Melanie Testa

Jacqui Holmes Calhoun on Meadowlark

Before Market, Windham Fabrics sent me two yards of each fabric in my line, Meadowlark. They asked if I might have a sewing bee in order to make samples. I agreed and after a call to Dale and Cathy, set up two consecutive Tuesdays at The City Quilter. Then I contacted the two guilds I am a member of, and asked if anyone was interested in helping out. Jacqui, the author of the following post was one of the people who showed up. Jacqui and I immediately hit it off and I am happy to say, we are already making plans to go to museum shows and to have lunch.

Here are Jacqui’s words on working with Meadowlark…

Hi everyone, and welcome to my guest post for Melanie Testa’s Meadowlark Blog Hop!

Jacqui Holmes Calhoun here —artist, quilter, book and papermaker.

It was great fun working with Melly’s new line, Meadowlark. This fabric is very painterly, with a block printing-on-paper quality that was fun to play with in fabric form. The patterns are full of rich color and the whole line has an energetic vibe.

Check out my “Four by Four” nine patch quilt I made.

I used 2.5″ squares to make the pattern- in- pattern.

Love the dots…and the birds….and the grid….

I’m seeing a book cover in my future.

I love the 9 Patch block in all its many variations.

Did you know that the 9 times table is the only set that can be written

in reverse and upside down and always come out right?

From the top: Write down the right side #9 in descending (down) order…9,8,7,6, etc.until you get to 0.

At the bottom next to 0 on the left side write 9,8,7,6 etc. in Ascending order (up) and voyla! The 9 times table re-made as play!

For someone who is SO NOT a math person I never forgot that game… and play I did with Melly’s Meadowlark stack. Oh, and then added a few more pieces for more fun.

Speaking of adding….

If you add each line of the 9 times table it always adds up to 9!

9, 18 (1+8=9), 27 (2+7=9), 36 (3+6=9)…..You get the idea,

so you see I just had to add those purple dots. I couldn’t help myself.

——–

To win your very own Meadowlark Stack of 10″ squares (10 is a great number too don’t you think?) just leave a comment by JUNE 10, 2014.

Melly is also giving away 3 copies of her fabulous book “Dreaming from the Journal Page”, for even more inspiration.

One will be given away on her blog and

the other two will be given away at the end of the Blog Hop. You have to leave a post to have a chance to win.

Melly – June 2
Vivien Zepf – June 2
Chrissie D – June 3
Sue Bleiweiss – June 4
Leslie Tucker Jenison June 5
Jamie Fingal – June 6
Lyric Kinard – June 7
Jen Eskridge – June 8
Jacqui Holmes Calhoun – June 8 <——-Jacqui will be guest posting here!
Stephanie Forsyth – June 9
Victoria Findlay Wolfe – June 10
Teri Lucas – June 11
Scott Hansen June 12
Helen Eckard – June 12 <——-Helen will be guest posting here!

for the birds

The small quilt sandwich seen above is an accomplishment of conversational prints! It is a pun, do you get it?

Armchair Birder.

Total geeky cackle over here, this is great birding humor! 🙂 I got into textile design because I fell in love with conversational prints. So, I particularly like this combination of fabrics. But I am also an armchair birder. My bird magazines come and it really is all about the pictures!

I mean.

Just sayin’. 😉

Years ago, I found the Audobon’s list of 20 Common Birds in Decline during an internet search. I sat reading the article, tears rolling down my face. But just as strongly as the tears themselves was the belief that I could do something to raise awareness for these birds. I felt resolved. I don’t know how this occurred, just that it did.

I began scouring the net for information about the birds’ habitats and the needs of that habitat (and it’s inhabitants) to maintain symbiosis with these 20 birds. I decided to make artwork for each of the twenty birds on the list. Meadowlark’s bird fabric contains six of the twenty birds on Audubon’s list. I have tried to contact their corporate office to inform them of my project, but they don’t answer the call.I wish they would because I don’t want to unintentionally misinform, but, oh well. I will do my best.

