you have already or have handmade yourself.

Succulent Love Fabric Collage

I have started another project with my small sewing group, Sierra Sisters. We have decided to make a shared wearable piece of art. We all submitted a piece of clothing that will be cycled around the group giving us each a month to work on the piece by adding some appliqué, hand stitching or whatever takes your fancy. It will be fascinating to see how these pieces turn out near the end of the year. I hand-painted this apron dress that is pretty wacky to start off!

Best wishes to all for a creative and inspiring 2020. I like to encourage people to drop fear and just create.  I will leave you with a photo from Serene Lakes taken around 9pm on News Years Eve. Its our tradition to head up the hill and as part of our New Year celebrations watch the fireworks on the Serene Lake.

View from Serene Lakes, CA on New Years Eve 2019

Keep enjoying the blog and in just a few weeks Artistic Alchemy will be announcing our workshops for the 2020 retreat. How exciting!

Summertime Fun and Inspiration

This is Jane. Its only a month into summer and I have been active; camping, backpacking, and living on a desert island! Now July is here I’m hoping to have more time to catch up with some sewing projects, prep for the Artistic Alchemy retreat in early September before I start teaching again in mid August .

If you are still considering coming to the retreat I still have openings. My workshop Pet Portraits will cover making patterns for fabric collage, the technique itself, choices of fabrics and using value in collage. Please consider the workshop if you want to explore other kinds of art quilting. At the moment I am open to working with my students on other projects too, including making T-shirt quilts.

Consider working on a T-shirt quilt

When I’m not making art quilts I have an Etsy shop where I make custom T-shirt quilts. Quilters love or hate them! So if you have a project that you have been putting off, the retreat could be your chance to get it off the ground. Contact me if you have questions.

Packing into Point Reyes

This travel journal quilt I was working on at last years retreat before my appearance on Quilting Arts TV. I just entered it into a SAQA exhibit called Stitching California and I am happy to say it was accepted. I know one of my students in my workshop this year wants to work on journal quilts.

My recent trip to the Florida Keys with the Boy Scouts of America

I said I had been living on a desert island, actually off the Florida Keys. I was lucky enough to accompany my son and some other scouts from his troop for an outer island adventure on Big Munson Island. This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip that I thoroughly enjoyed but I will say it might not be for everyone! We were able to snorkel with a 300lb Goliath Grouper, go deep-sea fishing 25 miles out to sea, swim in 700ft water, canoe 12+ miles in Polynesian war canoes and live off the grid for 5 days.

 

With no phones aka cameras I took my sketch book and preserved my memories in that way. It was refreshing not to worry about capturing every new sight or event. Also having no sense of time was something I got used to but loved. We learned about sargassum! It was shocking to start with, we grew used to it but never loved it! This was especially true as our conservation project was gathering and moving it to be used as mulch. Look up the link and see how warming ocean temps and climate change are making this a real problem in our oceans and coastlines.

Enchanted Hill

Before taking my break in June I was working on a couple of quilts to enter into juried exhibitions. This one ‘Enchanted Hill’, Hearst Castle I made for the Stitching California exhibit but unfortunately it didn’t make the cut. This quilt I painted as a whole cloth, glued on fabric appliqué details, free-motion quilted and hand stitched.

Gentle Giant, Nubian Giraffe Calf

This quilt I recently finished for another exhibit called Better World which was juried and by invitation only. Unfortunately this didn’t make the cut either! It is hard to spend a lot of time working on these projects, when you are busy anyway, and not reap the rewards. I feel it happens to many quilters but I know I will enter them into other quilt shows so they can be seen.

Detail of Gentle Giant

When it came to appliquéing the tail I decided to make it 3D. So the hairy end of the tail actually hangs loose from the quilt. Fun little detail that you need to see in person! I support the Giraffe Conservation Foundation GCF and as I did with my Melman (my large giraffe quilt) when I sell this one I will again donate half the proceeds to GCF.

