Author: Kris Sazaki
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Tech Tuesday: When Your Enlargements Fall Flat
Here’s the creative idea: You’ve got a great photo you want to enlarge and print on fabric for some great wall art. (You don’t have to work in fabric, we just teach a lot of fiber artists so we like to keep them in mind.) Here’s the problem. You go to some Internet company to…
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Beatrice Lanter, Masters II, and Titling Artworks
We received our copy of Masters: Art Quilts, Volume II a while ago but have yet to review it on our blog. Of course, lots of people have beaten us to the punch because it’s such a rewarding find: good quality photography, well chosen photo details, and helpful essays on 40 accomplished artists. Martha Sielman…
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Tech Tuesday: Keeping Transparent Images Transparent
Many bloggers have Wordless Wednesday, when they just post a photo. If you know us, (and when I say us I mean me, Kris), you’ll know we’re never at a loss for words. With that in mind, Deb suggested we start Tech Tuesday to address some of those random Photoshop questions students often ask…
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Pixeladies Piece Party
We’re getting ready for the Northern California Quilt Council‘s “Meet the Teachers” event on July 18 in Castro Valley, CA. Each one of the 30 teachers has three – yep, three – minutes to tell the attendees what they teach and why any guild would want to hire her or him. It’s no easy feat…
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Top 10 Reasons to See the Gaultier Exhibit in San Francisco
The Pixeladies met up with fellow artists Dee Danley-Brown and Susan Else as well as Kris’ big sis, Noni, to take the trek over to the city to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the De Young Museum. As the four of us left the exhibit, we all just looked at each other and…
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Working with Mokuba
We have been prepping for our upcoming class with the American Sewing Guild – Sacramento and wanted to share some of that with you. We are making scarves using Mokuba free lace. Mokuba free lace is a water soluble stabilizer that allows you to create beautiful lace projects. You get two sheets: one sheet is…
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Our Online Photoshop Class starts March 5!
Are you interested in learning Adobe Photoshop Elements but don’t know where to start? Why don’t you start here with us? Our online class, Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE) for Fiber Artists and Sewing Enthusiasts, begins this coming Monday, March 5. Cost for the 3-week class is $60. To register for the class, go…
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Book Giveaway!
C&T, our wonderful publisher, is giving away a copy of our new book! Follow this link for more details. The giveaway runs through February 26. Everyone’s support of our book is just the bee’s knees! By the way, we love going to consignment shops and thrift stores in search of vintage scarves to use as…
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The Book is Here – Party on March 24!
We drove down to Concord, home of C&T Publishing, this past Tuesday and picked up a few copies of our book, Furoshiki Fabric Wraps. Let’s say we were pretty excited when we sold our very fist copy to Wanda of the Piecemakers Guild in Newark. We are giving free wrapping demos at Shared Stitches in…
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Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
As we start this new year – and Kris’s 54th birthday today (whew!) – Deb started looking around for inspiration that will keep us happy and young. We can’t wait until we don’t have to explain our wardrobes or our love of boas (in the case of Deb) or all things pink (in the case…
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Happy Holidays!
It’s that time of year when the Pixeladies furiously attempt to clean the studio, sweep all the bad spirits out the door, and look forward to a new year. What better way to do that then to receive advance copies of our book! The FedEx driver said this was her favorite delivery! And, while we…
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Tech Tuesday: Our Holidays (and Business) begin with Gail Bird
Can it really be that eight years have gone by since we went to our first quilt show for research purposes? If the calendar doesn’t lie, it really has been eight years since we met Gail Bird of Russian punchneedle fame. We watched her create her own booth buzz and inspire people to try something…
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NYC Part II – The Garment District
Well, you can’t expect the Pixeladies to go anywhere without seeing if there is some store, museum, or event involving fiber. Needless to say, we had our choice during our October trip to NYC. We decided on Mood Fabrics because 1) we knew they would have a lot of fabric (and they did), 2) we…
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Furoshiki Countdown Coming Soon!
