Art happening

Wow. I am really busy right now. I have seen it coming for a couple of months and now everything is due at once it seems. Deadlines. There are deadlines for my parts of the Twelve by Twelve book, deadlines for quilts that are promised for shows, and here is some news that I haven't shared here yet—I am going to tape two segments for Quilting Arts TV next month in Cleveland. I will be demonstrating two different projects/techniques and I need to put together samples in different stages that I can work with. Life has its own deadlines as well. Valentine's Day is when I send cards and letters, instead of Christmas, so I need to create the image for the cards and write the letters. Blah, blah, blah. I know—this is boring. Everybody is busy. The thing is, I like to share what I am working on here on the blog and not all of it can be shown. After all, I want you to buy the book and watch the TV shows, not see it all here first!

I occurred to me this week that if there was a way to make one thing work for at least two purposes that would help. Above you can see my Valentine image that I am working away on. I think it is going to help me out on a couple more projects as well.

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A couple days ago when I showed Jane Davila's new book, Barbara left a comment asking if it was a book that a beginner could easily work with. It is a book of techniques and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow. For beginners I would tell you that techniques are only part, and the least important part, of what you want to learn. Fortunately, Jane's first book, written with Elin Waterston and titled Art Quilt Workshop, is a great place to start. It has great information about design principles and color and basic techniques, with exercises to practice. There is a wonderful preview of this book available online here. With this book, and her new book you can definitely get started. Then you may want to move on to even more fun stuff and get Rayna's book! You know there is no end to it.