Mind of Color

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) "Sew to Speak" in Germantown MD is my first textile art exhibition. The exhibition will go on until April 21st at the BlackRock Center for the Arts and admission is free. I also had two quilts at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Hampton this year. What is the difference between a (fiber) art show and a quilt show? I'm sharing some thoughts, mainly looking at these two. There are some more hybrid forms as well. A quilt show offers the full range of styles. It is a representation of how we all quilt. There may be some wearables. There are individual quilters and there are quilts made by groups of quilters. This collaboration can result in one quilt, but also in a group of quilts all with the same theme. Cherrywood Challenge, Hoffman Challenge, Donna Marcinkowski DeSotos' Inspired quilts, are all groups. Those quilts hang together, are usually smaller in size, and travel from show to show, although sometimes also as independent exhibits. Small but powerful! They are a great addition to a show and offer more people a chance to have their quilts in a show. The organizers of such a group exhibition make their selection of who will be part of it. So there is a moment of selection, but it is the group that enters the show. An art show may be open to cooperation between quilters, but most of the time these are highly individual works. It is the work of one artist that is on display and it is the job of a curator/jury to select multiple works that can make the show a cohesive display. There is an overall message that a curator tries to share. Deb Cashatt, the curator of Sew To Speak, did a great job here. She selected quilts that have views/visions and they are well executed. They stand for something and the many topics and different views result in an interesting, balanced, exhibition. It makes you think. Personal trauma is shown in full trauma, acceptance, and recovery. Voting, climate, military service, family history.... are some of the topics and all the artists have such an outspoken view on a topic, they all felt the desire to put it in fabric. Sew to speak. In an art exhibition, you won't find patterns made up by someone else. That's an absolute no. It has to be original work, highly original in concept and execution. The goal is not to do things "correctly" and the vision and interpretation of the artist are respected. There is a great amount of freedom given to an artist. In a quiltshow, you will see original works as well as many quilts designed by others, pattern designers. Some of those pattern quilts are gorgeous quilts that require great piecing or applique skills and are amazing to see in real life. It is the timeless discussion of the difference between an artist and a crafter and thank goodness there is room for both. I can appreciate tiny little stitches, meticulously sewn into many of the same blocks. Or yet another cat, dog, or flower collage. I can also appreciate rough, irregular quilting. It just depends. We may like different styles. I don't have to choose the winner! I am writing this blog in Big Bend National Park and I am glad I don't have to choose a favorite National Park. So many have something so special. Quilts are the same. Instead of choosing one over another, I count my blessings that I can see so much beauty!

Which color is the leading color at the moment? Peach Fuzz, the Pantone color of 2024? Hints of peaches and melons are picking up some interest in interior design. Some walls are getting those colors, and some vases and lampshades pick up the color, but nothing major. Is Sherwin Williams right, Benjamin Moore, Glidden? Kona? All these companies are all over the place with no consistency in their recommendations. The trend is making a little curve: who says that it has to be one color that is the winner? I would dare to say that at this moment we don't have one color that is the leader. What we do have is Color with a capital C! Last year's Pantone color was Viva Magenta, and I wrote in a blog at that time that it probably wasn't going to be so much the color Magenta that was important. Important was "Viva". That has become the case indeed. After years of super clean whites and overused grays, we were ready for color! We can't keep the house as clean and uncluttered as during the Covid years. All those houses and walls looked the same. Now there is room for some personal style again, some collectives, some decorations that make your home yours. The swing is being made in full: The trend at the moment is multi-colored. Busy, Bohemian, eclectic, moody colors and it all comes together in the marketing with the use of bookcases. Library look. All these books have different covers, you see bits and pieces of colors, and together the patterns of the bookcase are busy! Yes, it is a unit, the shelving holds all these books together. Who cares if these books can collect dust? They also can introduce you to hours of relaxing in a comfortable chair, travels to interesting places, and the complicated lives of others in the past and future. Books have and can bring life knowledge. And so we see the change. Busy and multi-colored is coming from flat and neutral. Wallpaper with designs takes over solid walls. Tiny prints are taking over solids. and one light-dominant color is being replaced with a palette of much darker colors. It also will mean that all the more monochromatic colored quilts are becoming a little bit more dated. For years we have made Bargello quilts moving from for instance teal into blue with close steps, making the blending as perfect as possible. The newest quilt patterns are looking for a much more outspoken contrast. It just hit me how much we are going for this in fabric because take a look at the colors of this bookcase nested in those warm beige walls. It has very much the same feel as the new Field Cloth collection by Sew Kind of Wonderful for Free Spirit, a collection that I pointed out to you earlier because of its tiny prints that are being used in big blocks. Sew Kind of Wonderful is so good at where the trend is. Two weeks ago Motley by Guicy Guice shipped to stores interested in carrying trendy fabrics. I wrote about the tiny designs 2 blogs ago. Here now you see the most important new colors together in a collection and combined with a tiny or minimal design. Fabulous job, Guicy Guice!

