Always say thank you…

It is very important to always thank your art patrons. As you know my Obama quilt was sold and delivered last month to a private collector. I have made a small thank you note and bookmark to go with the mini postcard quilt I made. I framed the mini quilt in a shadow box and included a copy of the book that was produced from the show in DC during the inaugural period.  I plan to drop this off to my patron tonight. I think she will enjoy this small act of appreciation. I am really glad she has the quilt. I know she loved it. But – I do miss it. I only had Obama here with me for 1-2  nights. It was off to the show the day after I made it and it was in the new owners hands one day after it was back. Two days is way too short to have Obama at your house!

Obama book, bookmark, gift tag and Framed Mini quilt

Graphics Program Recommendation

Debra Gabel's Layman's Graphic Program recommendation

As a graphic designer and art quilter I get asked many times…what graphics program do you recommend?  I use Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and in design which each cost $ 800.00 + for these professional graphics programs. They have a steep learning curve and are really for professional use. I have an old program from American Greetings called Create-a-Card which was 39.00 and did 75% of what Illustrator did! I was amazed. Over the years the software changed hands many times. With the popularity of scrapbooking the market got flooded with card and scrapbook software. I recently went to Staples and saw many fewer titles on the market for card making. I came across GREETING CARD FACTORY by Nova – and guess what? Same program that I was amzed by – even better than the old one! It listed for 49.00 with a 20.00 rebate making it 29.99 final price. It is awesome and the program that I would recommend. You can do great photo editing as well as many graphic possibilities. It comes with over 1000 fonts. It is pretty great and my recommendation to all you non- professionals looking for something very easy to use and very affordable. Please leave a comment if you have gotten the program.

Sunday March 22,2009

What a weekend! This weekend Gary and I did our first solo quilt show with Zebra Paterns in Bowie MD at Southern Comforters Quilt Guild. It was a GREAT weekend. This was the first time that I displayed with out my pal Maria. Maria was in Colorado for the week with her family. I think I have grown my line to the stage that I need a whole booth just for my stuff. Maria and I are doing a show at Milltown Quilters and at Annapolis coming up in Spring. I hope there is a bunch of space. I go to Pittsburgh for my first MARKET, so this weekend was great practice for that big coming out party in Pittsburgh! I am so happy Gary will be going with me to Pittsburgh. I do not know what to expect.

This weekend I showed my Butterflies. I took many pre-orders. They were very well received. I worked until 1am on Friday night getting them all together in fused blocks. I will add pictures to this entry as soon as I get down to my studio. Right now I am in my bed in my jammies just resting from all the activity.

I promise to post pictures in the next week – keep tuned!

1st Place in Beverage Challenge and my Quilting Arts 2010 Calendar entries.

I Love Pina Coladas and Getting Caught in the rain

Today I went to my quilt guild in Bethesda – Nimble Fingers Quilters. This is the group that created the “Beverage” Challenge. Guess what? I won! I won a free pass to any upcoming class. My Pina Colada quilt was a hit. I have included a small pix of the quilt.

Then I frantically drove home to try to get the 2010 Quilting Arts Calendar Challenge finished. The theme is “Fresh Picked”. I chose to do strawberries and kiwis. I went out last week and bought the fruit and took several pix. After that I made some sketches in my sketch book. Finally I got a sketch composed the way I liked and then I made a vector drawing in Adobe Illustrator and out put the AI drawing on a 13 x 19″ piece of EQ Printable cotton fabric. I saturated the colors. I out put three different color combos. Then I took Portfolio Oil pastels and I over sketched the output. Once I got the image output and over sketched I sandwiched it it quilted them I made one with hard edges on the fruit and left one with yellow lines on the edges. I took some pix of the final two pieces and the pix were pretty good – but I had terrible paper for out put. There was no time to go get more – so I did the best I could and sent a CD in case they liked the concept and wanted to see better pix. Who knows what will happen! I gave it a shot! So below are two pix of the entries. You were allowed two entries.  I am liking this sketchy style.

At the meeting we heard Art Quilter/Mixed Media artist Lesley Reilly speak about transfering images to fabric. Tomorrow I have a workshop with her in Bethesda. I will let you know how that goes tomorrow. Lesley has written 3 books and is a regular writer for Cloth Paper Scissors.

This weekend I am lecturing at the MD Woman’s Art League. I am also teaching my last class of Art Creations at Patches. That is such a GREAT class. This group of students are VERY talented. I hope to post their projects so you can see what they have done. BUSY! BUSY!

In the meantime I am making 12 butterfly patterns for the next Block of the month pattern I am working on. Crazy! Better busy than being bored! More to come….

Strawberries and Kiwis #1

Strawberries and Kiwis #1 Detail

Strawberries and Kiwis #2

My entry form - shows my photos and sketches before I used oil pastels