 

Catching up on my travels! While camping in Bodega Bay we got to explore the town of Bodega, hike the coast to Goat Rock Beach, eat oysters and watch the local wildlife; actually otters not turtles but I loved that painting!

 

Backpacking Jane Haworth

Grouse Ridge Trails

Camping by Island Lake

On our overnight backpacking trip to Island Lake on Grouse Ridge we enjoyed beautiful views, peace and quiet and a lot of snow!

Chicken Class with the quilters of King City

Before all my adventures I was teaching plenty of fabric collage classes including this one in King City. A place I had never visited before but really grew to love.

 

My pet portrait fabric collage class really is my most popular as it gives students a chance to work on something personal. Its just not another class sample! They learn the technique and hopefully will take it home, finish the quilt and maybe give as a gift to a loved one. Here are a few examples of works in progress.

 

Student work Jane Haworth

Pet Portraits by Jane Haworth

Pet Portraits by Jane Haworth

Student work

Class at leals Coop Auburn

And the “pet portrait” class does not have to be of a cat or dog

 

or in a realistic color sceme. I am really enjoying work “outside of the box” and mixing up my color choices in some of my newest projects.

B for Bovine

I hope I have inspired you to start a new quilt project, look at trying a new technique or sign up for my workshop at the Artistic Alchemy retreat at Zephyr Point, Lake Tahoe this September 2-6th 2019. Contact us as space is still available in my workshop or with Heidi or in Open Studio. Our deadline has closed and full payments are now due but we would hate for you to miss out on the fun. And Lake Tahoe is beautiful in September.

New Workshop Pet Portraits

This is Jane. I have decided to bring back, by popular demand, my workshop for 2019 Pet Portrait Fabric Collage. I get requests from students and people I meet at quilt guilds, “Where I can take your pet portrait class?” So having had little interest in the Travel Journal workshop I have decided at this early stage to change my workshop for the retreat this year. I hope this causes no confusion.

Purple version of Tilly by Jane Haworth

I am also especially excited to share the news that I will have a pet portrait article in the upcoming April/May 2019 edition of Quilting Arts magazine and they decided to use one of my quilts as the cover. I am a cover girl! This is beyond what I could have imagined. So if you are interested in making your own pet portrait or learning my technique for fabric collage check out the workshop page. Sign-ups are live and I know at least one class has a waiting list. Don’t forget we also have open studio where you get the experience of Artistic Alchemy but without being signed up for a specific workshop.

Nifty, a special Golden Labrador

In this workshop students learn to make their own patterns from photographs. Learn to use the value and patterns in fabric to your advantage, my fabric collage technique, free-motion quilting and how to finish the quilt. We will also spend time using mixed media to create our own fabrics using lino-cuts, gel prints and fabric painting. The retreat is spread over 5 days with evening entertainment and access to the classrooms at night. Nothing could be better than the Zephyr Point Lake Tahoe location, a beautiful tranquil setting and good food as a bonus.

Life in 2019 continues to be busy for me, traveling and teaching and keeping on top of my memory quilt orders for my Etsy shop. The new year started with 4 nights at CraftNapa  where I took a class from Maria Shell and taught two classes. I have attended this event, organized by Pokey Bolton, for four years and this was my first year to be part of the faculty. I was very happy to join this creative and inspiring event with its wonderful array of talented teachers.

 

QATV 2300 series

Jane and Susan

The 2300 series of Quilting Arts TV is airing on some regional TV stations and the DVD set is now available for purchase at The Quilting Company I received this DVD set in the mail and it took me over two weeks to pluck up the courage to watch myself! I had a local group of art quilters visiting, so we had a bit of a watch party.

The weather here in Northern California has been crazy this winter. As skiers we like to head to the Sierra Nevada mountains but most weekends its been snowing so much the freeway has been closed. Well that just leaves me more time to work on my sewing! We spent a weekend at Donner Summit and spent most of the time trapped inside clearing decks but we did have fun on a snowshoe hike in waist deep snow!

