Color Me Quilts- Art Applique

I had the opportunity to teach up in Porterville CA. It was a nice drive, there is something about getting out on the road by yourself and just traveling. The first night I did a trunk show and talked about myself (I'm good at that) and then the next day I taught my Art applique class using my stitched out blocks from my Color me Quilts Embroidery CD. I stayed with Georgia the shop owner and her husband Richard, we had such a great time visiting!! We stayed up late just talking and became fast friends!  This was such a great trip, thank you for having me!

I will be teaching this in Sept at the San Diego Quilt Show and again at the Moore's Sewing Center in Huntington Beach. I hope to see some of you at class. Here are some of the amazing piece that the women did while they were in class. Enjoy!

Love the red sunflowers

Love this sunflower that Rose is doing. It was the most popular block this class!

Is this beautiful or what!! Yeah Brenda!

Love the colors

The class!!

Carmen finished her tablerunner top first, yeah!!

If you are interested in purchasing my embroidery CD- Color Me Quilts-Sugarhill Farms Flowers you can find it on my website with all the details.

Blog Hop Giveaway for the Fiber Art Connection- Day 1- Desiree Habicht

Hi everyone, its Desiree Habicht and I am so excited to share some exciting news with you! I have been working on a dream of mine! A place where fiber artists could come together to create a community and learn from some of the best. A safe place to post work and get help. A place to feel connected to other like minded artists while building a tool box full of techniques to help take your art to the next level. A place where everyone is welcome, a place where circumstances wont keep you from being your creative self! That place is called The Fiber Art Connection.

I have gathered 8 of the best Fiber Art Instructors from around the world to teach you some amazing techniques and connect with you so you can learn right from your home! This week all 8 of us are having a blog hop to share a little bit about ourselves and the special class we are teaching in Session One. Make sure you check out the site and save your seat! Registration CLOSES on March 15, 2016

Each Artist has contributed some awesome prizes for our Artist Goody Basket, filled with items that will be useful in our classes that one lucky person will win!

This is how it will work;

To Enter the giveaway and have multiple chances to win you can:

• Register for Session One
• Leaving a comment on each blog by answering the artists question
• Sharing each blog post via social media (FB, Twitter, Instagram)
• Signing up for our Newsletter at http://www.fiberartconnection 

• 3/1: Desiree Habicht (You are here)
• 3/2: Candy Glendening 
• 3/3: Liz Kettle
• 3/4: Roxane Lessa
• 3/7: Ruth Chandler
• 3/8: Cecile Whatman
• 3/9: Deborah Babin
• 3/10: Rayna Gillman
You can enter at each stop along the tour until midnight your local time on 3/14, the day before Session 1 starts. We will then use random.org to choose a winner. The Artists Goodies will ship the next day to the luck winner.


Today it all about ME!!! Yeah. My name is Desiree Habicht and in Session One I will be teaching you how to use colored pencils, my favorite being Inktense pencils to create a beautiful small art quilt. I will also be showing you some techniques for textures, resists and other ways you can use these pencils in your fiber art!!
I hope you will join us at www.fiberartconnection.com


Get to know me a bit better! 


I have been asked some questions I hope you enjoy! Look for my question to you and answer in the comments!
1. What draws you to the fiber arts? Why do you work the way you do? 
          I think it comes down to, I love art in a touchable format. I love the tactile part of fiber art. Most of the time Art is something you look at only but with fiber art there is a totally different element. It is a touchable art form.  I work the way I do because I can't help it! I love to tell my stories through my fiber art. Most every piece I do tells a story, something best told with fiber.

   
2.  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?
         My studio is a converted bedroom in my home but I also have other work areas around the house. For instance, part of the garage is a cutting room, part of my bedroom is a sketching and painting place, my closet hold much of my fabric lines and the guest room is full of art! LOL My husband says the house is really my studio! My actual studio room is usually in a bit of a mess. Since its a bedroom I can close it off from viewing and leave things out as I work. This way if I can work for a short time it is ready for me to pop in and create!
   
3.   What is your favorite color and why? 
           HMMM, that is hard since I love all color! I think I love greens and oranges. I think of nature when I see them, fall, holidays, all the good things for me!
   
4.    What is your least favorite thing to do when you're working on a piece?
            Cook, clean, answer the phone or go to bed! I just want to keep working until I want to stop
   
5.    If you could fly where would you go?
            I would fly across the country and view all the amazing National parks from the air! 
    