My quilts will be on the road! "Abundance" and "Homage to Yaagov Agam" have been accepted into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Hampton. Agam will be hanging in a special exhibit of quilts inspired by artists of the 20th century. I sent a message to the Agam Museum in Tel Aviv, but haven't heard back. I am not sure if the museum is even open these days. Mr Agam is now 96 years old and I have been a fan since I saw his work for the first time in Paris a long time ago. His sculptures are all over the world and when in the area I look them up. I once, on my way to Houston, drove to the children's hospital in Birmingham, AL just to see the outside of the building! It was the Pompidou room in Paris that made me an immediate fan, but he has made so many amazing pieces of art. He is a sculptor and can express with color and movement how perspectives can change. The connection with quilting is in my view obvious. The Alzheimer's quilt (official title "My mother has Alzheimer's. These last 5 years) has been selected for the SAQA Sew to Speak exhibition in Germantown, MD at the Black Rock Center for the Arts ( I entered it there because it was such a good fit with the theme of the show). You can understand that this is now even more special to me. The exhibition will run from March 9 until April 22, 2024. At the moment I am making these show quilts ready by attaching sleeves and labels. Do you know that a sleeve has to be attached to the top of a quilt? I discovered a next day that I had sewn my sleeve to the bottom...so smart.. I can keep myself nicely busy!;) We had another wonderful Open Studio Day where 5 students spent all day in my Studio working on an Organic Color collage. I know these students are truly enjoying the day and so do I. We all learn so much about the technique by listening and looking at each other's work. I can finetune my teaching and I know this last group heard it much more clearly than when I taught it for the first time at a guild. It is wonderful to be on a color journey with like-minded quilters! The next open Studio Day will be 4-27, 2024. The cost is $229.00 for an all-day class with access to all my fabrics and supplies and lunch provided by Panera. Email me if you want to be included or would like some information. Students who have taken the class have expressed an interest in an "Agamy" Stripes class as well. I will schedule a date for that a little bit later. I have made another "Agamy" Stripe quilt, but it still needs to be quilted. Later. Another quilt is finished: "Growing color" uses the organic color collage technique for the background. The idea behind the quilt is that we all can choose to look for the good, grow color, even when life is not perfect. I tried to make the background, the effort, "perfect" and the individual flowers on purpose not perfect. They have flaws, one I even cut! Are the flowers the most important part or should the background be the most important part? A viewer may decide. I added to my website some new fabric packages. The new Kaffe Fassett collection that came out last month (Vintage) is available in a builder size. 20 pieces of fabric in size 4.5 x 10"! Big enough for collage people who make great quilts with small pieces! Remember, you can always ask me for packages with little pieces. I made these Single Shapes packages whites, low volume, and almost whites, for a student. How else do you get 75 different pieces of fabric in whites and superlights?