Cancer treatment really made me a different person. It is a big deal to go through. But it has also served to motivate me. It gave me time to think about what I wanted and to daydream about how I might achieve it. It showed me how little time I have and that I want to make a difference. As I lay in bed during treatment, I watched David Attenborough’s Life of Birds. I watched it over and over, except for the burrowing parrots. (Those birds are mean little birds. I didn’t watch that segment hardly at all.) But I lay there watching and wondering how I could do to help the birds that I so adore. I drifted off to sleep, came back, watched more. It was dreamy. But in viewing the show and thinking about what is important to me, I kept coming back to the list of Common Birds in Decline that affected me so deeply.

I have been exploring the imagery of The 20 birds in all media, paper, cloth printings combined with hand embroidery. So when it came time to start designing fabrics for release in my line, of course, I decided to feature some of the birds on the Audubon list. I hope to be able to create a fabric for each of the birds on the list, we will see.

I will be blogging about these new works and the birds themselves in the next few months.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings on the topic of birds.

The Eastern Meadowlark is on the List, unfortunately. It’s numbers have decreased by 73% in forty years. Here is a good place to start learning about Eastern Meadowlark and what you can do to help this bird.

And remember, I’m hosting a blog hop giveaway of Fat Stacks of the Meadowlark line, here is the list of participants (leave a comment on each posts related to the hop). Today is Leslie Tucker Jenison’s day to post and I must say, I love the ingenuity of her design! The quilt is more like a throw, it has a great ‘hand’, please go check out her post:

meadowlark blog hop give away

I am so friggin’ excited to finally be working in the textile industry and to have a line of fabrics coming out with my name on the selvedge. I mean, so, friggin’, excited.

Spring Quilt Market 2014 served to ‘launch’ my premiere fabric line, Meadowlark by Windham Fabrics which will be officially release this coming October 2014. It is used to create ‘buzz’. Talking about buzz, check out my ‘look book’! Or this video that Victoria Findlay Wolfe did at Market (she is part of this blog hop too)!

Being the interactive, show and tell driven person that I am, I set up shop at quilt market to demo the techniques I use in the printing of the Meadowlark line, and I surrounded myself with the most awesome, beautifully created samples that I possibly could. And I must say, I hardly sewed even a single stitch of the beautiful work seen in my booth. I feel absolutely blessed to be able to work with some of the most driven, detail oriented artists and quilters in this industry.

I have been told that my sample team and I used the most fabric ever, in preparation for the launch of a fabric line. Woot!! If you ask me, too much is just about enough.

Market was a whirlwind of activity. I invited many of the superstars in our industry to come to my booth and print or to say, ‘Hello’. I had so much fun and smiled so much that my face hurt at the end of the weekend.

In celebration of the launch of the Meadowlark line, we are giving away Fat Stacks (10″ square of each of the 26 fabrics in the line) and 3 copies of Dreaming From the Journal Page. I will also be giving away some 5″ Charm packs from my own ‘stash’ (Windham cuts these as giveaway at Market and I nabbed some). I will give away one copy of dreaming here, the other two will be given to whichever blog on the hop that receives the most comments. We will use the hashtag #MellyMeadowlark, so if you want to spread the word on Facebook and other social networking sites please use this tag. Leave a comment to enter a chance to win some of my pretties and don’t hesitate to ask your local quilt store to carry my line. In fact, you might just forward a link to this post:

https://melanietesta.com/2014/06/meadowlark-blog-hop-give-away/ ‎

I honestly cannot wait for you to get your hands on my fabrics and show me your skillz. In the meantime, check out what my design team has to say on the matter…

Toot, toot, toot!!!

Updates from the Meadowlark front:

Craft Garden Mom includes an interview of Nell Timmer, who works at Windham Fabrics. Nell talks about the history of Windham, the designers launching fabrics this week and of course, she talks about my fabric line, Meadowlark, and coming to my apartment to see where I work. She then goes on to drop knowledge bombs about how you might work with Windham utilizing your specia skillz…

It’s a lot of fun. Please check it out.

Modern Sewciety will be uploading their 25th episode on Friday May 16, which will feature interviews of each of the four Windham Fabric designers that are launching lines at Market this week-which includes me (bet you hadn’t caught that). This being a milestone episode for Stephanie, there will be give-away’s galore! I am told that a bundle of Meadowlark will be up for grabs. 🙂 I will do my best to post and toot, toot, toot my horn while I am at Market, but I thought I would catch you up on some fun stuff.

Oh! I have decided to use Instagram. Most of the posts are pushed to Facebook, but you might like to friend me over there too.