We know we still have three months to go, but C&T Publishing just listed our upcoming book entitled Furoshiki Fabric Wraps: simple, reusable, beautiful. We couldn’t wait until February to let you all know about it. If you want something new to do with your fabric, you want to use less paper, or just want…
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NYC Part I – Faith
It was a whirlwind trip to the Big Apple during the three most beautiful days of the year. Would you believe mid-70s and clear? We have so much to tell you about, but we’ll start with the reason we went – Faith Ringgold received the City College of New York’s First Cultural Arts Award, and …
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Class Registration Starts Today!
Yes, you can now register for either of our two online courses that start in October. Click on this link to take you to the class page. We’ve been teaming up with Carla Barrett, long-arm quilter extraordinaire, to bring you innnovative online classes, and we now have a new teaching website – www.StepOnPins.com. We think…
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A Bridge too far?
Well, the Pixeladies are back in the studio trying to finish the quilt for the Faith Ringgold exhibition in October (we hope to be posting link information here soon). Faith titled her memoir, We Flew over the Bridge, so we thought we should put ourselves on a bridge with Faith and use our text technique…
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Thanks for the memories, Dad
This is Kris. My dad passed away on Wednesday at the age of 92. Harry (only one of his nicknames) was the subject of the Pixeladies’ first collaboration. At the time we formed Pixeladies, he was finishing his autobiography, and we thought it would make a great quilt. [Deb’s comment: The theme for Kris’ quilt…
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Working on Faith . . . Ringgold that is!
Sometimes you just have to pinch yourself. I still can’t believe that we – yes, the Pixeladies – have been invited to create a quilt in honor of Faith Ringgold. An entire event is being planned to honor her at City College of New York. She’s an alumna of the college and will be the…
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Linking WordPress to Facebook
Hey, we’re trying to figure out if our blog entry will automatically post to Facebook, if we tell WordPress to do so. So here’s an image to check it all out.
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Join Us at the ASG National Conference!
We’re packing our bags for the American Sewing Guild’s national conference in Los Angeles August 19-21. (OK, that’s not really true. We’re actually running around getting all of our teaching materials ready, but that doesn’t sound like the organized Pixeladies we always claim to be.) Despite this small confession, we really hope you can join us there.…
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Art and Community
Deb and I recently returned from a meeting of the Northern California Quilt Council. They devote two meetings a year to “Meet the Teachers.” Any member interested in teaching at a guild can sign up to present her/his classes to other members. These meetings attract upwards of two hundred people. We always come away inspired…
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Blocks of Color
We’ve been working on our latest commission and having lots of fun playing with blocks of color to create light, earth, and flora. Each of the four panels represents one of the family members. Bound to the California land, they nonetheless have individual interests, personalities, and desires. We’re trying to express all that in…
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Furoshiki Fun
Last Monday, we had a wonderful time demonstrating how to have fun wrapping objects and making shopping bags at the Pájaro Valley Quilt Association meeting in Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz). It was perfect timing–someone had donated lots of fabric to the guild, and the guild was selling it by the pound; it was a…
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Tech Tuesday: Quirky Photoshop
At some point in time, our friend and colleague, Carla Barrett of quiltwhisper.com fame, convinced us to start teaching online with her. I don’t know why we ever waited. It’s such a blast. We are right now in the throes of the class Introduction to Photoshop Elements for Fiber Artists and Sewing Enthusiasts. Oh, and…
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2011-2013 SAQA Trunk Show Premiere
For the second time in its history, Studio Art Quilt Associates organized a traveling trunk show. Deb and I had the honor of curating the show. Every member of SAQA was invited to submit a piece, and every pieced was accepted as long as it conformed to the size requirement (must fit within the 12″…
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A Day of Remembering
So here we are, starting our blog. Since there are two of us, you can imagine how much we’ve discussed why we want to write a blog (to talk about art in general and our art in particular), how often we should write (Deb says once a week, but I remain a tad skeptical), and…