Day: January 15, 2012

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!