September

Well, I did win an award at the Pacific West Quilt Show.Cool!( Which was really nice this year).

But the big news is an addition to our family.

 This is Maggie, a purebred Rhodesian Ridgeback 8 wks. She flying here from Fl. on September 10th. I am like a nervous new mother. I have read 4 training puppy books cover to cover. My house is puppy proofed and I am waiting with the toys. I can't wait for puppy breath.

 

August.

 

I am working on a new Christmas quilt with 27 birds. Here are some of them.

  

 

July

My long awaited DVD is here.

My students always ask me when my book is coming out. My new DVD is the answer.

50 minute lecture on ten quilts by award winning quilter Kathy McNeil. She presents the inspiration, design and some of the techniques used in each. Zoom in on the details to see the embellishments, fabric choices and effects created with interesting techniques like tulle for shading and shadow trapunto. Incorporate some of these ideas into your own quilts for dramatic and award winning effects. The bonus 30 minute mini-workshop includes a tutorial on choosing appropriate fabrics for landscape and pictorial quilts, and two video demonstrations. How to use fabric paints to create shadows, hi-lights and details to your quilts. How to create 3-dimensional objects out of thread, that can be added to the surface of your quilts i.e; tree branches, bushes, flowers and surf. 

Look for it in Kathy's Store. $20.00

 

April

I got to teach at Asilomar this month. I had the best students ever. Their work was just amazing. It is so much fun to watch the lightbulbs go off in their minds, as they are discovering the joys of landscape quilting.  Asilomar is on the ocean in Monterey CA.  I will be there again next year in April for 5 days of intensive landscape quilting for beginners to intermediate.

We received an amazing gift from Mother Nature while there. We actually watched a seal baby being born. Guess what I'm working on ?

 

 

 Two new awards. 

AQS Paducah. Heron Happiness won 3rd in the domestic machine quilts. 

Season's won 1st place Innovative at Denver Mancuso.

My husband just retired.  I retired from nursing this year, so we are traveling together more. It will making the travel part of teaching much less stressful. I can take more baggage without fees and have a sherpa to help carry my stuff.  

 

February

BEST OF SHOW at Road to California.

Also 1st Place in Innovative applique Heron Happiness and Panda Perfect 2nd place in Pictorial

 

See the pictures of Natural Wonders, Heron happiness and Panda Perfect Day on the gallery page.

 

My friend Geri Parker and I designed a smaller version of our award winning traditional quilt Feathered friends.

It is a free down loadable pattern in this months Fons and Porter magazine.

 

Many times I get requests for patterns for my competition quilts.  

 
The quilts I make for exhibition and competition are never made into patterns.  They have thousands of pieces and are way too big to print. That is confusing to many people, who think that the quilts they see published in magazines are alway patterns. Award winning competition quilts sell for thousands of dollars and are considered original art.... like a painting.  I sell art prints of those quilts. You can order them printed on canvas or paper. They can be framed for those who love the image but can't afford the original piece of art. Art quilts have acquired quite a following of collectors. It is why there are so many people with masters in fine art degrees who have entered into competition in big national and international quilt shows. The prize for the best of show original quilt at AQS in Paducah is a $20,000 prize!
 
 I love to teach what I am so passionate about. Making patterns that help others learn the steps and techniques for making pictorial images is something that I hope will inspire them to try new things or just give them the joy of making an image that they love.  I will also always make original pieces of art inspired by the beauty I see in nature. Balancing all that is the tricky part.  Have a wonderful day and keep quilting.

 

 

.January

2011 is going to be so much fun. We leave for a teaching cruise next month to the Caribbean. In April I teach at Asilomar and this summer at NQA along with lots of guild presentations. I just got home from a great trip to the Amador Valley Quilters in CA. There is a new pattern this month. Made for my new grand daughter and passed on to all those other Quilting Grandmothers.

 I also sold Crossing Calamity Creek for $10,000.oo. It's wonderful to find collectors who buy art quilts as fine art. 

     

November

I have been working on two new patterns for everyone.   They are available on the applique page with pay pal.  Perfect for those winter months.  They will be the patterns I use on our

Quilting Cruise in June 2012 to Alaska. Sign up and join us for this wonderful trip. www.quiltcruises.com  My piecing partner and I got are finalist this year again for the,

"New Quilts from old favorites" contest and the National Quilting Museum.

Orange Peel Fleur de Lis

   

October

New Grand daughter! Yeh she arrived before her due date and before I left to teach for the Arizona State Quilters guild on the 5th. She is a beauty and her sister still likes her. ( two days old, so that may change)

Pacific International

2 new ribbons. Best os Show also had a first runner up. Natural Wonders shown below won that award. Milkweed for Monarchs won 2nd place in the wall category. 