Meadowlark Blog Hop

I am organizing a blog hop fabric giveaway to celebrate the release of my first line of fabrics! Please stay tuned for your chance to win!!! The ‘hop’ kicks off, here, at MelanieTesta.com on June 2.

Melly – June 2
Vivien Zepf – June 2
Chrissie D – June 3
Sue Bleiweiss – June 4
Leslie Tucker Jenison June 5
Jamie Fingal – June 6
Lyric Kinard – June 7
Jen Eskridge – June 8
Jacqui Holmes Calhoun – June 8 <——-Jacqui will be guest posting here!
Stephanie Forsyth – June 9
Victoria Findlay Wolfe – June 10
Teri Lucas – June 11 Blog-TBD
Scott Hansen June 12
Helen Eckard – June 12 <——-CHelen will be guest posting here!

Meadowlark by Melanie Testa

I am so very excited to announce my fabric line, Meadowlark. This is a dream come true and I could not be happier. Windham Fabrics has done a sensational job of interpreting my designs. The texture, color, and whimsy of the designs shines through beautifully.

If you have been reading this blog and you know me, you know that my ‘main squeeze’ in the art department is printing with Procion MX dyes. The subtlety and beauty of this medium is exquisitely captured in every print in the Meadowlark line. There are 26 designs in all. 11 main designs, in two color ways each and 4 semi solids. All were created using our favorite art materials, like fun foam, carving rubber, stencils and thermofax screens. I have been having so much fun creating this method of printing that using these humble materials contributes to my excitement in showing them to you. I hope you like them as much as I do.

I have been working with my design team, awesome friends who want to help Meadowlark succeed, and we will be having a blog hop giveaway of fat quarters in a few short weeks. More importantly, we will be showing off the many projects made that highlight what can be done with the Meadowlark line, and believe me, I couldn’t put every project in this teaser video.

Please don’t hesitate to ask your local quilt store to carry my line, and I know I am tooting my own horn, but I believe these designs are like nothing you would normally see in your favorite quilt store. Beside, there are birds, dots, fruits, high heeled shoes, all very iconic and fresh.

I am just squealing with excitement to finally be able to talk about and show you what I have been up to over here. Once you get some of these fabrics into your creative paws, PLEASE show me what you do with them. I have been busy presenting these fabrics and now that they will be released into the world, they will begin to have a life of their own. That is amazing!

And the winner is…

Tesuque! I do have a fair amount of spam on my blog, so I am hoping this is a real person, lol!!! Congratulations Tesuque.

Intentional Printing by Lynn Krawczyk: it gets my vote.

I have been friends with Lynn and have been watching her mature as an artist for a few years. When I heard she was coming out with a book, I was not surprised. In Lynn’s capable hands and with this fabulous surface design manual, Intentional Printing, you will learn about using paints on cloth in several techniques, using different tools and approaches to designing interesting cloth. As a textile designer and an artist who works in cloth, I was very interested in seeing what, how and why Lynn works with her chosen media.

This book is quite interesting to me as well because Lynn likes to hand stitch portions of her work. I too love stitching and working my own printed cloth by hand, so you can see there are strong points of interest between our different approaches to working printed cloth. I was happy to receive a copy of this book for review and to jump on a blog hop about it. I sent Lynn a list of questions and asked if she would please send some pretties to dazzle your eyes. This coming post highlights Lynn and her amazing accomplishment, Intentional Printing.

1. Let’s talk about the concept of stashing. Do you “stash’ hand printed cloth or paper or are you in the habit of making per project? For myself, I prefer to make per project and am trying to whittle down the stash I do have. Please discuss your thoughts and approach to keeping a stash (or not).

I love this question! I think stashes reveal so much about how an artist works!

I print fabric only when I’m working on a project, I don’t print it to stash. With that being said, I do have quite a bit of “blank” fabric lurking in the studio. Since I work on fabric that already has color in it, I’ve got reserves to choose from when it’s time to print.

And the scraps? I have a lot of scraps and since I make collages, I tend to hang on to nearly everything. The piece has to be super tiny for me to toss it. I keep those in clear boxes, I love the riot of color and pattern they create when they all mix together. It’s really inspiring!

2. Embroidery seems essential to your methodologies, can you please discuss why this is? Do you print with ideas of stitch work in mind or is it a free for all?