One of the newest trends at Fall 2023 Houston Market was the abundance of tiny prints. Tiny is the new "in". I will try to explain. In quilting, it is about the relation between fabrics and what is being done with these fabrics. Fabrics can have designs and with these fabrics, new designs are created. So two designs are playing together: fabric and pattern. You have pattern designers and fabric designers, sometimes a person can do both. Certainly, I can make the case that we have three design elements as the art of quilting has become so important these last 10 years. There is nothing tiny in patterns. The patterns, what you make with the fabric designs, are often big blocks with especially curves and stars taking the spotlight. Big blocks became new last year, when suddenly all the blocks blew up in size, some even up to 20". This created room for more fancy quilting designs and helped push out borders and white backgrounds. That continues to be the case, (it would even be impossible to change so quickly again). The fabrics used last year were solids, fabrics with no design at all. Solids have been in contemporary quilting extremely dominant, almost since the beginning of modern quilting. Look for instance at the work of Nancy Crow, without any doubt the founding queen of modern quilting. Every company makes solids, some for years, some are relatively young, thinking they couldn't stay behind. Companies have expanded and expanded the colors as the demand was so big, but.... they are also making so many other gorgeous fabrics! I think it is quite amazing that last QuiltCon was showing so many quilts entirely made out of solids.... still modern? After all these years? It is almost like saying that Kaffe is modern because of the bright colors he creates (Kaffe makes beautiful browns and blacks as well!). "Modern" in the meaning of contemporary, would be using the latest of the latest fabrics and incorporating these in new and original work. Fabric companies would love that! "Modern" could come to stand for a phase in the quilting world when solids were dominant, but in that case, the word modern has a different meaning. It becomes a style of quilting. What I have seen so far being accepted for QuiltCon 2024 is again mostly created with solids. The focus is still overwhelmingly on the pattern design and the (ruler)quilting, without much thinking about fabric. Don't get me wrong: I see stunning quilts! But...wouldn't you think a quilt made out of, for instance, Anna Maria Horner fabrics could be more new? Modern fabrics in modern patterns and with modern quilting.... that is a challenge! A crack in the use of solids seems to start happening. At this last Market, many pattern designers didn't use the solids any longer. They are using new tiny prints. From a distance they look like solids, but closer by these fabrics have designs. All this fits in the bigger trend towards maximalism. Bringing design back. By no means are we there yet, but it is safe to say we have left minimalism. More minimal than solid is not possible. I predict that we are going to leave solids and that they are on their way out!! Really. Yes. Slowly. That doesn't mean you won't see new patterns with solids. It means you will see new patterns not using solids. More patterns with less solids. It is a gliding scale. I saw an ad for felt wall tiles: "Got naked walls?" The word "naked" was used to describe a solid wall in mostly white. That same wall was just a few years ago during covid "uncluttered, clean", hotter than hot. Now it is "naked" and white went from positive to negative. It is changing pretty fast! Ten years or so from now, Modern can indeed be described as the period we used solids, negative space, etc....like calico prints belonging to the 1930s. The latest of the latest will be something different and it could maybe be called something different than modern. Maybe "new age" or "library quilting", I don't believe there is a new word yet. All this is a to-be-expected path as we recognize the art of quilting. Years ago, quilts were only used as a warm blanket for a bed. I remember a discussion with a friend who said a real quilt is for on the bed.... as you can imagine, I disagreed and these days it is widely accepted that wall hangings are real quilts too! We have come a long way: As quilting grew into an art form as well, it is not a surprise there are several directions, "schools", that focus on a specific style in this art form. The modern quilter, the improv quilter, the mixed media artist, the collage quilter.....they can all be in harmony just as impressionists and cubist painters can be appreciated equally for their role in the art of painting and different style composers have explored the sound of music. Every time has its form of creativity, almost like a flavor, thank goodness. I am not sure if this is true, but I believe it was Tula Pink who called these little prints "tiny prints". Did she give it this name? The word is for sure not blenders because these tiny prints are not being used to connect/blend bigger scale prints. These are stand-alone fabrics, big enough in their tininess to face the world without bigger-scale prints. They are indeed used (at this moment) in the same way as solids. They are not blenders, they are not basics, but they are tiny and that is new! Fun, not? Several collections made me think of this. The best sample: Field Cloth designed by Sew Kind of Wonderful for FreeSpirit and coming out in May. This design team is spot on on the trends: big block patterns, with stars and curves, but now also tiny prints. When you look at