Happy Birthday TN&TN!

 * * Contest is over.  Thank you!  * * 

This blog is officially one year old.  Isn't that fabulous?  I think so!  The Needle and Thread Network began last year as a link-up party for Canadian bloggers in any area of fibre - from rugs to dolls, knitting to art quilts, lace to felting, and so much more.  I was started by Monika Kinner-Whalen.  You can stop by this blog any time mid week to see work in progress from bloggers across the country.

Shortly after, Rita Penner joined in as the Feature Friday host.  If you would like to see who's been featured so far, click on the Feature Friday tab at the top.  If you fit the bill, we would LOVE to have you sign up there to be featured in an upcoming post.  Please, don't be shy!

More recently, Jackie White was enlisted to post call for entries.  She's THE woman in-the-know for that job!  You can peek at current opportunities by clicking the top tab: Call for Entries Canada.

So, guess what!?

We are proud to announce that Canada's own A Needle Pulling Thread magazine is helping us with the party by offering a one year subscription to one lucky winner drawn at random.  Thank you ANPT!!

This particular magazine is packed full of fibre everything by Canadian designers - from clothing to crochet, hardanger to fibre art, quilts, rugs, knitting, embroidery... you name it!  Please go to their website linked above to see samples of what can be found inside.

Interested in winning a subscription?  EVERYONE can enter once by becoming a follower of this blog, regardless of where you live.  And EVERYONE can enter a second time by liking ANPT on facebook HERE.  All entries need to be in the form of a comment at the end of this blog post.  (Max. 2 per person.)  The lucky winner will be announced in a week's time here on The Needle & Thread Network.

Tell all your friends!  

GOOD LUCK!

WIP Wednesday #52 @ TN&TN

WIP Wednesday #51 @ TN&TN

WIP Wednesday @ TN&TN # 50

Friday Feature: Jackie @ Jackie's Art Quilts

Hi Fellow Canadian Quilters!

I am Jackie White from Jackie’s Art Quilts.  I live on Manitoulin Island, Ontario in a small town of 500 with my husband, two little boys 7 and 8, and our giant standard poodle.

I started quilting 12 years ago and can’t believe the opportunities I have had, and friends I have made along the way. I call myself an art quilter. Every quilt I make has some type of 3D embellishment on it and I love coming up with unique three dimensional items to add to my quilts. I was once told that my methods might be ‘too out of the box for Canadian quilting’. I disagree, Canadians are awesome at accepting everyone!

Ripple in Time

The quilt, ‘Ripple in Time’, was juried into the 2012 National Juried Show in Halifax.   Hours and hours were spent coloring fabric with fabric markers, then cutting out the shapes and assembling.   Embroidery swirls on the outside and many many hot fix crystals applied throughout.

 I have just joined the Canadian Quilters’ Association (CQA/ACC) Board and am absolutely loving meeting Canadian quilters face to face. I write a humourous column for CQA/ACC in their quarterly magazine. You can see a few of my past articles here.

I am part of an amazing design team for Amanda Herring of ‘The Quilted Fish’. She is a fabric designer and pattern maker. Amanda just published a book and featured a pattern from each of her team in it. My pattern was a fabric necklace. As for getting published, I was also featured in ‘McCall’s’ magazine this past May with a quilt pattern I designed.

I work for Pellon Inc. and Riley Blake fabrics doing tutorials for their websites.

Bird on a Wire

A note about ‘Bird on a Wire’:

The nest is three dimensional with a lovely blue stone in the middle and the nest is surrounded by couching eyelash yarn around border.  The background is a traditional pieced pattern with black ‘branches’ running throughout.

This past year has been absolutely mind boggling because I got to go to Quilt Market in Kansas City in May where all the fabric companies and designers showcase their new lines and patterns. I was there with ‘The Quilted Fish’ and we were promoting her new book and teaching demos on my necklace pattern. Six days later I headed out to Halifax to work at the Quilt Canada Conference. There I was able to see two of my quilts hanging in the National Juried Show. (Quilt Canada Conference gallery pictures)

Fall Leaves

A note about ‘Fall Leaves’:

Uses puzzle pieces as leaves and as a binding.   Shiva stiks help create a colourful background.   

The thrill of entering juried shows is one of the reasons I quilt, not so much getting the rejection letters, (and I have A LOT of them), but the challenge and the joy of being accepted. I have started teaching workshops on my 3D art quilting and thoroughly enjoy encouraging quilters to try new methods and create quilts in a whole different way.  I also continue to work hard at my blog to show my readers new and different things out there in the international quilt world and what I am up to.

