CQFA – Page 5 – Artquiltmaker Blog

CQFA January Meeting

CQFA was last Saturday. It was an All Quiltmaking All the Time kind of day, because BAMQG was on the same day. Good, but a bit exhausting.

In December, the Steering Committee got into high gear after the November meeting and decided to change things up a bit for CQFA.

First, we changed our meeting location and met at FabMo. We want to make a sewing mess and the church frowned upon threads and pins. Also, the church cleaners came during the meeting and we were often overcome by fumes created by their strong cleaning products. The gardeners were also there during our morning meetings with their blowers drowning out our discussions. Finally, we wanted to support the great organization that FabMo is. The room was smaller than we are used to, but I think it had good energy.

Next, the schedule was rearranged. Workshops and demos were getting short shrift, because they were last on the agenda. During this meeting the workshop was first, so that people who spent a lot of time preparing a presentation would have a full house. I think it worked beautifully, because when I got there there was a full house of humming sewing machines.

The schedule change was good for me, especially this time, because I had a hard week at work, the drive to CQFA is long and I was tired. I decided not to participate in the workshop this time, so I stayed in bed a little longer and went to the meeting a little later. It worked out fine.

The group was partway through a round robin in a day challenge when I arrived. Maureen was organizing and she was timing people. I think the intervals were about 15 minutes. People came up with great pieces.

I don’t know who belongs to the piece above, but I really liked how someone did stitching using the programmed stitches on their machine. What an effective idea!

One of the issues/challenges of this work is that the participants had very little time to add borders or other fabric. As a result, they were very creative in their efforts. I saw Nancy doing hand stitching on one piece and I saw someone else add birds to the birdcages that were already printed on the fabric.

One of the things I like about CQFA is how creative and fearless people are in their work. Why not? The photo far above is an excellent example. The use of the machine stitching in the turquoise, black and white piece is subtle, yet effective. Above the birds really add a lot to the birdcage piece.

As you know, I have been working on some journals similar to the Red Journal, so I was very pleased to see Liz Berg‘s work. She had Gessoed and painted the pages and was doing handstitching on them at the meeting. She was using something like Perl Cotton. While I have been in a hand work desert, I have been getting some good ideas for projects to do on the couch.

Dolores is cracking the whip on show and tell. No more 20 minutes per person. We had to do this now that the group is growing. I wonder if we will need to start taking applications for membership?

I knew this would happen, so I only brought Kissy Fish. Lots of great work and Caroline brought a wonderful book on using thread. I love Caroline, because she actually reads the books and does what they tell her. She did a bunch of samples of stitches on her machine.

Dolores bought a midarm and has been testing on unquilted pieces in her closet. Lots of friendly jealousy in the room.I wonder if she’ll loan it out? 😉

Was glad to see everyone and get back int he quilty groove. Now I just have to get my worklife settled so I can participate in the workshops!

CQFA Meeting

The CQFA Meeting was last Saturday. As I already mentioned BAMQG was on the same day. For me, it was a lot of driving and time away from home for one day. Not sure I can continue to make it to both meetings.

This was our end of the year long, organizational type meeting. While long, it was a good one.The end of the year means we needed to plan for 2012. Now we have the start of a plan.

Show and Tell was great as usual. I love seeing what other people make. Bron brought a gorgeous belly dancing belt to show us, which she bought at the FabMo sale. It was made by an artist who used FabMo materials.

Marie, the President of the San Jose Museum Quilt & Textiles Board, talked about the various events coming up on the SJMQT calendar. We decided to donate some money to the Museum to support the upcoming Quilt National 2011 exhibit, which will be held in 2011.

Marie brought monoprints she worked on in a class.

Of course, I liked this one with all the turquoise.

I purport not to like grey that much, especially the grey and yellow combination that seems to be so popular with the modern quiltmakers right now, but I really liked this monoprint.

I know that Diane calls this series something different, but I think it has the look of a city center from overhead. Diane is a silk painter and has been using FabMo fabrics to mount and as mats for her pieces.

I know Rhonda from BAMQG. She brought this piece to CQFA as well. I hope she will join CQFA.

