good evening everyone, welcome to the superchat We are so happy to welcome JennyB to our room and are so excited to meet her Thank you all for including me. This is fun JennyB would you like to tell everyone a little about yourself and your work first? I am an Aussie quilter, as you know, and make all sorts of quilts. I am married to a diplomat and live, at the moment, in Cairo, Egypt. ga Would you please tell everyone what time you got up this morning to chat with us? Four am now, and I got up twenty minutes ago! oh my goodness thank you for doing it JennyB how did you happen to become interested in quiltmaking did you have a family history of quilters? Absolutely not. I had often been dragged along to quilt shows and enjoyed them, finished a fine Art degree (at forty nine) and made just one quilt for fun. You know how it goes - totally obsessed from that moment ga I would like to ask how long you quilted before you started your style now and do you find that your style changes often or not? I have a couple of styles I think. I like combining pattern and traditional blocks with picotrial images, and I also make quilt uncomventional pieces. I like both. I do other stuff too, and sometimes worry that I don't have a personal style. ga that sounds like a good personal style to me Well, it covers everything doesn't it? ga lol yes, it does well i find your color choices amazing and in itself a style i was wondering if you based that on something in your life or just what you feel at the moment No, I don't think about my colour a lot. I do use very full-on colour, and love it. I often wonder if Australian light has something to do with that. ga on a work like the doorway do you start with a big drawing or a thumbnail sketch' On the doorway which is the entrance to my website I started by designing the tile which makes up the background. I made four, then realised they were huge and I had to decide on the shpae of the door I wanted to put in it. Then I just decided to make it an arch with an alley behind. the alley was the last thing to be decided and was chosen from about one hundred and forty other photos. ga wow on this trip are you doing any classes for the underprivilaged I am planning to run a seeries of course for the children who collect garbage on the rubbish dump her - there are about three thousand. Also a course for the girls of the city of the dead - who live in the cemetery. Both have groups who are interested in them and have community space with access to machines Hi Jenny I met you at Mountain Quilters where you taught a landscape class. Loved the class and your work. Are there any plans to come back to QLd? I am teachig in Queensland at the end of July - way out west. ga what part of the quilt makeing process do you find the most interesting and which part do you find least interesting? I hate and detest binding, and only do it because the end is so close. I love all the other stuff - though I guess free motion qulting is my favourite. Unliess I am in the centre of a huge quilt. Sorry about the spelling and typos! ga spelling and typos do NOT count, lol do you draw inspiration for your quilts from sites that you've seen, or pictures that you've taken, places you've travelled ? Yes - all three. I have huge photo libraries, and about fity quilts in my head at all times. I do everything by machine so I have some hope of making some of them. The Middle East is amazing for imagery. ga what is your web sit address-i would love to look at your work- egypt and aussie arent you lucky www.jennybowker.com - how eassy is that. I also have a blog - see the link on the bottom of the first fage for that. ga do you need any assistance with collecting fabric or teaching aids for these projects All the tie. However, the most useful thing is quilting magazines, or the older simpler books with heaps of pictures. I find they have no resources for inspiration. rulers, cutters and mats are hard to find too. ga i like your work. are you going to stay in this style to the end or are there other directions you would like to go into? I have so many directions to go in that I feel as if my work is very fragmented. I don't even think of limiting myself. I just make the quilt that is most interesting for me at the time, or the one I have an imminet deadline for - and I guess the latter is more common. ga I'm sorry this is not a quilty question. I'm jealous that you had dinner with Richard Gere, is he as gorgeous in real life? I hope the quilters don't mind me changing the subject. lol He is absolutely beautiful. Older and slighter than I expected. It was just wonderful, him, me, and only fiteen others on a luxury dinner boat on the Nile. He is NICE. ga do you remember your first quilt ??? where is it now ?? tell us ALL about it,,,please :) I have two first quilts in a way. I started quilting when I was only twenty three, got about a hundred hexs into a hexagon piece and gae up in disgust. I also had a beginner class then and olny lasted three lessons as the teacher was so horrible. Then made on from my sister eight years ago. A watercolour from thebook by Deanna Spingola and ironed every seam open, no corners matched - but loved it. ga In your work with the children do you find many with exceptional talent JennyB I am alsways astounded that children - and my women in Ramallah too - will go straight into things that others in quilting find scary - like the most amazing free motion quilting without any real instruction. ga what kind of batting do you like to use ?? do you use different battings for bed quilts, wallhangings ? I have a fovourite batting. It is very very forgiving, so I can use a little quilting and isome areas, and lots in others, it doesn't cockle and bump, and it is warm and light but easy to work with. It