Future goals include teaching workshops in Canada on 3D art quilting and someday winning a ribbon at a juried show.

My very favourite things about quilting are meeting fellow quilters, especially when I get the opportunity to meet Canadian ones, and continuing to create my 3D art quilts.

Please drop by and check out my blog, as I am having a giveaway today!  (Clarification: you need to leave the comment on my blog=)

WIP Wednesday #49 @ TN&TN

Friday Feature: Carolynn @ Artystuff

When I was very young, my parents thought I should have art lessons and they signed me up for a Saturday morning class at the old Art Gallery at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario. I was NOT amused, even though I think I was born holding a pencil or a paintbrush. It is just that I am NOT a “now we’ll all...” sort of a girl! Sitting on a cold floor making a small part of an ugly mural with a group of unhappy and/or pushy children was NOT my idea of a good time. I did not do well.

Hello everybody. My name is Carolynn McMillan and I live in Burlington Ontario. I am a self-taught, artistic Lone Wolf, not a groupie and I do my own thing, my own way. My good husband and I just celebrated 46 years of marriage - a long time with one man, as a dear friend of ours once said!! Very true, but we are still good friends after all that time and Bruce is my best help and my best critic. Everyone should be so lucky. We have one daughter who is married and lives in Tennessee where she is a graduate student, almost finished her PhD in Archaeology. I repeat - everyone should be so lucky!

Westport Sunset (big version, scroll down)

Bruce and I live on the edge of a lovely woodland where a LOT of my inspiration comes from. Natural forms are my chief muse. I love colour and texture and am a self-confessed Colour Junkie! I am also addicted to travel and use my own photographs to make my fibre art creations. Bruce and I are our families’ genealogists. A current project is to create a series of impressions based on photos I have taken of our travels in Kintyre, Scotland where the the McMillans came from long ago. Kintyre is definitely a land of inspiration for painters, photographers, poets and even quilters!

Elf (more 3d art)

 I say I am a Lone Wolf artistically but I am inspired by several artists – Caryl Bryer-Fallert, Betty Busby and Elaine Quehl to name a few. Whenever I feel my inspiration flagging, I make a pot of tea, google one of those ladies’ blogs – and dream! Copying other peoples’ work is not for me although I DO often try out techniques I have learned from other artists. I prefer to use those techniques to do my own designs in my own way. Experimentation is my bag. Last summer for some reason, I went mad and tried every sort of fibre art I could think of, including cloth dollmaking. To date, this summer has been a bit less hectic. Our jets are still kind of laggy after a lovely three weeks in May in Kintyre.

Fatsia Project (the beginning)

Quilting has been a sort of passion for a long time although I gave up traditional quilting a few years ago. We live in a small house with only two beds so, after making several quilts for them, for friends and relations, I turned to making Art Quilts. MUCH more satisfying! I have also recently reconnected with my sketchbook after a long hiatus. Drawing, designing quilts, Zentangling and more recently, printmaking have all been keeping me out of trouble lately. Once, in another incarnation, I did a LOT of Batik dyeing: wall hangings and silk scarves. I had several solo exhibitions of my work in that medium. That was before our daughter was born and I have decided just in the past few months, to do my own dyeing once again. Enough with the commercial fabrics, already - except maybe for those yummy Kaffe Fassett prints! ( I AM a Colour Junkie, don’t forget!) Hand dyeing has provided me with a whole new springboard for my work. I am having a ball and my poor patient husband drives me way up to Guelph to buy the lovely fine pure cotton I am using to make my delicious hand dyes. I have just finished my first completely hand dyed quilt, The Fatsia Project.

I have really enjoyed participating in the WIP Wednesday project on The Needle and Thread Network. It is lovely to see the work of and to “meet” so many other creative people from all across Canada. Pass the word and let’s get others involved too. We all learn from each other. It has been an honour to be asked to do a Friday Feature post. Thanks! As well as WIP Wednesday, I participate in Every Inchie Monday and SketchbookChallenge. Have a look at the Inchie and Sketchbook posts on my blog and check out those two “fun” sets of posts.  The Golden Inchies I did so long ago are still one of my favourites.

There is always something going on my blog and plenty of archived posts as well at…rtquilter.blogspot.com