Caroline found an interesting piece of fabric that looked like an Edward Gorey painting. She wanted to use the entire piece of fabric, the back of which had some interesting characters knitting, which is why she made her journal cover the size it is. I really admire Caroline’s finishing skills. Her products look professional..

The cool thing about this cover is that it holds an artists sketchbook. I don’t know how she did the edging (a regular binding?), but I think it looks really nice.

We had a nice ATC exchange. People do such creative work. I would like to start on my ATCs for the next meeting right now, so that my pieces are as great as other people’s. It has been a week and I haven’t started in yet.

I really would like to make some ATCs using the Tsukineko inks. I think it would be a good way to practice with the inks. Sonja did some great paintings when she came to her first meeting where she painted on a piece of fabric and then cut the piece up into ATC sized works. That is on my mind as a possibility.

I was sad I had to leave early to make BAMQG, because I missed Dolores’ presentation. This is what made me start thinking about just attending one meeting or going to BAMQG late on days where CQFA also meets. We’ll have to see. I can’t do everything and I just can’t exhaust myself. Last week was particularly difficult, because I was single parenting and, while I have a wonderful, helpful Young Man, I still have double the chores and no backup. I’ll have to play it my ear in January.

Nota bene: my camera battery died and I forgot to bring the spare, so all the photos are taken with my phone. Sorry about that!

CQFA and BAMQG

Saturday a week ago was the CQFA and BAMQG Saturday extravaganza.

Every other month, the meetings fall on the same day, which can be awesome and can be exhausting. I love being immersed in the quilting. I adore both groups, too.

CQFA was really small this time. It is a small group to start with and May always begins the end of school/graduation/nice weather demands on people’s time. Still, it was a great meeting with awesome show and tell. We rehashed the Primal Green outing and panel discussion. I got a lot of kudos for my contribution, which was really nice and made me feel good. Nancy had set up demo, which Sue gave after a brief break.

Sue makes fabric paper. She found the recipe in the book Stitch Alchemy and has been making gorgeous cards and gifts ever since. Sue’s piece for Primal Green was made from the fabric paper (above). She also sent me some gifts made from her paper. I especially liked the cards.

Don’t you love the stitching and how it highlights and adds interest to the flower?

If I ever send you one of these cards, you had better not throw it out! I’ll have to think who will really appreciate one of them. I may frame one as well.

The thing about Sue is that she is fearless and will try anything. She really does great work and I always look forward to her show and tell.

In the photo above Sue is applying tissue paper to the fabric she has cut. I don’t remember what kind of fabric it is, but something fairly benign and not very expensive, I think.She used a water and glue mixture to apply the paper to the fabric.

Sue is a really good teacher. She was well prepared and as she talked us through the different steps, she also talked about supplies she liked (Starbuck’s tissue and colored tissue paper are the best).

After the paper is dry (this was a second piece, because we didn’t have time to let the one she worked on dry), then you paint and embellish it. That stamp in the front is made from bunion foam. Great idea, huh? Again, Sue talked about things she liked and things that didn’t work out as planned for embellishing.

We talked about doing this all together in August and then following up with a workshop to embellish it at A Work of Heart. We’ll see how it goes.

BAMQG is always a fun time, too. This time I brought my camera. I still didn’t take any photos except of the blocks I was cutting. DUH! I took the fabric for the Teacher Pillows and used the time I wasn’t chatting to cut pieces. I was able to cut two blocks out during the sewing time, which was great.

The meeting was good, too. It is fun to see what people are making. I had a lot to show – the FOTY 2010 (sans sleeve, so you’ll get to see when it is completely finished), the Frosted Stars Leftovers and the Purple Quilt. People really liked them and it is gratifying to get positive feedback. I was able to show the quilts at both groups and get double the amount of strokes. Thanks, everyone.

A few people finished their Robert Kaufman challenges. I brought mine, which does not have a border. Look out for a post on that coming soon to a blog near you. It was interesting to hear what challenged people about the project.