their patterns, you can see how the design world is evolving. These tiny prints can but they usually don't come in collections of 24-30 the same prints. It is really about a mix of prints that you can collect, just as we collected low volume a few years ago. The Modern Quilt Studio by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle is coming out with a collection of tiny prints, called Transparency , and starts a BOM this month. Always interesting. Ruby Star Society showed a quilt with stars at Market using the lightest little stars for the more background-like blocks. Figo will have a fabulous collection coming out in August, called Stash, and this collection was presented as "minimal" prints. Minimal, tiny, it is all meant as an effort to find an alternative for solids. Of course, the prints are non-directional to make the step away from solids as easy as possible. It seems like an unimportant change, but it is very new and refreshing. A true trend, because it is happening right in front of our eyes with most unaware that it is happening. I hope the best contemporary and innovative quilters will start using these!

Only Quilts Inc., the company that runs Quilt Market and Festival, knows the exact numbers of attendees. My impression is guess work. I think the numbers are up! A little, but up. Fall Market wasn't as packed as in (some of) the best days, but more shops came out and were motivated to see and hear what is new than last year. More international people flew in as well with the Covid travel restrictions lifted. Quite often did I hear that a shop was at market for the first time in 4 years. Attendance was steady. To me, the most positive point of this Market was the fact that more fabric companies were attending. "We are back"! Many, as they told me themselves, decided later or even very last minute to attend, but Robert Kaufman, Michael Miller, P&B , Hoffman...they were back! That was a wonderful thing to witness, even though because of this last minute choice, their presentation was a little minimal compared to companies who are clearly planning displays long time in advance. Companies like Moda, Riley Blake, Free Spirit and Benartex have a Market vision. You can just see they were committed to Market at an earlier point. Moda created a labyrinth of little corners where the creative juices would come to you from every angle. Like a good shop. Not a single designer could show a quilt straight, but all the angled displays were creative use of space. It showed enthusiasm, energy and variety. Riley Blake had beautiful displays showing the many sides of the company and every table still has some incredible chocolate treats to sweeten up potential buyers. That is such a sweet gesture and I know they must go through a ton of chocolates! FreeSpirit saw some of its designers in big booths making it clear that they are leaders in the modern and artful fabric. Benartex showed in crisp and clear sections the many quilting styles they cover. Congratulations to these winners! All this is not only showing at Market. It is also showing on social media, where everyone can see the fun and boring. (To me boring is where a booth has a few (empty) tables for sales reps to work at and behind the tables a quilt hanging. That set-up is killing cute pictures). An investment in Market presence is no longer seen only by Market attendees. It goes to every corner in the world where quilters live. Moda, Riley Blake, Free Spirit and Benartex make displays that work for them on all the videos, You Tube postings, photo shots that everyone seems to need to make. You can photograph, shoot everything in the fight for your social popularity, but these companies are really using the photographer/shooter for their marketing just as much. I asked one big fabric company if they believed that purple was the color to watch....their booth was mostly purple. "Oh no, we didn't even think about color. This is just to give you an idea what you can do with a bundle and this is the one we used." You are a fabric company. Aren't you about selling fabrics? Why don't you think about color? Shop owners know what they can do with a bundle. Things like that. Marketing flaws that won't happen to the marketing savvy companies. Now it wouldn't stop me from buying from this company because I know and love its fabric: they make every color of the world, even tons of different purples! But a new shop is getting introduced to a very, very little part of a fabric company if they show themselves so minimal. This "purple" face they gave themselves without thinking is on social media.... that's all we see of everything they do ...A company can hurt itself so quickly. I wish I could protect them because they work hard, are the nicest people and make beautiful fabrics. They just think so little about presentation and outreach. A booth in 2023 can't look the same as one in 2013. Too much has changed to keep that concept the same. Marketing has become so, so important and companies not investing in marketing are falling behind or at least missing an opportunity to shine. There were quite some companies that made this mistake and there were some in the middle doing ok. All this will make Moda, FreeSpirit, Riley Blake and Benartex social media winners and that has nothing to do with the content of their collections, but everything with their presentations. Gorgeous fabrics were also in the least attractive booths, but it requires a more in depth approach from potential buyers. Another really important phenomenon is the growing presence of affiliate marketing. There are more and more people