is Australian, and I have just never tried anything since the first time I used it. Matilda's Own, 60 percent wool, forty poly for washability. ga oh wish we had that one! Do we have more questions, anyone? You do - it is available in the states - I hav seen it in catalogues. ga thank you JennyB, I will look for it [21:35] can Matildas own be used for hand quilting too Jenny I guess so. I am not a good hand quilter. If you can do it you can now feel very superior ga lol Jenny is there any market for the quilts that your groups make or do the skills they learn better their lives? I am assuming you mean the groups like Ramallah or the girls here? Hardly any - no-one here values handwork of any sort. ga do you travel occasionally ?? like say to the US ??? Alaska maybe ??? :) lol I travel to anywhere I am asked to go. I taught in LA last year. ga is there any practical way the girls and ladies quilts can be put into a traveling show * Lorraine volunteers to travel with them . . . They don't make big pieces on the whole as they don't sell. Usually they are aiming at an expat or tourist market so work has to be kept small and portable. Also - they have to use what they can find or get inthe way of fabrics. ga JennyB do you any books on the market at the current time and if so how many? I only have one, a beginner book as I was frustrted with the current books - either too many gadgets, or too simple, or too confusing. My friend Margaret Rolfe suggested we wrtie one so we did. the Magic of Quiltmaking. ga Have you ever gone to Houston for the International Quilt Show? we would LOVE to see you there! OOOHHHH I would so love to go. No I haven't been yet. Too expensive for a lowly quilt teacher - especially one doing mostly free teaching this yer for poor groups. ga sorry to hear that have you considered approaching the organisers of the Houston show to see if they would feature the quilts you would get wonderful exposure from there I am not sure they would. I have to be pretty careful with the quilts of this region in the States. In Ramallah they made very distinctie work based on their own cross stitch patterns, but some had an anti Israeli message - that would not go down well over there. ga that is true have you ever done a tv show ?? if so, are they still on tv, available on dvd yet ?? You have to be kidding. I don't think we have any quilting on australian tv - we play games tryig to spot quilts in movies! We have an older show on cabel. No - i managed a closing session on local TV once in Canberra on the Palestinian work. ga Looking at the fabrics on your websites brings to mind as to what is the availability of fabrics there? Are the costs of fabrics there comparable to fabrics in US, AU? There is almost now cotton fabric available here at all. I brought a stash you couldn't climb over and have found white cotton here which I can dye. i use hand dyes alot in some pieces. ga JennyB could you please tell the ladies a bit about your blog some of them came late? OK. My blog is about my life in Cairo and the move to get here. It is really like a diary, but with occasional bits and pieces of quilting or textile stuff when I find it. It doesn't tell a full story of course - I have to be sure I wouldnot be embarrassed if it was read by the Foreign Minister! ga Jenny's Book is available thru Amazon.com and we would like to encourage you to order thru the link on our website www.quiltchat.com thank you shaffida! have you passed on your talents and skills to your family It is a beginner book - you are all probably way ahead of it! My daughter quilts, the eldest, Karmen at thirty dseven. She is keen, but to busy to do much. I use her to test all my classes on! we have all levels of quilters here wouldnt that be like teaching a child to drive lol lol what quilt took you the longest to finish ? and,,,,,,,,,,what quilt was quick to the binding stage :) It si not so bad I think, she is really enthusiastic. My youngest also makes odd bits and pieces - as made two quilts. the one that took me longest to finish ws the one on my front page of the website, Arabesque. the one that was quickest to binding was probably any of the A4 quilts I made with my Triptych group! very good does anyone else have a question? we are almost out of time now JennyB we have very much enjoyed chatting with you and hope your will come visit us as a chatter when your time permits Thanks, I have enjoyed it too. The time has flown, not like my fingers. yes, thank you so much Jenny--this has been so interesting lol well, it's pressure when you are being asked so many questions, lol My pleasure. I may go back to bed! let's all give JennyB a hand, ladies Thankyou Jenny so nice to listen to you. ladies ty very much JennyB, have really enjoyed this [21:56] ty JennyB [21:56] thank you JennyB :) :) [21:56] ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() [21:56] Cheers for Jenny! [21:56] thank you JennyB [21:56] Jenny, it was nice to see you in "person" [21:57] Good night all! [21:57] ()()()()()()()() [21:57] thanks JennyB you have my permission to sleep in [21:57] thank you so much Jenny, we really appreciate your time [21:57] thank you so much--hope to get to see your quilts soon [21:57] thanks from Rochester, NY [21:57] ()()()()()()()()()())\ [21:57] hugs and come again [21:57] hugs JennyB [21:57] ty jennyB [21:57] Heavens - there are hundreds of you!! [21:57] lol lots of us [21:57] oh no JennyB that's the glare from my loud hawaiin shirt :) [21:57] SCOOT-HER do you jennys blog, so we can look at it??? if it is allowed [21:57] please do come again any time JennyB [21:58] hawaiina even [21:58] Lorraine, can you give us that addy? [21:58] you bet, maplestar [21:58] *** Ooh_la-la sets mode: -v JennyB [21:58] ty [21:58] *** JennyB has left #quiltchat