Check out NewsBlog New Releases Manager Teddy Milder’s take on some recently published books of interest to textile-focused creatives. Get inspired by blackwork tattoo designs on the living surface of skin, nomadic felt-making, imperial Chinese robes, Art Deco textiles, a retrospective of the work of Yohji Yamamoto, and more……

Check out some good reads by other SDA members here. Bhakti Ziek recommends “Just Kids” by Patti Smith; Laura Sapelly recommends “Twelve by Twelve: The International Art Quilt Challenge”; Marjorie Fedyszyn recommends “1000 Artisan Textiles” and Donna Joslyn recommends “Digital Essentials”. Share what you’re reading!…

Read how textile entrepreneur Laura Foster Nicholson uses Spoonflower.com, a print-on-demand fabric service, to satisfy her pattern compulsion! Then come to SDA Confluence conference (June/Minneapolis) and let both Nicholson & Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower, inspire you to express your vision in prints. …

One in a growing number of SDA’s “Men in Quilts”, Joe Cunningham has been working in the medium since 1979. Follow along as he takes you through his process on a breakthrough quilt he made in 2006. Creative sparks along his way home in San Francisco’s Presidio ignited his imagination, leading him to freely fuse the ideas and materials that took him to a new level of working “in flow”….

SDA AoE program was started in 2002 to acknowledge outstanding creativity or innovation in a work using surface design/fiber-related media. Check out 5 recent winners here, each of whom received a full year of SDA membership. Detail of “Uprooted”, an award-winning work by Adrienne Sloan, is shown at left….

Be brave and wade into hand- and screen-printing, resist, digital imaging and transfer processes using disperse dyes on synthetic fibers with Aussie Marie-Therese Wisniowski. Get pushed to your edge and grow both technically and conceptually in this 5 day post-conference workshop at Confluence in Minneapolis. Just a few spaces left….

Sample the latest delicacies from the world-wide-web-roaming Mickie. This trip she links us to San Jose for some really big quilts by A Bee; too close for comfort to Golden Orb spiders that spin gold; to the UK for access to great shows and videos; to Aussie fibre Down Under; then finally to a sweet site for needlearts. Cloth intarsia, anyone?…

Experience a workshop by Ilze Aviks at your own pace by using her workbooks to explore hand-stitching as mark-making. Emphasizing process over outcome, each is a full course of exercises that encourages self-discovery and the development of a personal visual language. …

SDA Member Bhakti Ziek’s greatest accomplishment of 2010 was a re-energized focus that led to a new series of weavings and an exhibition. Hear her speak on “Digital Jacquard Design Using Photoshop®” at the upcoming SDA Confluence conference in June in Minneapolis, MN….

If you want to make a living making art, it takes business savvy as well as creativity. Invest in your future, support your vision and boost your skills by registering for this Confluence pre-conference workshop led by internationally recognized master dyer Mary Edna Fraser. PLEASE NOTE: This workshop has been cancelled due to low enrollment, but you can still read art of business insights by MEF here!…