Blog Hop | Fiber Art Connection Online Class

Fiber-Art-ConnectionHooray! It’s my stop on the Fiber Art Connection online class Blog Hop!

This is a completely new type of online class, it’s taught by a group of awesome (if I do say so myself!) fiber artists. Registration CLOSES on March 15, you must be registered by then in order to be a student in Session 1. There are 10 weeks in the session, each week a different teacher teaches a different class, with material presented for each day of the week. There’s a great FAQ here: that explains how it works. Your access to all the content never expires, but our intention is to provide 3 months of artist synergy and inspiration to the members of the class, that’s why you have to be registered for the class my March 15!

Blog Hop Schedule:

In order to introduce you to all the teachers, we’ve decided to have a little blog hop. To encourage folks to read all about us, we have all created an “Artist Goody Basket” filled with items that would be useful in each of our classes that we’re giving away to one lucky person.

FAC-basket-horizontal
The basket includes 6 spools of variegated thread from 6 different thread companies, a piece of hand dyed fabric in a tonal rainbow color palette, prequilted 9″ block for coloring, 6 Inktense colored pencils, 2 quilt magazines, quilters flat tape measure, bag of six Valdani hand-dyed threads, gold eye chenille needles, hand dyed fabrics trim and lace, 10 fat quarters of assorted fabrics,  4 sheets of Tyvek, 2 coloured light weight Lutradur and 75 grams of Tussah Silk Top or Roving, artists transfer paper, 5 pieces of different colors of organza, 9 pieces of acid free tissue paper, silk organza, linen, embroidery thread, a package of beads and a spool of perks cotton thread

To enter the giveaway, you can:

  1. Register for the class
  2. Leave a comment on this blog post answering this question “What type of Fiber Art Technique would you most like to learn more about?” I’ve got comment moderation on, so don’t worry if you don’t see yours right away!
  3. Share a link to this blog post on social media and then leave another comment here telling me you did so
  4. Sign up for the Fiber Art Connection mailing list, you can do that here

People can enter at each stop along the blog tour, commenting on all the posts will be open until midnight PST on 3/14, which is the day before the course actually starts. After combining all the entries, we’ll user random.org to choose a winner, Desiree will ship to the winner that next day so they could use the items in the class if they registered.

Now, here’s a bit more about me! If you’re new here, I’m Candy Glendening!

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What draws you to the fiber arts? Why do you work the way you do?

I’m a very tactile person, and the feel of cotton and linen have always been joyous for me; growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, polyester clothing literally gave me hives, so I shopped with my hands! Color is also incredibly important to me, so i dye all the fabrics that I use myself in order to have just the hue and visual text that is in my mind, rather than trying to incorporate the intention of other fabric designers into my work!

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Tell us about your studio! Where in the world is it? Is it clean or messy? Is it hidden away or out in the open?

I live in Southern California, in a place called Redlands which is halfway between LA and Palm Springs, and I actually have 2 studios! My sewing studio is one of the bedrooms in our house; when we moved in 12 years ago, hubby insisted that the room with all the built in bookshelves was the perfect place for me to work. Over the years he has made me a couple of storage pieces and a sewing machine table that allows me to have maximum storage and just the right work spaces to fit in that room!

Studio-Jan-2014-02

All my fabric dyeing gets done on my patio, last year I had a dream dyeing sink made to my exact specifications and I LOVE it!

What’s your favorite color and why?

Chartreuse!!! It’s high value makes it a great accent to so many other colors, but the muddiness of this color makes it interesting and sophisticated and allows me to dye fabric with interesting visual texture, rather than the simpleness you get from bright yellow or neon green. Here are 2 shades of it playing very nicely with a palette of greys and blues:

Winter-Blues-7

What’s your least favorite thing to do when you’re working a piece?

Ironing! Ironing is the bane of my existence, because I have to iron EVERYTHING I dye!!!

If you could fly where would you go?

Someplace with a lovely lake that has a bit of sandy beach and lots of rocks (rather than muck) under the water that is nestled in a mountain, and near the seashore too!

Tell us about the class you’re teaching in The Fiber Art Connection. What do you hope your students will learn from this?

My class is entitled “Free Motion Quilting: Themes and Variations”. In it I cover the basics of free motion quilting and introduce 5 basic FMQ patterns, and then show some variations on each of the main pattern. I hope that this approach can not only teach free motion quilting to beginners, but also show folks with some FMQ experience how to take what they know and expand on it; not only will all my students learn the patterns I teach them, but they’ll have ideas on how they can take their quilting further.

Glendening-FMQ-sampler-book-pages

I’ll also be teaching them my technique to create a FMQ sampler book which is a great way to keep track of all the different motifs you learn and develop:

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Where else can we find you on the internet?