I taught three workshops and did a lecture. Two of my former students had quilts juried into the show. I was so excited to see them finished. Way to go guys! The energy this fall was so much fun. I am a busy Grand mother these days. Little Hailey has been at my house while her mother is on bed rest with a second pregnancy. Boy oh boy just chase a 22 month old 24/7 if you want to know how old you really are. I just sent out my monthly tips newsletter is you want to catch more updates from the show.

 

 

July

 

Quilt Odyssey.

3 new ribbons. Pass it On won Best Pictorial and Viewers Choice. Heron Happiness won 1st place in Applique

My quilts are all over this month. One in Knoxville, two at Quilt Odyssey in PA and two on their way to the Houston show. 

I have a workshop at my home studio this month and next but am not out on the road teaching again till September. I love the summer as that is when I have the most time to do my own quilts. This is the quilt I just finished called Natural Wonders. Inspired by my love of tide pooling in the San Juan Islands. Mt. Baker looms in the background. This quilt has scraps from 123 different fabrics, all hand appliqued together.

Have a wonderful, creative summer. I love getting e mail from all of you. Hugs Kathy

       

 

May

Pass it On won Best Machine Workmanship at Denver National.

 

Now you can cruise with me to the Caribbean in 2011 or to Alaska in 2012.

see www.quiltcruises.com for more information.

My new quilt is done and I couldn't love it more.

Greeting the Golden Grandchild

 

April

Please come by and visit me at the book signing for the "2010 New Quilts from Old Favorites"

at the National Quilt Museum during the Paducah International AQS show.

April 23rd   See you there!

Feathered Friends 1st Place large quilts at 

American Quilters Society, Lancaster Show 2010

 I am going to have to buy a lottery ticket. I am on a roll.

If you live on the west coast I will be teaching at Pacific International this year.

October 14, 15, 16.  I hope to meet many new friends there!

March.

Crossing Calamity Creek 

won Best Pictorial at the Mid Atlantic show! 

A good week- Pass it On also won 1st in Large Applique at Indiana Heritage 

see quilts in the gallery section

 

Did you see Quilter's Newsletter Magazine?

The March issue has a 4 page article about my Front to Back Pictorial Quilting.

If you are interested in a workshop, let me know. I am registered students for March 20 and 21 here at my home studio.

 Take care everyone. Kathy

 

November

2nd Place

My best quilting friend and I collaborated on another quilt for the New Quilts from Old Favorites contest at the National Quilting museum. It is called Sun Flower duet.

The challenge was to make a new design with the traditional sun flower block. Geri Parker did the piecing, I did the applique and quilting.

We have a great time working together on our quilts.

August

Crossing Calamity Creek won Best Pictorial at Quilt Odyssey in Hershey PA.

It is always so exciting when you win something. At the national level of competition, all the quilts are beautifully done by master quilters.

I know that any one of them could be fortunate enough to be chosen.

 _________________________________________________ 

June

Quilt Raffle Update

THANK YOU

to everyone who participated 

in our Quilt Raffle. 


We had huge success. 

With your generous donations and support we were able to raise a total of $5,045.00 

which was 75% of the total hospital bills.

AWESOME and AMAZING!

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU! 

 

This past Sunday, on Father's Day, we drew the winning ticket and are thrilled to announce that 

Catrina Millikan of 

Mission Beach, WA is the winner! 

 

[Our friends Jessica and Joe were here visiting from California and as Joe has the least amount of affiliation to anyone who entered the raffle he was given the privledge of drawing the winning ticket. The drawing was recorded on video camera and is available for anyone wanting to see it.] 

 

 

Hailey is doing wonderfully. She will be 6 months old in one more week. She is up to 13 pounds and still gaining steadily. She thrills her parents with huge smiles and giggly shrieks (especially when her bearded daddy blows raspberries on her tummy). She has mastered the trick of rolling from her tummy to her back and just this week discovered her thumb, which she now sucks like a pro. Shane and I feel incredibly blessed to have been given the opportunity to be her parents. No matter how big she grows, she will always be our tiny miracle baby. 

 

We also feel incredibly blessed to have been surrounded by such amazing people during this somewhat challenging start of our family. Many of you who are recieving this letter are close friends and family, but many of you are also strangers. Every single donation that I recieved by mail came with not just a monetary contribution, but with a note of love, support, and prayer. Many of you shared personal stories of other babies born premature, their parents, and their successes. You will never know much it meant to open a letter from a stranger to find a check and a letter of love and encouragement. We know that Hailey thrived, and is thriving, from not only our love but all the love that came to her in the form of prayers, well wishes, good thoughts, and positive energy. It is an amazing thing to hold a tiny little person and be so filled with love that you feel that every cell in your body will burst and then to realize that it is not only you but a whole group of people that are loving her and cheering for her, and that that love just continues to multiply. 

 

Shane and I THANK YOU from the very deepest places in our hearts for the donations that you gave in the forms of money, love, prayer, and support. 

 

Shona, Shane, and Hailey Lowell

 

Landscape Quilting, Pictorial Quilting, Photos of award winning quilts, applique tips and techniques. See my monthly newsletters.