Post by Christine Vinh for Artistic Artifacts In early August, the Artistic Artifacts Facebook Live, Cut Straight, Sew Straight with Stripology Rulers was all about using the right tools for cutting and sewing your quilts, featuring both Creative Grids Rulers along with other useful tools and notions — you can watch our archived presentation on our YouTube channel. I showed two projects using GE Design patterns and the rulers in early stages, a lap quilt using the Coral pattern and a Lil’ JoJo Table Runner. Both projects used fabrics from the Connections collection ..read more

The goal of Artistic Artifacts is to be the source of Creative Finds for Creative Minds, and today we ask — are you ready to make your mark with surface design techniques and mixed media art? Whether you are a beginner or an expert, Artistic Artifacts has everything you need to unleash your creativity. In addition to being an authorized BERNINA dealer and known for our wide selection of fabrics for the sewing and quilting enthusiast, we have a wide selection of products and materials for beginning and experienced artists! Above left, TCW stencils are a fun way to add patterns and textures to ..read more

Join me in welcoming Katherine Nichols to the staff of Artistic Artifacts — I’m happy she’s sharing her experience of creating a ByAnnie bag with us!      Guest post by Katherine Nichols The Travel Essentials 2.0 bag pattern from ByAnnie is the perfect project to show off Anna Marie Horner’s Echinacea fabric and Kaffe Fassett’s 85 and Fabulous Blue Chevron print. With the happy prints, accent zippers, and specialty stitching, the bag really stands out. While the bag is perfect for travel, it could also be used to carry hand stitching and sewing supplies. The mesh pock ..read more

My excitement when the latest fabric collection from Denise Burkitt arrived in the shop was off the charts — and I wasn’t alone! I’ve asked Chris to share her thoughts on her latest quilt project — she was the first recipient of our new fabric kit to make Island Vacation Basket Weave Quilt. Some Tips on Making the Island Vacation Basket Weave Quilt      Guest post by Christine Vinh I knew when I first saw the Basket Weave Quilt at the Trunk Show in May when Scott Fortunoff, President of Jaftex (the parent company of FreeSpirit Fabrics) visited the shop that I wanted to ..read more

Dresses sewn by Natasha Tung using Sally Kelly fabric, modeled by her beautiful daughters. My resolution not to neglect the blog hasn’t turned out very well in the first half of 2023… so I’m delighted to have this guest post to share with you all. Sally Kelly is one of our favorite fabric designers, and we challenged our friend Natasha Tung of Auschick Sews to use them for garments for her beautiful daughters. All photographs are courtesy Auschick Sews, all rights reserved.      Guest post by Natasha Tung Hi everyone! This is Natasha from Auschick Sews. I’m based in ..read more

It was already the end of January as I begin this, just sitting down to reflect on the year past. And then a few social media memories popped up which caused me to look back even further to appreciate how far Artistic Artifacts has come to become who we are today. An early post on Instagram, before I really knew what social media was all about, was dated January 28, 2012 when my husband and I were in Indonesia and purchased Batik Tambal from Trish and Owen Hodges. “Today we purchased batik panels which are wonderful paintings done using the batik process. Many of the designs require 8 dye colo ..read more

Kaffe Fassett (right) and Brandon Mably will visit Artistic Artifacts in October Goodness, where does the time go? We’ve had a hectic summer at Artistic Artifacts, resulting in blog neglect… and we’re also gearing up for what promises to be a busy autumn! As our customers know, we’re so excited to have been asked to host Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably as one of just five stops on their book tour — their first visit to the US since 2019. And since Kaffe Fassett’s Quilts in Wales, his 24th of the series, has just arrived in the shop, so I thought I’d share more on our plans here. Kaffe has ..read more

Dudley is one of the Artistic Artifacts staff members, always happy to assist a customer with choosing fabrics. She has helped start many talented quilters on their way through her classes. Enjoy her thoughts on fabric selection! — Judy Guest post by Dudley Shugart I have been asked many times to teach a class on color theory to help people select fabrics to make a quilt. Since I am not a color wheel user, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how I go about selecting fabric for my quilts in this post. First off, I do begin with a quilt pattern I want to use, deciding on two colors, or a p ..read more

Creative Mind Chris Vinh has created another beautiful quilt while giving our free pattern Modern Squares (which she designed) an update. Enjoy her guidance in creating your own version! — Judy Guest post by Christine Vinh of StitchesnQuilts Finding some special fabric often sparks an idea for a new quilt. I’d had my eye on the “Earth Made Paradise” collection by Kathy Doughty and one day I decided to revisit a pattern design I had used for some shop samples several years ago. As I worked on the project, I made some changes to my initial pattern used for the first quilts I made, which we used ..read more

March is National Quilting Month, and so to celebrate — and since we were not a vendor at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival — I want to share a number of our shop samples Artistic Artifacts would have had on display in our booth at the show. Last month we held our Third Thursday Live Sale titled Quilt Projects Inspiration that shared these quilts. Christine Vinh and I not only showed the quilts, but talked about the patterns and tools we used along with several fabric options that participants could purchase through our special Artistic Artifacts CommentSold store. If you weren’t able to join u ..read more