Thanks for stopping by! Don’t forget to enter the giveaway:

FAC-basket-horizontal
The basket includes 6 spools of variegated thread from 6 different thread companies, a piece of hand dyed fabric in a tonal rainbow color palette, prequilted 9″ block for coloring, 6 Inktense colored pencils, 2 quilt magazines, quilters flat tape measure, bag of six Valdani hand-dyed threads, gold eye chenille needles, hand dyed fabrics trim and lace, 10 fat quarters of assorted fabrics,  4 sheets of Tyvek, 2 coloured light weight Lutradur and 75 grams of Tussah Silk Top or Roving, artists transfer paper, 5 pieces of different colors of organza, 9 pieces of acid free tissue paper, silk organza, linen, embroidery thread, a package of beads and a spool of perks cotton thread

To enter the giveaway, you can:

  1. Register for the class
  2. Leave a comment on this blog post answering this question “What type of Fiber Art Technique would you most like to learn more about?” I’ve got comment moderation on, so don’t worry if you don’t see yours right away!
  3. Share a link to this blog post on social media and then leave another comment here telling me you did so
  4. Sign up for the Fiber Art Connection mailing list, you can do that here

People can enter at each stop along the blog tour, commenting on all the posts will be open until midnight PST on 3/14, which is the day before the course actually starts. After combining all the entries, we’ll user random.org to choose a winner, Desiree will ship to the winner that next day so they could use the items in the class if they registered.

Make sure to visit all the other stops

30 Responses

  2. Hmmm. Such a hard question to answer. . . . To pick only one! I have loved appliqué and construction for years and after discovering Desiree’s fabric water coloring a couple years ago, I have dabbled in free motion, felting, Sashiko and fabric painting. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the freedom these skills provide and my goal is to become a comfortable technician and eventually have all these tools in my tool box so I can create whatever pops into my head with an amazing selection of media at my fingertips.

    So that being said, I am really excited in the free motion techniques we are going to share. Although I appreciate hand work, I love machine techniques because my fingers tend toward arthritis plus it’s just too slow for me.

    I think it would be interesting to re-answer this question after Session 1 is finished!

  3. I’d really like to know more about “marbling” on fabric. I have tried it a bit, but am curious about which are the best “paints/dyes” to use and how to make the fabric designs permanent. There are so many techniques to use and to learn, I’m actually pretty happy to learn anything.

  4. I have taken numerous classes in free motion on a home machine. I’m trying. I guess I’d like to learn every technique for it hoping that it will work out for me.

  5. Love your hand dyed. Always interested in learning more on manipulating fabrics.

  7. I am new to sewing. And ibam willing to learn. I have a new grandchild. And want to make her something. Maybe a quilt or something. That she will have from me.

  8. I have signed up for several of your fabric dyeing classes and bought lots of books on the subject (it seems that many people have very different ideas about the topic) and have watched You Tube videos. Right now I can’t seem to get enough information on how different people approach dyeing fabric so that seems to be the current technique that I am interested in learning more.

  10. I like to try many techniques – I guess because many of my friends are in our FiBr group. Recently a friend was downsizing and gave me yellow yarn and wool fabric to match from her 1966 college years…I dyed the yarn a beautiful aqua color and am knitting a shawl. I dyed the wool also and will use it for appliqué. I make a lot of quilts and free motion those I can handle on my own sewing machine and send the bigger ones to friends to quilt. I attend many quilting retreats each year and always learn something new. Love seeing your posts and new colors you have come up with for fabrics dying.

  11. I think I would like to learn more about quilting. The largest thing I’ve quilted is a mug rug and I want to make a twin size quilt. If I win the goody basket are you going to send it to me in Australia?

  15. I would like to learn (and I’m not sure if this is the right name for it) fabric and thread manipulation to make texture in fabrics. I love your sewing and dying spaces – what a dream! Thanks for sharing with us!

  16. Wow, I’d love to see more and more of what you do ~ ~ I’m so tactile that I almost judge my fabric with my touch even more than my eyes ~ ~ but I also love intense color and am slowly learning how to show it off to its best advantage. I can’t wait to learn more.

  17. I don’t see my first comment and received an “error” message, so I apologize if I duplicate anything. I, too, am a very tactile quilter/artist. the feel and touch is almost more important than the colors of my fabrics ~ ~ and I LOVE color. Intense color. I’d love the prize basket and thank each of you for your contributions.

  18. I enjoy dying fabric and would like to learn more about ice dying and different ways to fold the fabric to create designs.

  19. I would love to learn more about free-motion quilting.
    Thanks for the chance to win!

  21. I am practicing my FMQ and hope to get better after a lot more practice. I am intimidated by fabric dyes but would love to be able to create my own beautiful colors, so I definitely want to learn more about that.

  22. I would love to learn more about free motion quilting and how to color fabric with pencils or dyes. Thanks for all the eye candy on this blog hop!

  24. I look forward to learning more about FMQ. I find that everyone has tips that help me to improve. I have done 2 of your dying classes which were fabulous and am very excited to take the FMQ.

  25. I would like to learn about how to create depth in a quilted design. Shading, light angles, all using fabric, no added paint.

  27. I like all techniques that add texture, or the illusion of texture to fabric. Dyeing fabric is a wonderful way to do that.