Chris won the blocks from the February block strip challenge. She made a table runner and she also made some gifts to give away. I won a folder that she made using a manila folder as a pattern and Timtex as the base. Very clever.

The outside of the folder is made from blocks. Can you see parts of one of my blocks? The inside has two pockets. Where the green meets the multi-colored print is where the pocket is.

CQFA Retreat – FOTY 2010

My retreat project, as you know from all of my preparations, was the Fabric of the Year quilt for 2010. I had high hopes that I would get the whole thing pieced. I enjoy doing the colorwork at the retreat, because I can get a lot of different opinions and I like knowing what other people see. Also, I feel like I have more space to spread out.

Above is the way I started the FOTY on Friday afternoon.

Above is the dark corner. Again, I was trying for the a colorwash kind of look across the quilt from right to left.

FOTY 2010 - more of the dark corner — FOTY 2010 – more of the dark corner

As I laid out the piece, it was interesting to see, visually, the amount of darks and colors.

FOTY 2010 - Dark Corner washing towards Red — FOTY 2010 – Dark Corner washing towards Red

This was the first layout. You can see a bit of the red next to the purple. Eventually, I took all the red off of the design board and put blue next to the purple. I did a backwards ROY G BIV working from right to left, though if you look at it when it is finished, the ROY G BIV will read correctly (see below).

FOTY 2010 - Whole Piece in Progress — FOTY 2010 – Whole Piece in Progress

Above, you can see that I have changed out the red for the blue in the center and put the red on the left edge. Most of the diamonds I have to work with for this project are blue. The design wall was not large enough for me to put up all of the patches, so the reds and pinks only got a representative sampling to begin with. As I worked through Friday afternoon and evening, then Saturday, I came to the realization that this piece was going to take longer than I thought. Putting it together was a lot more of an intellectual exercise than I expected. Part of the reason, I think, was that I wanted to put it together in chunks, which made the spaces created by the sewn seam allowances end up in strange places.

FOTY 2010 - Center detail — FOTY 2010 – Center detail

Those seam allowance spaces became unexpectedly large as I sewed, which turned out to make keeping track of where pieces went really difficult.

FOTY 2010 - Blue detail — FOTY 2010 – Blue detail

One challenge was the different amounts of colors I had. Another challenge was that the fabrics mostly did not consist of only one color. I tried to block out all but the background or dominant color in my mind in order to place the patches, it wasn’t always possible.

FOTY 2010 - Blues washing to Yellow — FOTY 2010 – Blues washing to Yellow

Above, which is the upper left hand section, is the least formed part of the quilt, and still, in the photo above, in quite a bit in flux.

FOTY 2010 - Putting the Piece Together — FOTY 2010 – Putting the Piece Together

In some ways putting the piece together got easier as I sewed larger chunks together. In other ways, it got to be more of a problem, because the spaces, as I mentioned, between the chunks got larger.

FOTY 2010 - Moving Across from Right to Left — FOTY 2010 – Moving Across from Right to Left

The bottom left corner was really my big problem. I don’t know what happened, but something happened early on and I still haven’t completely resolved the problem in that corner. I am working through it, but as I don’t seem to have a photo of the whole piece after I moved the red, it is proving to be a challenge. I am having to lay out that corner again as I go along. Lots of unsewing is required.

FOTY 2010 - Top Right, Middle — FOTY 2010 – Top Right, Middle

Are you bored yet?

The top right and middle were ok and I was able to sew some large chunks together.

FOTY 2010 - Bottom Right — FOTY 2010 – Bottom Right

No matter what I did with that bottom right corner, there still seemed to be large missing chunks of patchwork. Sigh. At this point, in addition to taking big deep breaths, I realized I wasn’t going to get the piece finished. Not what I wanted to face, but I wanted to do a good job and that was the reality.

It was a bit liberating to admit that, because I felt like I could look at the piece and didn’t have to rush straight to sewing.

FOTY 2010 - Moving to Pink — FOTY 2010 – Moving to Pink

I was able to put a few pinks up as the seam allowances shrank the whole piece, leaving more space. I had faint hope that some miracle would occur and I would finish the piecing.