6.    Tell us about the class you're teaching in The Fiber Art Connection. What do you hope your students will learn from this?



creating beautiful colors

           I am teaching how to use colored pencil, watercolor pencil and/or Inktense pencil on your fiber art to create some amazing effects. We will be creating a small piece and then we will be discussing how to enhance your Fiber art in other ways with these sticks of color! I will also show them how to make them completely permanent and washable as well as colorfast. I will be teaching how to do some textures and faux finishes without anything else but your colored pencil. I want my students to learn how they can create amazing detail and depth in their quilts or create complete quilts with colored pencils. They are only limited by their own imaginations.




Some stitching





    
7.    Where else can we find you on the internet?  
 You can find me on :
Desiree's Designs Website
Desiree Habicht Fine Art Website
The Fiber Art Connection
Facebook and my Business page
Instagram
Pinterest 
My Blog


So my question to you is what is your favorite season to color? Fall with its rich oranges and reds? Spring with its fresh pinks and lime greens, Summer with its hot yellows and blues or winter with its greys, whites and purples?

Tell me your favorite season!


Good Luck and I hope you win!!

My last class at The Fabric Patch, sad to see you go!

This week I taught my last class at the Fabric Patch, sadly, after many many years they are closing. For some reason I just always thought they would be there, they were one of the first quilt shops I discovered as a new quilter. Carolyn Reese owned it then, she is the brains behind "Road to California"  and when she decided to sell the store and concentrate on the show we saw it change over to a wonderful new owner. But like everything in life, things change and ready or not, it happens.  Good luck to everyone that has enriched my life somehow over the years. It was sad seeing the empty shelves as the students arrived but the spirit in the shop remained up and positive.

I had a wonderful class, filled with 14 amazing students. Sometimes I have a class where they seize the moment and jump in with both feet. It was great to see them all having such fun exploring the fun of colored pencils, watercolor pencils and inktense pencils on fabric. They start with a smaller block to get the feel of the pencils and pressure and the sealer, then when they are feeling like they are ready and have picked their favorite colors they move on and start the bigger block. They had some amazing results and I was inspired by them, as I often am by my students. They each approach it uniquely and so I benefit from seeing all the different approaches to the same technique! Thank you to all my students for a great day and to The Fabric Patch!

Its always so much fun to be able to relax, paint, and just color with a group of other women! The time flew by as we had tons of fun creating!

Workshop at the Acacia guild

Last weekend I had the opportunity to teach my art appliqué class at the Acacia quilt guild. The thing I like the most about teaching is getting to meet all the amazing women out there. Whether it is quilters or art quilters or artists, these women are so amazing and inspiring. One of the women I met that day was Mary, she started quilting when she was 63 and she is now 98 1/2!!! She had brought her latest quilt to show at the meeting the night before which was a huge dahlia quilt. I was blown away.

 A retired school teacher, she is doing the things she dreamt of doing once she retired! She is still very active and was driving up until April of this year. She now is a bit more frustrated that she can't jump in the car and run to the fabric store to get something she needs on a whim any longer. This hasn't seemed to slow her down, instead she has it all figured out! She came to my workshop where I teach the students how to apply all sorts of colored pencils,watercolor pencils etc to fabric and make it permanent. Even with her arthritis she had no problems jumping right into the project. Her attitude, her heart and her spirit made you immediately love her. She told us stories and as we all laughed I thought about the fact that she has experienced almost 100 years of history! It is that willingness to keep learning and moving forward that was so inspiring to everyone. I hope I can age with such dignity! Here are a few pictures, thank you Acacia for a great day!

Some quilted blocks getting color! I have these blocks available for sale. Already quilted and waiting for you creative touch, contact me if you are interested. 

- Desiree

My Create Art Applique class in Costa Mesa

I met some amazing women and sadly only got to visit with each of them for a few hours. I love the opportunity to teach in these venues and meet lots of creative, artsy people. Being an artist almost forces you into a bit of a hermit like existence. Locked away in my studio or on location I get into a zone, my own little place where I create. I find that I often even talk myself, sometimes good, sometimes bad depending on how things are turning out. We did my colored pencil technique on pre-quilted blocks. It is a lot of fun and can be very relaxing if it hadn't been for the pounding of metal in the next room.  Seems as though we were placed next door to the metal embossing class and they banged on their bracelets and charms all class long. We laughed about it as we were often trying to talk over the noise coming from that room, good thing I wasn't trying to play music! So much for their Zen experience. Here are some pictures of my class working on the project.

The pictures turned out a bit yellow due to the lighting in the room. I also was filmed by Jen Mason from Cloth Paper Scissors for a snippet on their website! Hope all of you had a great day today!

If any of you would like to order a pre-quilted block just email me and I will send you pricing, I have these larger blocks and then smaller 6"x6" blocks!