Hand stitching is one of my biggest loves. The first kind of fiber art I got involved with was crazy quilting, which features hand stitching prominently. So I developed a strong connection with that kind of stitching right out of the gate. It’s something that has stuck with me even while the rest of my interests evolved.

I don’t really print the fabric with the stitching in mind. But at the same time, I always leave gaps in the printing. Meaning that unless I’m making art cloth, I leave it unfinished so that I can add other things in as I continue to work on it. A lot of times that other thing ends up being hand stitching.

And I’ll use any type of thread – perle cotton, sewing machine thread. I relish the long periods of time it takes to stitch something to within an inch of it’s life.

3. You work in several media, how do you manage this? Do you have a favorite media, or is your favorite media the one you are presently engaging in. I too have several medias and I often use them to cycle through and to help move blocked or stalled projects forward. Please discuss.

I do have other interests but they nearly all revolve around fiber. I’m really into knitting and crochet. I decided to learn to knit because I had used some yarn on an art quilt once and loved it so much, I wanted an excuse to buy and use all the pretty yarns! 😀

I think it’s a good thing to have more then one type of activity, it lets your creative mind rest. And I often find that in those breaks from the big projects, things shake loose that you might be stuck on.

Besides, there’s so much to explore! I always come back to my paint and fabric and collages but I don’t keep my muse on such a short leash that it can’t just have some fun.

4. Is there one technique that is your ‘Go To’ method? If so, do you try to challenge yourself to move away from it, or do you go with it and see where it takes you?

I have given this question a good think. Because I can’t say that I am faithful to any one technique. I do love Thermofax Screen Printing a lot but I do so many other printing methods that get equal billing.

Instead I’ll say that I’m dedicated to using paint. I do dye my own base fabric to work on but the pattern that gets created on the fabric? Always paint. I love working with it and the different effects you can get with the opacity of it. The challenge, in my mind, comes with sticking with it and learning it’s boundaries and how far I can push it.

I think Lynn’s book is a great primer on both printing cloth using acrylic paint and combining this with hand stitch.

Seeing as I work predominantly with dye, the immersion into the use of paint did me good, and I understand that some people are hesitant to use dye, in which case, this book is especially geared toward you. But even if you have no problem mixing up some concentrate and printing with it, you will find interest and divergence from your preferred methods in this book. I think it is a solid artistic offering and that the techniques and projects are approachable and well presented.

I am always interested to see how other surface designers approach layering, using color to best advantage while exploring concepts of design and composition. Lynn is gentle in her guidance and really thorough in teaching you to look at and to respond your work. It is almost as if she is sitting at your shoulder, teaching you the things she does really well. Just as it should be.

I am a fan.

Good job Lynn, and thank you.

So. I would like to give this copy of Intention Printing away. I will ship within the continental United States. Please leave a message below to enter you name into the drawing. I will use number generator to pick a winner one week from today, April 9. The drawing will occur April 16.

And don’t hesitate to check out the other blog hop sites!

Draw, stamp, screen print and more to create gorgeous art cloth with the help of surface design artistLynn Krawczyk’s new book, Intentional Printing: Simple Techniques for Inspired Art Fabric (Interweave/F+W Media; $26.99.) Take part in our blog tour with stops along the way at:

random acts of kindness are real.

Lifting weights, challenging my body and mind to work together to complete my workouts, watching my muscles grow and my shape change is quite an adventure. Being proactive and engaging with my body and its needs has helped me to feel grounded and clarifies my mind, especially after the rigors of breast cancer treatment. I know it isn’t guaranteed, and nothing can prevent cancer, but exercise is inexpensive, non-invasive and well within my ability to accomplish. It provides great benefit, acts as an antidepressant, it helps level out hormonal levels, it helps keep my body fat low (I had estrogen dependent breast cancer and fat stores and creates estrogen).

While surfing my favorite fitness blogs last week, I noticed that Jen Sinkler is coming out with a new product called Lift Weights Faster and is building interest for her new offering by doing a give away. Jen Sinkler owns a gym with her husband, she is really straight forward in her fitness approach, and she is badass, goofy, and fun (all of the things you want in a person who inspires you to exercise). Jen had a scheme where you got one point for entering yourself in the drawing, and 10 points for every friend you refer. The grand prize to this giveaway, is a home gym set up.