FOTY 2010 - Adding the Reds — FOTY 2010 – Adding the Reds

I was also able to add some of the reds that didn’t fit when I started.

FOTY 2010 - details of placement — FOTY 2010 – details of placement

The large seam allowances seemed to keep moving as well.

FOTY 2010 - Good Behavior — FOTY 2010 – Good Behavior

This was the well behaved part of the quilt right before I took the whole thing down so I could go home.

FOTY 2010 - Orange and Yellow — FOTY 2010 – Orange and Yellow

IYellows and oranges were ignored, for the most part.

FOTY 2010 - Virginia's Picture — FOTY 2010 – Virginia’s Picture

Virginia took this picture while she was visiting. It is really helpful to see what other people see in my pieces.

Julie helped me roll up the piece in the flannel of the portable design wall so I could bring it home and set it up again. My plan is to chip away at the rest of the layout and piecing. Not finishing puts me behind in my mind’s quiltmaking schedule, but I am sure there is a reason that I didn’t finish. I certainly didn’t expect the intellectual piecing challenge of this project. I am sure it is good for me.

CQFA Quilt Retreat

The CQFA Quilt Retreat was this past weekend. Dolores did a great job organizing it. We went to a new place and it was wonderful. There was a bakery nearby which baked gluten free pastries in addition to regular pastries. That was a really nice treat!

Above is my workspace, which I shared with Julie. You can see FOTY 2010 in progress. Sonja and Debbie were in the back. The share table is in the middle.

Sue set up in a corner and made a whole Moon over the Mountain quilt while Terri worked on a Ricky Tims style quilt.

It never ceases to amaze me how much of a mess I can make when given the opportunity. My workspace is right at the bottom of the photo. I worked hard over the weekend, so it must be ok. Dolores was in the far corner with Maureen and Robin at the table between Dolores and mine.

Bron and Virginia couldn’t stay and work with us for the weekend, but they did come for the group dinner on Saturday. I love this picture. It shows what lovely people they both are.

At the same time I cut the FOTY patches all year, I have also been cutting Tumbler patches for Julie. I think she mentioned liking that shape and I took it upon myself to cut patches for her. I don’t remember exactly how it all came about, but it sounds like something I would do.

It was fun to see the same fabrics that I was working with on my project. Julie worked on sewing rows of her Tumbler quilt together. She is making it for her bed. At one point she laid it on the floor and we laid down on top of it to test and see if the size was large enough. No cameras were available to catch that moment. I was hoping she would sew all the rows on, but she got tired of it after awhile and worked on some different projects.

We declined to have Julie crawl on top of table or chair to show the whole piece. It is quite large and above is a different view.

Nancy was making a needle felted scarf. I don’t know if she finished, because I don’t know that much about needle felting. I really liked the design she was working on.

Julie also gave me some birthday gifts! We spent a happy hour looking through the two books and talking about the craziness of some of the piecing. She gave me a really nice card, too. 😉

CQFA ATCs

Saturday was the ATC swap at CQFA. I didn’t really like to make ATCS when the group first started swapping, but lately I have found the creative outlet to be a good one. I really enjoyed making my swap ATCs (lower right picture) this time and may make more of them. I found that I could make something unusual in a small format and not have to make try the idea in a large quilt piece. People really seemed to like them as well. I received a lot of nice comments. Diane’s (upper left) are more of her silk painting and I see intention in these ATCs. I didn’t ask her if she painted the pieces specifically for ATCs or if they were leftovers or what. I really like them and hope she makes more like this. Trudi hadn’t been to the meeting in awhile, so hers were snapped up quickly.

The environmental theme that is pervading the group (because of the show) is very evident in Reva and Virginia’s pieces. I have been enamoured with leaves lately and it is very interesting to me to see how many different ways people can depict them. I didn’t ask Virginia if she painted her leaves, but they look painted.

One of the things I love about Bron’s ATCs is that she does something different each time. I was disappointed that I didn’t get an ATC paper doll last time and was hoping that she would make more, but, alas, it was not to be. She did the lovely green abstract that look at bit like leaves. Mine (right), as usual, were nearly impossible to photograph. I made an extra so I could keep one for myself.

