I Adore the Art of Barbara Lavallee

Around 10 years ago, Richard and I went on a quilters cruise to Alaska for the first time. I taught on a cruise sponsored by Dee Lynn and Audrey Waite, who also run Quilt Camp in the Pines in Flagstaff, AZ, each summer and quilting in the Desert in Phoenix each January. On that trip to Alaska, I was introduced to the charming art of Barbara Lavallee. I can't look at her work without smiling.

Fast forward to this past summer when I was thrilled to be one of the Featured Artists on the Quilt Camp at Sea Alaska Cruise. Yes, it was during the summer (June 29 - July 5) but who cares that I'm just getting around to some of the stories! It was a perfect trip for our 50th wedding anniversary celebration and our entire family went.

Here Richard and I are enjoying the sun on the desk as we had a glorious day cruising Glacier Bay.

When I read about our first stop in port, I was very pleased to see that Barbara Lavallee would be at Changing Tides quilt shop in Juneau to meet quilters and sign books. It turns out that Jan Nardone, the owner of Changing Tides, has been responsible for making Barbara's designs available in cross stitch and quilt patterns. For more info see www.alaskastitching.com.

On my first trip to Alaska all of my Barbara Lavallee purchases were paper, so I was really pleased to be able to buy fabric items. Here is one of the quilts made from Barbara's designs hanging at the store.


After getting my purchases signed, I asked for a picture with these two lovely and talented ladies. Left to right are Jan, Barbara and me. As we chatted, I discovered Barbara is just as charming as she is talented.



There were over 125 people in our group. Because of tight schedules, I didn't even get to visit with all of the teachers, but here I am with JoAnne Gordon. She was teaching hand applique and loves Aurifil Mako 50/2 so much that she winds bobbins and gives them as handouts in class.



The Barbara Lavallee wallhanging project that JoAnne is holding was very appropriately her class project on the cruise. It's called Eskimo Yo-Yo. If I have my story correct, JoAnne makes many of the original applique designs for photography of the Barbara Lavallee patterns.

Another one of my favorite artists is the painter Rebecca Barker, who was the other featured artist on the cruise. Rebecca's very appealing "quiltscapes" are frequently transformed into calendars, greeting cards and jigsaw puzzles, and I am a frequent purchase of them. It was very nice to get to talk with her. Visit her Website to see why I love her work. www.barkerquiltscapes.com

A Little History about Quilting Books

A nice bonus of my trip to Maryland was having a chance to catch up with Susan McKelvey. Our friendship goes back a long time. Today, quilters are easily overwhelmed by the enormous quantity of books available. Back in 1969, when I started quilting, there were virtually no current books about quilting. In 1972, my husband Richard and I started a patchwork kit company called Yours Truly, Inc. It quickly mushroomed into a full quilting supply company with fabrics, notions, batting, patterns and kits made under the brand name "Yours Truly".

The few quilting books published in the early ’70s by traditional publishing houses were not available to quilt shops. In 1975 Gail Giberson’s father, who published tole-painting books, published Primarily Patchwork by Gail and Marjorie Puckett, and it could be bought by quilt shops and fabric stores. Inspired by that book, we felt we could do the same. After all, at Yours Truly, we had Richard’s knowledge of the printing industry, my journalism degree and eye for talent, and Pat Wilens’ technical and editing skills. Pat was our graphics supervisor at the time.

By early 1978, we had become the first company to publish quilting books exclusively for quilt and fabric stores. Our first book was Successful Machine Appliqué by Barbara Lee.


Susan McKelvey was one of “our authors” with her first book, Color for Quilters.


We were also the first publishers of Marianne Fons and Liz Porter, Mary Ellen Hopkins, Jean Wells, Cheryl Bradkin, and Chris Wolf Edmonds, as well as several other talented quilters who are no longer active in the industry.

 

In the years from 1978 until 1985, when Yours Truly was sold, we printed and sold close to 2 million copies of books. Several of the titles remained available for another 10 or 15 years. We have always been very proud of the Yours Truly books and their impact on the quilt world.