Pokey bolton biography samples

In honor of TGIF, I’m giving away free skeins!

It’s been a long week, but I am thankful three fantastic things happened in the last few days:

1. Bruce Springsteen released his latest album, “High Hopes!”

2. Virginia Spiegel demonstrated her fundraising prowess yet again, and with the help of fiber artists, exceeded her goal for Fiberart for a Cause and raised more than $5500!

3. And the best news all week? LIBBY LEHMAN GOT TO GO HOME!Read all about it here!

In celebration of the above events, I thought to do a little Friday giveaway, this time a sampling of Painter’s Palette yarn from Koigu that they generously gave me at TNNA this past weekend. Yarn lovers know these skeins offered in sumptuous colors are fantastic for garments, but they work well for hand stitching, too.

 

Answer the following in the comments area, and I’ll choose a winner on Tuesday. My question is one you’d expect on a Friday afternoon:  What kind of stitching or surface design trouble do you plan to engage in over the weekend?

Me? I’m leaving on a jet plane in the morning so I am packing a small plastic bag with my English paper-piecing project.

TGIF!

 

 

  • Examples of the three

    • artisticalchemyblog

    This is Jane and I know its been awhile since I added a post!

    January was a very busy travel month for me and it seemed that many of those in-person quilting events that had been postponed for 2 years where all happening in January. And guess what else was big in January Omicron! I traveled, I taught (in a mask), I met loads of new quilters and I did not get sick!

    I went from Craft Napa in Napa to Ontario, LA to Haines City to Punta Gorda, Florida. It was an exhausting month but such a treat to be out teaching again. I do love the enthusiasm and dedication of my students whether its approaching something that is totally new for them or working on a project that was started and never finished. Just recently I have received many photos of finished work by students and photos of quilts in shows getting ribbons.

    With all the craziness going on in the world right now and me feeling kind of helpless I decided, as I have a few sunflower patterns, I would try to help Ukraine in any little way I can. I am offering my Shy Sunflower collage pattern for $5 and I will donate all the proceeds to the World Central Kitchen who are feeding refugees at the Polish border.

    I took this photo last summer when I went out into my garden to check how the sunflowers were coming along. I was looking at some others turned around and saw this one 3/4 open! It just looked so perfect I had to get my camera and take a photo. My sunflower class and kits continue to be my most requested and popular offerings. When I have time I am excited to make my own collage using this pattern and am looking forward to seeing other peoples interpretation.

    https://janehaworth.com/shopping/shy-sunflower-pdf-pattern

    A few days after I returned form Florida there was a quilt call for entry due that I was keen to enter. It’s an exhibit called Prism Play and its what Sandra talked about last month. I have 2 color cards I agreed I would make quilts for. One I

    artisticalchemyblog

    This is Jane. For my blog post this month I am reflecting on what I like about teaching my collage classes. I’ve been thinking about how I have survived 2020 by teaching online and enjoyed the experience. But now, although I am still teaching via Zoom, I’m excited and looking forward to our Artistic Alchemy retreat in September .

     It seems a long time since I have gathered with quilters or traveled to visit a quilt guild. I have kept busy presenting and teaching classes to quilt guilds and taught at many online quilt shows. I think this platform is great for sharing information with students, demos are successful because students have the best front row seat and working from home they will not run short of supplies. Also I can set up the day before and be ready at my laptop 30 mins before class starts.

    I do miss cruising the classroom and chatting with my students, monitoring how their work is progressing and offering tips along the way. When I teach online its harder to see the progress they are making and with collage its tricky to pick the piece up to show on camera. But recently I have received photos via email of finished students work. It makes me feel happy that they have enjoyed the process and then spent their time working and completing the project.

    When I am teaching I like to say to my students “Value = Contrast = Dimension”  These words are especially important when making collage and other art practices. I encourage students to” look” at their photo. If you spend 5 minutes really looking at what is going on in a photo your brain will see things that you do not expect. Sometimes when we work we make things as we think they are. By showing what is really going will result in a better and more successful design!

    In the photo above I see contrast between the color families of the two types of succulent. I see contrast when looking into the shadows between the leav

  • Assembling swag for Craft
  • Pokey Bolton is the

    • On Sunday, I flew to Cleveland to film three segments for the 700 series of Quilting Arts TV. Here I am with host Pokey Bolton on the set. These are the very girly-girl quilted dog beds I made with a new line of fabrics by Bari J. Ackerman called Country Lane (for Windham Fabrics). I used lots of the lighter fabrics for the strips and side/back panels, and cut out the big roses on another fabric from the line and raw-edge appliqued them down. 

    This segment will air in program #712. (All the shows I shot – #703, #707 and #712 – will air this fall/winter on many public TV stations across the country, and will be available on DVD at the end of the season.)

    Here’s all my stuff for the segments arranged on the bed at my hotel the night before. 

    I’d met Jamie Fingal, well-known for using zippers in her work, at Quilt Festival last fall. She was talking about how she created some of the pieces in a series featuring her feet in Doc Marten boots. Jamie’s blog is called Twisted Sister. 

    Here is a close up shot of some of Jamie’s Doc Marten series.

    While each artist is taping, the rest of us get to watch on the big TV in the green room (that’s the name of the room where you wait before you go on set). Here are (from left) Jeannie Palmer Moore, Jeanne Cook Delpit (Bernina USA), Leslie Jennison and Katherine Lamancusa (from Beachwood Studios) watching and photographing Jamie’s segment.

    Jeannie Palmer Moore (right) and Jamie watch another segment from the green room as it is shot. Jeannie, a mixed media artist, does a lot of painting and stitching in her work, but somehow, I managed to miss getting a photograph of her with it. Shoot!

    Time for makeup!

    Since the segments are shot out of sequence, Pokey has this helpful photo guide to what she needs to be wearing for each show:

    This is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer (lef) with her mom, who spent a good hour untangling a necklace Ju

  • For 100 Artists, I