Above are the ones for which I swapped, except mine, which I just kept. They will look great in my collection.

CQFA Saturday

The past weekend seems like a zillion years ago. I have been across the country and back for work, had so many meetings, I had to arrange for my mom to attend one of them since I can’t be in two places at once. I know some of you think I can and I hope I haven’t shattered your illusions.

Frances, of the Off Kilter Quilt, talked about the first week of school and how exhausted she was. Our Young Man has been in school since August 25 and I feel like I live there, in addition to my work and quilt life. There isn’t enough of me to go around. Bleah.

CQFA is usually a great break with wonderful women, fabulous show and tell inspiration and, lately, great workshops. We are organizing a quilt show (~March 5-July 7, 2011) and I am the instigator of this endeavor, so how I feel is ALL MY FAULT. I started it. This is a professional event with a curatorial staff, professional signage, artists reception and symposium to go with the show. We spent a good portion of the meeting talking about the various committees, names for the show, copyright, lawyers and all other ephemera associated with a quilt show. I am thankful that everyone is interested and I am not alone in the organization, but the whole presentation sucked what little life there was left in me out.

The meeting didn’t give me the boost that it normally does and it wasn’t because of the show organization. It was me and the crazy schedule I had last weekend: CQFA, soccer, dinner, various school related functions. It was too much and I couldn’t get out of any of it.

My great sadness of CQFA was that the awesome Sonja was signed up to give a class and I had to leave part way through it. 🙁 She had me get out my kid watercolors and paint, which was fun and may have broken some barrier I had about using those watercolors. They are Crayola watercolors for kids, so I should have no hang ups, but I do.

I signed up for Carla Sonheim’s Drawing Silliness class (not sure of the exact name) and was pleased to find out that Sonja signed up for it as well. Perhaps I am not a complete lunatic.

We traded ATCs and mine were the last men standing. I have to admit that I liked the process when I did it at A Work of Heart, but they weren’t very successful in general. Oh well, not every piece can be a masterpiece. I have photos of the others, but I haven’t done anything with them yet, so look for a post on them later.

September ATCs

Here are the ATCs I am trading at the meeting today. I made them at A Work of Heart at the end of June using a shaving cream Marbling technique. It was fun.

ATCs and CQFA

The CQFA meeting was Saturday. We had two new people and that was GREAT. The whole meeting, actually, was great. There was LOTS of laughter. People who came late said that they could hear the laughter out in the parking lot. I need to attend more meetings where everyone is laughing.

As usual, show and tell was excellent. Everyone is really churning out the work and being inspired by each other. It was great. I showed Passionate Purple, the Chocolate Box and FOTY 2009. I also showed some books, talked about the Dale Fleming class and traded ATCs.

ATCs

People did really nice work for this round of ATCs. I was really pleased with the ATCs I chose. My score were the pears! I love them all though.

Bron used FabMo fabrics for her ATCs. She is on the board and finds all the good stuff there!

Maureen has a new blog, Flies in a Cathedral. She only promises to post once a week. I look forward to hearing about the flies.

I wasn’t fortunate enough to get one of Amy’s cards, but I loved the texture.

Diane is a very accomplished silk painter. When I saw those pears I knew I had to have them. I wasn’t the first person to choose either, so I feel very lucky to get that card.

My ATCs were really fun to make. I haven’t had much fun making them in the past. I am working on a series of ATCs and I may have to rethink that as it seems like a chore — until this go ’round.

I was reading Quilting Arts magazine last Thursday night and saw a picture of a leaf in an article about wool felting or something I wasn’t interested in. The article was by Cindi Huss I was interested in the image and the technique.

From what I could see in the picture, the author stitched zigzag lines three times with different threads. I did that in the picture above. One of the great things about my machine is that it has a very precise stitch. I can stitch over the same line and the needle will land in the same hole. That wasn’t what I wanted to for this. I wanted the zigzag to be a bit messy. I wanted the colors to blend. I had to readjust the needle to get it out of sync with the previous line of stitching.