who make it their business promoting someone else's product/work, especially on YouTube and Facebook. Every time you click on their links and decide to buy something, the affiliate marketeer gets a certain percentage of the selling price. Many of these media people were at Market. It is not only big brother watching you. The people you follow are watching every click you make and the more "likes" they have, the stronger their business is. I spoke to several of them and oh my, it is just amazing how that works and what they know. Many manufacturers of tools and fabrics alike are using them and even the bigger online shops are working with affiliate marketing providers. It is becoming harder for smaller shops to exist, especially if they are trying to do the same thing as the bigger players. They can't compete that way, they have to become more creative in other ways. And there is a need for something else: how many the same kind of interviews and pictures does a customer want to see? Sometimes, the public is already tired of a collection, before it arrives in a shop because it has been on social media everywhere! I also know that some much smaller and younger companies decided not too come back after last year. With the new H&H Market in the Spring, a market also for quilting, but even more so for knitting and other textile crafts... they believe to find a better audience there. I understand, but given the fact that so many quilt shops were back for the first time in 4 years... Market last year, the first one after 3 years of Covid, could have been a little misleading. We don't know it all in advance. I think most fabric companies will do H&H in the Spring and Houston in the Fall. I heard a pattern designer not going back to H&H as she needs a bigger quilt shop audience. For sure 2 quilt markets per year is too much, but maybe one quilt market and one craft market makes sense? There was very, very little new at Market from a fabric or pattern company point of view. Katia Fabric is new for the US and found an umbrella with Northcott Fabrics, just like Figo. Katia is originally from Spain and it will bring a new concept of "fabric and patterns all in one company" to the market. Sewing garments, home decor, quilting, trying to cover it all. It was an interesting discussion and often my European roots make it so much easier to understand where they are coming from and what they are trying to accomplish in the US. Knowing that Figo after 5 years has really found a modern voice in the industry, puts Katia on my watchlist. There were very few new pattern booths, if any. I had seen them all before. It is hard to get surprised by patterns as everything is so intensely on social media, long before Market. Still, market has a function as I was pointing out some newer trends to on old colleague shop owner with whom it was fun to chat. You can only see this when you see the repeat in many booths. To me, Market is by far the best place to see the industry, although not the only place as a lot is not present or shown. Market introduces you to old and new people in the industry, which is so important in staying up to date or finding new opportunities. Many are friends, but even more are business relations. All those happy faces on social media...some have never met each other before but look like best buddies. Especially at this Market, the desire for attention was so in your face. Things have really, really changed as a few years ago, pictures were not even allowed. You saw signs of camera's with an X. It is not a matter of good or bad, it is the reality of every business these days. But I think it it wise to know when you see all this at home that sometimes it is pure marketing: Business, money, buy me! That is not said Market doesn't have warm personal relations: years of working together create friendships, care and many are really happy to see each other without a need to share this on social media. I'm not sure Sample Spree is any longer worth the entrance fee. This cash and carry market was originally meant for shops to buy fabrics and patterns earlier so that they could make a shop sample and have it ready by the time the fabric would arrive. The cash and carry Market is getting smaller and smaller, with only Moda as the attraction. That booth is so packed, it's unbelievable. Shops are like piranhas around the tables, packed with fat quarter bundles, and they are paying an higher than regular wholesale price for it. Nobody is checking the price, they just grab. They grab so much, they couldn't even make it all in samples! I find that emotional response so amazing for a business. Moda has always done a gangbusters business there, fully feeding the enthusiasm of shop owners/designers of being at Market. There is very few fabric left available at Sample Spree. Most well known fabric companies, except some Asian companies, have given up on Sample Spree. That gives younger companies a chance to shine and get some welcome cash to recover Market attendance cost. I love what Poppie Cotton did for Sample Spree. They created a beautiful red bag with colorful flowers and all Market long you could see these happy flowers dancing around. Excellent advertising! I now know Poppie Cotton. It shows you there is room for new, creative thinking, and some of their fabric will show up in my "collage small" packages as I just want to support them (yes, I bought fabric!). So much to share... these are just a few of my personal thoughts on the business side! More about Market in later blogs and in my lecture about trends in color and design. Houston 2023 was good!!