I took a screenshot of all the swag, just so you could see it.

And, ohmygoodness, I wanted it! I began to use my social networking feeds to get my points up to winning levels, I told my friends that I wanted that grand prize and asked them to sign up for Jen’s email list, just so I could have a chance at winning all that loot. My points started racking up and I was excited to get detailed messages describing how many points I had earned in my email box. Pretty fancy.

But then…

An unnamed admirer went and bought the entire grand prize offering and had it shipped directly to me. Just typing out these words, almost a week afterward, makes me tear up. All of the items, and more, were on my ‘wish list’. I had just been shopping for them and trying to find good deals.

Here I am with my newest kettle bell, a heavy bugger that I look forward to swinging soon.

But what really touches me about being given this gift, this random act of kindness, is the note that came with it. Which said, ‘Simply because you are an inspirational woman.’

This touches me deeply. I am honored to receive this generous gift. I feel gratified that my actions are received in the manner I had hoped. I have decided to live out loud, in all of my Flat and Fabulous glory, and to advocate for us Flatties as much as I am able. Talking about this topic, putting an image of my body on the web challenges me. It does not come easily. But at the same time, I feel passionate that women need this information and perspective, so I choose to do the work anyway. I know that if I am able to affect a single person, it was worth it, even if it is difficult to do.

So when this kind act was given to me, it was as if I had received physical confirmation that I am doing good work. It also feels somewhat permissive, as just last week, I was reviewing topics I would like to discuss on this blog, and one of them is fitness, my new hobby. So, rest assured, I will be talking fitness in the weeks and months to come.

And as is the hope when giving and receiving Random Acts of Kindness, I will be looking for a way to ‘Pay it Forward’, when the time comes.

And in the meantime, I choose to allow myself the love and kindness and generosity that was given to me along with the physical aspect of this gift. Thank you universe. Thank you very much. Some very heavy items will arrive this week and you gotta know, I look forward to lifting and writing about them.

Oh! And, I bought Jen Sinkler’s Lift Weights Faster eBook/video compilation, I love it! I have been studying it (and trying new lifts out) in downtime all week!

The Goodness

I recently went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw an installation by William Kentridge called The Refusal of Time.

I don’t know about you, but when I go to museums, which are like candy shops for me, I give myself an ‘out’, which goes like this, “Go ahead and wander around until something ‘sticks’.” This version of ‘candy’ takes up mental space, I figure I should not apply my full attention to anything in particular until my internal bells and whistles begin firing. I really do not want to give my energy away before I have had my moment.

So I wandered around, predominantly on the second floor, where I stumbled on a show called Jewels by Jar. I like sparkly things, not a lot, but I do, I meandered through the gallery, which was very dark, I looked at the amazing jewel encrusted sculptures, they were really neat, Jar has major talent and imagination. But what I really liked, was seeing the New York dames, elder women, neatly dressed, holding the print-out closely and trying to figure out what metals, jewels and fibers were used in each piece. I have always loved elder people and I fall in love easily.

I fell in love that day.

Then I stumbled into a furniture exhibit, centered around the dressing table. This was a low key gallery as far as I was concerned. It held my interest long enough to take a fun selfie.

But soon after this, I entered into the installation by William Kentridge ( the top most phot in this post). I really like the art this man makes. Every piece I have come across satisfies me, touches me deeply and this installation did not disappoint. Surrounded by projections on all three walls, sitting on a chair affixed to the floor along side an active bellows of some sort of machination, while listening to some really ingenious music, I became immersed in this 35 minute experience.

It brought tears to my eyes, I was amazed. I love that. I love when good art makes me cry. When good art makes me think and pulls me away from what I think is true and relevant and fills me with wonder and anticipation.

I want to see it again.

And whenever I go to the Met, I always seek out the gallery just outside the Antonio Ratti Textile Center which had an exhibition of William Morris fabrics and wallpaper. This is just food for the soul. This textile lover, up and coming textile designer, loves William Morris. Being able to lean in and really look at printed cloth and wallpaper? Being able to see the ‘thuck’ of the block printed paper (the texture that the ink leaves), oh my goodness. That was a treat beyond measure.

I left the museum with a lightness, an airiness that had not been there previously.

What museum, show or gallery have you been to that has rocked your socks? Tell me in the comment, please.

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