Because of the Dale Fleming class, I was no longer hampered by changing the foot. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes taking off the foot holder is just too much of a hassle. I think I am over it now. I put on the darning/free motion foot and created the circles. I drew them lightly with a white pencil first so I had something to follow. I also slowed down the machine and that helped make the stitches show. After doing all of the circles. I went over some of them with two different colors of thread. Using Aurifil means that the stitched area does not get too bulky.

My idea was to make one piece and then cut it up. I had planned to try this technique in paper, but was inspired by the QA picture that I decided to go for it. I did make the background larger, but if I do this again, I would make it even larger and the ATCs were a bit small this time.

I have never made one piece and cut it up. I didn’t think people would like the right and left bottoms, but those were the first to go, actually. After cutting, I took apart a necklace Lil Sissy brought me from the Carribean and used the hearts for embellishment.

Here is the piece (minus the middle) embellished and finished and ready to be distributed. I was really pleased that they were so popular this time.

ATC Follow-up

The CQFA meeting last Saturday went really well. We laughed a lot. Nancy, one of the members, is on a quest to improve her art. She took a long course (certificate program??) in Seattle that ended last year and is diligent. When she comes to the meeting she brings works that are very different from what the rest of bring. She often has interesting construction problems that make us think outside of the box. We were helping give her ideas about what she could use as a form and that led to extreme silliness as many great ideas were generated.

Everyone looked at the two Lark Books I received last Friday thoroughly and Terri said that she thinks Lark sold at least 10 copies by sending me those books. 😉

Maureen’s ATC exchange was a raging success. I showed mine last week in the Saturday post. I liked them, but they didn’t seem to be that popular. People made wonderful pieces, so perhaps it was just hard to choose.

Below are the others that members brought. The lower left is one of Sonja’s. Originally I picked a different one, but when I saw the chair, I switched!

I didn’t get one of Maureen’s. I did get one of hers last time that I keep where I can see it all the time.

Bron’s have a very New Zealand look to them. She doesn’t do a lot of fiber, so I was glad I chose one of hers.

Caroline’s jacket was in these same colors. I think she works in them a lot.

I was also sorry not to get one of Dolores’. She did a great quilt at the retreat in January and I admire her dedication to her work. How do you like that one curved corner? Clever, don’t you think?

Sonja’s are very subtle this time.

I think this is the first time that Sue has participated. I didn’t get one of hers either. The flowers really attracted me.

Debbie hasn’t been to a meeting in a long time, so I was pleased to see that she brought ATCs. I was also pleased to see that she used her signature style on them.

More on the Quilt Retreat

I have a lot of talented colleagues who also attended the quilt retreat. I realized, after I got home, that the pictures I thought I took only were taken in my head. Sigh.

Dolores, for whom I made the pencil roll, is really making progress in her work. She takes classes deliberately from well respected quiltmakers and works through the techniques and makes it her own. For the past several years, she has worked in neutrals. This year she decided that she was going to add color back into the equation. This piece is from a photograph (right) and some techniques she learned in a class with Caryl Bryer Fallert. Dolores reworked the photo on her computer and then blew up the pattern, transferred it to freezer paper and used Fallert’s method of piecing to create the top.

Sonja, a new CQFAer was working with FabMo fabrics and just playing. She did a fabulous wave piece that I was really sorry not to have taken a picture of.

Sue and I are kindred spirits in that we both like to make quick projects in between our larger quilt projects. She worked on totes, scarves AND basted two quilts!

FabMo also has wallpaper -high end wallpaper – and Jan has been experimenting with folded boxes and bags using pieces of the free wallpaper. They are fabulous. She is also working on a piece based on the view of Nebraska from a plane. She worked on embellishing the circles she was making. Jan was sitting next to me and we talked about color, because she is finding her piece too dull. We discussed colors that would fit with her nature theme.

Julie bought a pack of Moda turnovers and is making a fun and sweet Valentine’s Day quilt. She is trying to limit her need to cut and this was a great way to do it.