We continued our drive and came closer to Marianna, I believe it names itself cotton capital of the world. Cotton fields everywhere! After a stop at a traffic light we ended up driving behind a big truck and from this big truck little white flurries jumped onto the road. Cotton!! It was not just the wind... the truck lost some of its white load. Immediately we looked at each other. Shall we? Of course. The decision to follow this truck was made quickly. We had some time. Where would it go to? What was happening to the cotton? Let's find out. After a few minutes and driving on very local roads, far away from the main road KY-Dallas, the truck entered an industrial area in the middle of some cotton fields. More trucks came in and left again, all bringing raw cotton. There were no visitors. There were hardly any people. Just these truck drivers (like us;)) Ineke and I had some guts and parked our truck filled with the the hottest of the hottest cotton fabrics (!) near a loading area. We looked around a little, peeked inside and saw a working cotton gin: gigantic displays with machineries working on the cotton. Oh wow! A very friendly man approached us, asking if he could help us. We explained that we were a Dutch quilter and an American/Dutch quilt shop owner on our way to the Houston quilt show and that we just loved cotton. The man smiled, heard our accents, and took us on a private tour through the cotton gin. He loved cotton too! He had worked all his life in the gin and I must confess his thick Arkansas' accent made it hard for us to follow him too. But he was extremely friendly and we were super happy, so the communication worked. The cotton comes in as a plant, full with seeds, needles, branches. Ginning removes the seeds from the cotton,.. At the end of the cleaning, soft pure cotton is left and stacked in bales. Then it goes to mills for being produced into textiles. Would we like to have some cotton? Ineke and I said yes and we each have now a big pile of cotton, reminder of this beautiful adventure and our friendship. Such a fabulous day! We continued our way to Houston, making even more memories.

Studio Carly Mul LLC has been formed! Retirement is the time when one has no longer the obligations and commitments that come with earning a living. There is time to do whatever one loves. In my case, I have always loved my work and I know I am really fortunate to say that work has never been a burden. My work was my hobby, but the responsibilities that came with it prevented that I had enough time left for family, travel, volunteering and more hobby. It probably will always be a challenge as I still have more wishes than hours in the day, but a year in retirement, I can definitely say we (my husband and I) have made and are making our (his, mine and ours) dreams come true. One of my dreams is making more quilts, being creative, playing with fabrics and giving back to the community. That has really happened, despite the many trips, the volunteering and my tennis. My classes, lectures, Open Studio Days.. for all this I need an official legal construction. Even when the focus is not on finances, activities can have consequences. So welcome to Studio Carly Mul LLC, a single member corporation. I will not have employees, I will not open a shop, I am not trying to ship the same day! It is my continuing fabric journey that I will share with others who have the same passion. Expect the website to reflect some changes soon! If interested, please sign up for the mailing list. Thank you !