The photo above of a small creek near my house doesn’t have anything to do with this post.  It is just one of my fav photos.  The beauty of the waning of winter.

I just mailed out my new postcard yesterday.  I am more and more leaning toward very specific communications with my Patrons and Art Friends.  If you would like to be added to my snail mail mailing list, just send drop me a line with, obviously, your snail mail.  I love receiving postcards from other artists, so do let me know if you maintain a snail mail list and I will reciprocate.

The link to my online March e-newsletter has also gone out to subscribers.  The e-newsletter includes a rare photo of Joe and I with our new companions, plus news of an artwork to a permanent archive, free shipping on my book, and, yes, alpacas.  Just send an e-mail message with SUB as the subject line to Virginia(at)Virginia.com if you would like to receive my free e-newsletter.

I love Blurb books for a variety of reasons, not the least because they offer specials periodically. If you have been thinking about ordering my book, Wild at the Edges: Inspiration from a Creative Life, now is the time.  Blurb is donating Free Ground/Economy shipping on all orders placed by March 22.

Just enter the promo code below at checkout and your book will be in your hands in about a week. Be sure to use the appropriate currency, based on your location.

USD $ promo code: WESHIP
GBP £ promo code: WESHIP2
EUR € promo code: WESHIP3

Here are the caveats: Offer valid through March 22, 2010 (11:59 p.m. PST). Offer covers Ground/Economy shipping costs for up to $7.99, £3.99, or €5.99 up to five books in one order, shipped to one address. This offer is good for one-time use and cannot be combined with other promotional codes or used for adjustments on previous orders.

Need MORE reasons to click over and check out my book?
1.  Check out the price.  Since I retired FFAC, I have reduced the price on Wild at the Edges as I donate to the ACS in other ways now. Wild at the Edges is offered in both soft and hardcover. If you can do the hardcover, it is well worth it.
2.  RAVE REVIEWS!
3.  Self-publishing is great for a book like Wild at the Edges.  NO projects, but a quirky, personal sensibility. I choose each photo and placed it to enhance each essay or poem. Reading Wild at the Edges is meant to be a journey, one that you can savor, study and enjoy in small moments of time.
4.  I have heard from many readers that Wild at the Edges is a great gift for artists of all types.  Many of the essays focus on what it means to be an artist –  the disappointments and the triumphs.

If you would have told me that I would EVER, ever, put a binding on any of my art quilts again, I would have laughed.  And here I am sewing fourteen feet of double-fold binding on Boundary Waters 52.  It just goes to show that you really shouldn’t say never.

I finished BW 52 (at least I think it is done – I painted a little bit on it since finishing stitching it and it may need just a touch more. See below!), squared it up and contemplated the multi-texture edge of the art quilt.  There were single layers, double layers, triple layers of painted and dyed cotton fabric fabric; velvet; polyester; shredding duck cloth, . . . .  Need I say more?

I taught myself quilt making by making 50+/- traditional quilts.  I never followed a pattern, but I always put a double-fold binding on them.  It is binding that will last and last and gives a very sturdy edge. But when I started painting my own fabric and making art quilts, I became committed to doing only that which fulfilled my vision.  So bindings, why?

I like a fuzzy, wild edge.  It’s FABRIC!  I like to show that this is a medium that’s vibrant, textured, alive.  I sometimes put a note in with one of my more shaggy art quilts going to a non-textile gallery:  ”Shredding and shedding are good.”  I imagine that causes some eyebrows to be raised.

But I had to come down on the side of doing what I needed to do with Boundary Waters 52.  If an edge is a distraction or will lead to the piece disintegrating or hanging incorrectly, then it just is not the right edge.

So I looked up the right width to cut fabric for a double-fold binding, cut some lovely blue-dyed fabric, seamed it, pressed it, sewed it on the front of the quilt, and miterrf those corners ever so beautifully.  Then I very happily sat on my Blue Moo and stitched away by hand.

SPECIAL NOTES:  Sorry I can’t show more of this artwork, but it is an entry that can’t be shown quite yet. Since I wrote this, I spent a lot of time and a lot of oil paint sticks covering just about every surface.  Everything you see in the detail photo above is basically gone.

A reminder that I won’t be posting too often for a bit as I return (post-ToteTuesday) to my studio.  If you want to know every month what I am up to in and out of the studio, send an e-mail to Virginia(at) VirginiaSpiegel.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  You will receive my free monthly e-newsletter.)

ToteTuesday raised a whopping $$15,649 and Karey B’s Monet’s Flowers CD has raised $410 so far.  So we are definitely over $205,000 total raised by Fiberart For A Cause since 2005.  It’s great to retire Fiberart For A Cause on such a high note.  Sincere thanks to everyone who made this success possible.

We had several bonus challenges for the Tote Tuesday finale and bidders were up to the challenge:

1. Any patron with a winning bid of $350 or higher on one tote/artwork will receive four wonderful quilting books from FFAC’s Honorary Chair, Karey Bresenhan: Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project; I Remember Mama: A Book of Love About Mothers, Daughters and Quilts; Celebrate Great Quilts!; and America From the Heart.
Nine generous patrons will receive this bonus: Karey will contact you directly.

2. Every patron who wins a tote/artwork with a bid of $1000 or more may choose either one of my famous “never sold, only gifted” fabric bundles (The fabric bundles are hard to explain, but think of origami <kind of> with my own fabrics and specialty fibers wrapped and packaged in a way that makes some recipients say they don’t want to start unwrapping it at all) in the winner’s choice of colorway OR one of these artworks OR one collage ($75 or less) from Karen Stiehl Osborn’s Mixed Media Gallery.
Lynne Allen did and I am happy to send her Create Spaces from the Third Thoughts series.

3. If Art Cloth Extravaganza: A Dream Tote raises the most money during ToteTuesday 4, the generous artists of Art Cloth Studios will send the winner an additional $500 or more of art cloth.
It did ($1000) and they, very generously, will.

4. Peggy Schroder will donate 10% of the winning bid (up to $1000) for the Think Pink tote to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For a Cause.
The Think Pink tote raised $350 and Peggy contribued another $35 to the ACS. (Peggy is busy shipping out the many totes she sponsored.  Thank you, Peggy, for your huge contribution to ToteTuesday,)

5. If we raise a total of $15,000 from ToteTuesday, I will hold a drawing among all winning bidders from all the ToteTuesdays. The winner may choose one of these artworks OR one of my “never sold, only gifted” fabric bundles (description above).
We did it! The winner is Ann Thompson.

What a great fundraising day. Thank you!  The finale of ToteTuesday raised more than $6000 for a grand total of more than $15,000 donated to the American Cancer Society by ToteTuesday patrons.

Here are all the final bids with the Art Cloth Studio tote raising $1000 and the To the Studio tote raising $800.

Thanks go to the generous ToteTuesday sponsors/donors as well as the equally generous bidders.

I am happily retiring all of Fiberart For A Cause on February 28 knowing we have raised more than $205,000 for the American Cancer Society since 2005.

Why February 28?  Because Karey Bresenhan will honor any donations for her Monet’s flower CD through February 28.  Ditto 25% of the profits from my book.

Thanks to Karey, FFAC’s Honorary Chair, for her ongoing and personal interest in the success of FFAC. We couldn’t have done it without her.

It’s been been a great five years of fundraising and I appreciate everything all of YOU  have done to make such a huge success possible.

What’s next?  To my studio, of course!