Here is Julie’s quilt before she started on the appliquéd hearts.

Above shows her machine applique’ pieces waiting for their turn under the needle as well as the tools that are required for excellent quilting (glasses, rulers and coffee!). 😉

I thought that the above block looked like one of the illustrations in an illuminated manuscript.

This is a nice color combination. I am not sure the computer intermediation shows the subtlety, but it s great.

We talked a lot about this block, because of the skull. It is the block that shows that relationships can be icky and rocky sometimes. Fun fabric, though.

Maureen tried the pencil roll pattern and came up with a nice piece using some of her hand dyes and some FabMo fabric.

Terri worked on getting some tops put together. One was an exchange top that included some really nice batiks.

Debbie was trying to finish her daughter’s college quilt. She was using some very jewel-y turquoise, purples and other blues. It was very rich looking.

Kathy is a member’s daughter. We haven’t seen any of her work before this weekend. It turns out that she does wonderful handwork. She is working on this Piece O’Cake design, do it mostly by hand. I like the color choices she made. They are a bit muted, but not murky.

She didn’t like the scallop border that came with the pattern, so she designed this leaf border on her own.

CQFA Retreat 2010

This past weekend was our annual CQFA retreat by the beach. I spent the weekend working on the FOTY 2009. I also relaxed a little even though I spent a lot of time hard at hard sewing. My body is rebelling a bit from sitting so much and standing so much.

First, I found the last few FOTY blocks on my design wall before I left and I wanted to post a picture of them. I didn’t think I would use the one with the earthy brown (middle row, middle block) on the front, but I ended up using it.

I really worked hard on the piece. As with last year’s piece, there is a lot of sewing and pressing. The process, after I figured out the size and laid the blocks out was to sew two Zanzibar blocks together, press, put back on the design wall, sew two Zanzibar blocks together, press, put back on the design wall and then repeat that process 133 times. Once I sewed sets of blocks together, then I sewed two sets of two blocks together to make a set of four. I did that approximately 67 times. Since I wasn’t in my own workroom I had to walk around my table, past another table and into the corner to get to the iron. The distance was inconvenient, but also good, because it forced me to stretch my body. Putting the top together was a lot of rote sewing, but it was the perfect project for the retreat.

I did a few things differently this year. One was to count up the blocks and try to make a plan as to how I would lay them out before I arrived at the retreat location and was standing in front of my design wall. I knew I had 225 blocks, so I thought I would lay them out in a 15×15 format. What I didn’t take into the consideration was the size of the portable design wall. If I placed 15 blocks down, 3 of them were on the floor. I didn’t want to work with blocks on the floor even though I could have. It is hard to photograph the in progress piece. It is easy to forget some of the blocks, etc. I reconfigured the layout and ended up with, I believe, 12 down and 19 across. I prefer a rectangular layout anyway so it worked out. I needed another block, however, so the earthy brown one ended up on the front. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t scream brown out of the quilt.

I also sorted the blocks. Last year, I think I just put them up in general areas on the design wall and then I had to move them around a lot. This time I sorted the fabrics on the table, put them in Roy G. Biv + white and black order and then put them up on the design wall. This strategy was a lot easier. I didn’t have move such large groups of blocks over and over. I had to move some groups, but the whole process was much easier. Below is a progression of how the piece evolved as I worked on the color:

Another thing I did differently this year was ask some of the other retreaters if any blocks stood out to them in an “I am out of place in this quilt” kind of way. Many of the CQFAers are really skilled designers, others are skilled colorists. All of them have something wonderful to offer if I remember to ask and listen.

I was looking at FOTY 2008 last week and found that there were some rectangles I really should have moved. It is by no means a horrible quilt, but I should have played with the layout a bit more. Asking for help was a great strategy, because people mostly liked the color work I did and I got lots of kudos, but some of the blocks jumped out at them. Funnily enough the blocks they noticed, for the most part, did not jump out at me. Almost exclusively, these were blocks that were hard to place – multi-color fabrics, conversationals, light backgrounds almost completely covered by various colors, etc. The CQFA group is great, because they helped me place the problematic blocks to their best advantage. In this way, I also learned.