February 2019 Snow-shoeing adventures Donner Summit

My quilting took me to Yuma, Arizona to speak to and teach the Desert Lily Quilters. I stayed with a friend who moved there a year ago and so we had a great catch-up. I learned about “snow-birds” and adored all the adobe houses. During winter guild attendance is high. They meet every week and also everyone seems to belong to “small groups” for sewing, knitting and stitching get-togethers. This friendly guild embraced fabric collage and are well on their way to making some very successful pet portrait quilts.

Coming up on May 18th Artistic Alchemy has been invited to an event in Roseville hosted by the American Sewing Guild. We will be doing demonstrations, presentations, and a fashion show. So when we have more details we will be sure to post them here on the blog. So if you are looking for a creative, inspiring get-a-way in September be sure to check out the workshop page and sign-up for one of the available classes. We are thinking this year attendance will be high and judging by the current registration trend it certainly looks like it.

 

 

 

 

Autumn has Begun…

This is Jane Haworth and although it is now Autumn or Fall, the weather is just beginning to cooperate and it feels like its been some time since I was enjoying late summer at the retreat at Zephyr Point. It was my first year to visit and to be one of the teachers at this wonderful place. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t ever attended. The surroundings are beautiful, the weather perfect, the food wonderful as you don’t have to think about it, and being surrounded by all those creatives is very inspiring. I loved it and will be back next year, September 2-6 2019 with my fellow teachers; Heidi Emmett, Sandra Bruce and Mary Boalt.

 

Pauline’s family cat collage

Dyanne’s pretty elephant quilt

Nina’s version of this lion copyright free image

Lori’s version of my rooster pattern

Debra’s dog with many names

Glenda’s puppy

Kate’s interpretation of a Japanese print

These are some of the projects my students worked on whilst attending my Fabric Collage Addiction workshop. I love the variety of images they chose to work on and didn’t they do a great job.

My busy autumn began shortly after the retreat as I was heading to Ohio to tape my three segments for QATV, then off to visit family in England, I was teaching in Auburn and visited the PIQF quilt show in Santa Clara. I have now been preparing for my upcoming classes at IQF in Houston in just a few days time.  Not to mention keeping up with my Christmas orders for T-shirt and memory quilts for my Etsy shop. It is so hard to say no to customers who want a quilt made for a Christmas gift!

Susan Brusker Knapp host of QATV, Zeke and I

My time spent in Ohio was an amazing experience and taping went pretty smoothly and I’m happy to report I didn’t feel that nervous. I traveled out from Sacramento with Kris Sazaki and Deb Cashatt, the Pixeladies, what a laugh we had! From the variety of Uber drivers we met, the ribbing I got for scoring an upgrade on our flight and then exploring  and eating in Little Italy, Cleveland.

Before the taping at Quilting Arts TV

As I said I recorded three segments. This one is for my upcycled tote bags I make using left over food wrappers/bags and denim from old jeans for handles. Its funny I took 2 dresses I made over 10 years ago from plastic carrier bags that fitted the theme perfectly and so we put them on these 2 manikins as props for the background.

I also got to work with Jeanine the Bernina rep who was lovely and helped me familiarize myself with the Bernini sewing machine. I don’t use one at home and here I used it in all three of my projects. I think this next series 2300 is out in the new year. QATV can be watched on PBS2 or if not you’ll have to buy or borrow the DVD set.

I did get back to England for a week and was lucky to take my eldest daughter, Lucy who was between jobs! We traveled to Tiverton, Devon which is in the Westcountry, almost Poldark country, to stay with my family. It was also a girls weekend as I booked an Airbnb on a small deer farm, just a few miles from my mums house, where my daughter, sister-in-law, best friend and my niece all stayed together. We couldn’t avoid the rain so in this photo we are standing outside Exeter Cathedral on our shopping trip. Heres a few more shots of Devon and London.

 

View form the Fishermans Cot/Pub of the River Exe

London view from Tate Modern

View from the Airbnb Nibbs Farm Cottages

I also got to do a presentation and teach my workshop, Love of Pets, to my own local guild, Foothill Quilters Guild here in Auburn. The first lecture I ever did was in 2014 and that was to the aforementioned guild and I must say this time I was far less nervous. It was a lot of fun sharing the progress of my work with friends. And here are some of the portraits they made in class.

A sampler of some of the “works in progress” from Foothill Quilt Guild

This next photo is a quilt I recently made and is to be a special gift to someone.

A special Golden Labrador

In preparation for Houston my bags are not packed but my quilts are! I’m still working on some samples to take that I can demo on and then a bit more prep for my ‘Meet the Teachers’ presentation and Demo and then I will say I’m ready. I am very excited to meet all the new quilters and teachers but I know my schedule is going to be grueling especially with class start times of 8am ET!

 

Succulent class Craft Napa 2019

Succulent class Craft Napa 2019

Succulent class Craft Napa 2019

Succulent class Craft Napa 2019

Finally I still having openings in my Succulent class at Craft Napa in January 2019 so click on the link to read more details. This is a retreat I have attended for the last three years and again highly recommend. If you are interested in seeing where I am teaching before next years retreat look at my website and even read my blog to see what I’ve been up to.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy our wonderful Autumnal weather.

Bullseye’s Blue Ribbon

1st place ribbon at the CA State Fair 2018

July was state fair month at Cal Expo in Sacramento. My husband and I went to visit the fair and see my quilt on display. Look at the size of that ribbon! I won first place in the medium/large art quilt category.  Wahoo!

I usually make one large quilt a year and for 2018 it was Bullseye x Nine. Here, I will tell you a little about the process behind making this quilt and its story up to this point. In summer 2017, I met up with Julie, one of my local t-shirt quilt customers so she could drop off shirts for her quilt. She had her 2 dogs with her so I took a few photos and this one was my favorite.

Perfect picture

I had been thinking about making a colorful quilt in Andy Warhol’s style and Bullseye’s face was the perfect subject. I cropped the dog’s face, posterized it in my photo software, and then used the image as my pattern. The face had three values; black, grey, and white which I translated into light, medium and dark fabrics. When it came time to choose my fabrics, I only needed three for each face and one for each background.

First block made

This was the first block I made. I had recently hand dyed many fat-quarter sized pieces of fabric and these turned out to be the ideal size for all the backgrounds. Next I had to decide upon the three colors for each face, and which background best suited them. I remember going around in circles trying to figure out color combinations and where to position them on the quilt!

Figuring out the layout and the colors!

This is how it looked initially, but I decided I didn’t like the black and white image and so then had to make one more dog face. I usually don’t make pattern pieces in my quilting but for this one I made a pattern using freezer paper. When making each block I was able to reuse the same pattern pieces.

Here you can see the stitching I did on the face.  I used three different colored threads; some to blend in and some as a contrast. The background I decided to stitch straight,  diagonal lines that formed a zig-zag between the blocks.

Best of Show 2018 Foothill Quilt Show

I won my first Best of Show at the Foothill Quilt Guild annual show in April. I was amazed! It was a fun show and I invited Julie, her husband, and their dogs. I think Bullseye was the star of the show especially when he posed next to the quilt.

After this quilts recent appearance at the State Fair, I will be sending ‘Bullseye x Nine’ on to the International Quilt Festival in Houston in November. Looking forward to next year, despite mounting pressure, I have to come with an idea for my big quilt in 2019!

If you want to learn my raw edge fabric collage technique or want to make a quilt using a photo of your own pet check out my website for classes I am teaching. I have a couple of spots left in my workshop at the Artistic Alchemy retreat at Zephyr Point in Tahoe this September. Fabric Collage Addiction is your opportunity to learn how to use a photo in fabric and even make that perfect pets eye. In fact, my fellow teachers, Mary and Heidi, have a couple of spaces also so check out the blog for more details. Come join us ladies for a fun and creative time!

Pet Eyes made using fabric collage.