I spent a good portion of the retreat sewing the quilt top together. Open house at school was today, so I had to leave the retreat early and only got some straps for my next Anna Maria Horner Multi-tasker tote done. I really wanted to stay, but am glad I was able to have a chat with various teachers at school as well. There is always so much to do!

ATC Day at CQFA

The CQFA met at Always Quilting yesterday. The Always Quilting strip club was also meeting and somehow the space issue got mixed up so we crammed into one of their small rooms to do business, show and tell and swap ATCs. A few of us got in some project work also.

I am working on a deck of creative prompt cards using playing card blanks as the base. I decided that the ATC swap in CQFA would be another way of creating more prompt cards and expanding the Creative Prompt Project. The cards to the left are the ones I created for this month’s swap. They are ok. I did stitch words on them for the prompt and the words don’t stand out very well, which is disappointing. I should have used yellow thread to make the words stand out better. I will try and create more contrast next time.

In some ways this format is too small for me. In other ways, it is a good size, because it allows me to finish something and use up some scraps. I have been using scraps for all of the ATCs I have made so far. I am struggling with creating successful designs give the format and parameters. I am okay with not being as successful as I would have liked with this groupsince I only committed a little time to the project. I want to look at it as a learning experience. I have an ATC book, so I will look in there to get some ideas.

Maureen did a good job organizing the swap. She changed the guidelines a little this time. What I realized, after the change, is that I need to make my two sets of cards using different designs. Some people ended up with two of my cards. Since I used the same design for all they received duplicates. That is disappointing for them. I don’t know if it is better to do multiples of the same or if I should make each one different or somewhere in between? I’ll try something a little different next time.

One of the CQFA members made a little label for her pillows and bags. I saw it when she showed her oilcloth bags and pillows at the last meeting. Something sparked in my mind. I haven’t been putting any labels or anything on my tote bags. I thought this would be a great solution.

Making the labels had been on my mental to do list for awhile, but it was just this week that I was actually able to sit and do it. I used the table function in Word, bu any word processor will do. I inserted the picture, wrote the text, played with the spacing as well as the font size and tested it on a regular sheet of paper before I printed it on a sheet of paper backed fabric. I am pretty pleased with the way it came out.

One of the things that the grid (from the table) did was give me a cutting line. Since the 9K is in the shop again, I had to play around with where the zigzag stitched on the Jem.

The picture is a .jpg of my Avatar. I originally made it on Elouai.com. Their Avatar maker has some fun options as well as the ability to save as a .jpg file.

I think this mini-label will be a good option for bags and pillows and other little items that I seem to be working on at the moment. It might also work for small quilts where I don’t really want to take up half the back with a regular quilt type label a la the Pamela Allen quilts. I’ll have to see.

These are my new ATCs. I was really enamoured and inspired by the various techniques that people used. I especially liked the lower right (#3). Maureen made that and there is a wire on top of the red netting that says create! It is another creative prompt! I had to have it and was thrilled that it was available when it was my turn to pick.

A new person, Sonja, came to the meeting today. Her ATCs were fabulous. She made the ones with the sun and clouds. I really wanted a piece of the sun, but got a piece of the clouds with which I am happy. Dolores’ cards are on the top with the leaves. I’ll have to get one of those baseball card binders to keep all of these ATCs in.

Maureen’s ATCs are in the above picture underneath mine. I love the one with squares on the left, but it didn’t come home with me.

In the group above are ATCs made my JulieZS (top), Linda (left) and the famous, much loved writer Terri Thayer made some, which are pictured on the bottom right. One thing that I liked about Julie’s and Linda’s ATCs was that they both cut up pieces of projects that weren’t working and made them into successful ATCs. Terri is playing with stamps and embellishments in this group as well as the ones she brought to the last meeting.

Above is the second group of ATCs for round 2 swapping.

I never wanted to collect ATCs. I am finding that I do enjoy seeing different techniques which people are using.

As an aside, someone directed me to Teesha Moore for art retreats. Her opening page looks like ATCs

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30