Ruth McDowell Day 2

Again we started the day greeted by more of Ruth's absolutely gorgeous quilts. In person they are even nicer as you can see so much more detail. I had loved this one when I saw it in one of her books earlier.
I don't remember seeing this one before but probably did. I LOVE this one. It looks like there are vintage fabrics that make up the background. It is just incredible in person.


This is Ruth working with Cynthia on her drawing.
This is Theresa's finished drawing of the mountains from yesterday greatly simplified. Ruth's help in determining foreground and background piecing was fantastic and extremely helpful. I kind of do it intuitively but it is really good to understand the why's of it all. (Sometimes my intuition is not as good as other's to say the least!!)

Well, location, location, location!! The name of the shop where the class is being held is A Notion to Quilt and is located in Shelburne Mass just down the Mohawk Trail (route 2) from the Greenfield exit off the big interstate (the one from Springfield -- 91 I think). I know she has a web site so you can probably Google it. It is a lovely shop and worth a stop if you are anywhere near the area.

It was a picture perfect fall day and actually quite chilly when I left for class this morning but no frost at least!! I can always draw on so much energy when I first get to class but am dissipated by the time I leave at 4. The days are filled with focus on getting the pieces further along.

Let me first say that it seems a lot easier today to do this process than it did yesterday! The process is really pretty straightforward as long as you follow it!! I actually think I get breaking down the pictures which is a HUGE step for me -- even abstracting it a bit but still pretty pictoral as I am sure my fabric choices will be!

Today I moved into dividing my drawing into sections and numbering each template piece. Then it was on to transferring the images onto freezer paper and marking placement tic marks and again putting matching numbers onto these pieces which we will eventually iron onto our fabric choices. You must see Ruth's two new books on Design and Piecing to see the entire process. They are updated versions (in two books instead of one) of her earlier Piecing Beyond the Basics. She does things slightly differently now than she did in this earlier book. I own all her books and even have two copies of one (used to have multiple copies of a couple of them as I kept thinking I was missing one!).


There are many in the class who are already into sewing or at least has highly complex designs well along the way. About half the class is made up of repeat students. I can identify with that as I have taken Priscilla's jacket classes too many times!!

So here is where I am today! I have finished copying this numbered colored (with pencils) drawing onto freezer paper as well and unloaded two boxes of fabric from the trunk of my car. So tomorrow the really hard work begins!! Although I have brought every piece of grey, brown and black fabric I own for the pelican, inevitably there will be some piece of fabric from home that I wish I had!! I also brought along a bunch of my weird hand dyes (multicolors) and my specially done marbled fabrics which now all look too dark to me!! Hopefully I will find some place for one or two of them!

I have been working on a second drawing in my hotel room that is all curves as well -- the birds of paradise which I decided not to do in class as I was pretty sure I had that one nailed and wanted to try something new!


This is one of the "stars" in the class -- Ann Shaw. It is a little hard to see in the picture (double click to see the closeup) but it is two barn owls sitting in a darkened barn. It is a wonderful photograph and is shaping up into a stunning quilt.

Day 1 - Ruth McDowell's Designing from Nature

It was not the best of days to be driving to Massachusetts but I got here moderately dry and safely. I am staying in Greenfield Massachusetts which is about 5 miles from the quilt shop where the class is being held. It is a beautiful shop with excellent lighting so it is a pleasure to be here.

An even greater pleasure is to finally meet Ruth McDowell who has been one of my all time favorite quilters and is one of those who most influenced my decisions to move toward art quilts. I fell in love with her early quilts about trees and the ones that had all the symmetry as I of course love radial symmetry. It is wonderful to be working surrounded by her beautiful pieces -- pictures of course don't do the colors justice!!

Here are two of the many quilts that were hung throughout the classrooms.





This was a piece done by one of our "remedial" as opposed to new students. These are students that are back for another time. A couple came in with their diagrams already completed and were starting to audition fabric.

This was Pam's second piece that she brought in. It was derived from Ruth's pattern of hollyhocks and it was beautiful. This is Ruth holding up the quilt.





Well, for those of you who know me know that I very literal and very prone to do curves for everything so I decided to choose this picture over some of the others and I decided to try a pretty much straightline version as I think it looks more abstract. This was my initial sketch with lines drawn which I then blew up onto a 3 foot by 4 foot piece of tracing paper and did some more detail in the area around the eye.

This is the LARGE version of the pelican. Still looks like a pelican! It was very very difficult to try to apply the colors as it is all shades of grey so I did some but will have to leave the rest for later. I did define where the water ended and the bird began! There are only about three curves but I wanted the emphasis in those areas and thought they were needed.
This was a quickie sketch that Ruth did to try to simplify a landscape that a class member brought in.

I didn't think through this whole thing enough or I would have brought more projects to do at night that didn't require a ton of desk space. So I am going to try to do tracings of some of the other drawings I did in preparation for future quilts. I am also going to do the bird of paradise through the next steps as I had got pretty far on that one already so really didn't need Ruth's input (I think...). We shall see.

To be continued...

On My Way to the Freezer.....

Well, certainly wasn't planning on doing anything blogworthy today but just happened to walk by my marbling table on the way to getting something out of the freezer (of course forgot to get something out of the freezer). Of course, my hands just had to try something new. Well, I was quite pleased! Yesterday night I had ironed a few "loser" pieces that I decided I liked after all! They were the result of what the tray looked like after I had taken a print from part of the tray and left the rest sitting there for awhile. Deep in the night, my brain decided to give the technique of moving all the color to one side and then letting it slide back a try! I just used whatever colors were sitting there and the size is pretty much trashed from adding surfactant to the paints for a week!

I really like the oozing quality of the pieces a lot! They remind me so much of what Yellowstone looked like so I will have to try a pallette that is more akin to Yellowstone colors (more pastel).

I still don't have chicken out of the freezer yet!

Countdown for Ruth McDowell Class!

Well, many of my chores are done! I spent some time yesterday marbling with what is left of the fabric I had alum-ed and am taking a break so I can get fully ready for the class with Ruth McDowell starting this Wednesday. Much of the fabric I marbled was specifically for one of the pieces I might be working on! Today was getting my images copied to paper (from the page protectors where I had traced them). Then I headed over to Staples (thanks Jeanne) and had them blown up to 3 foot by 4 foot. Pat is definitely having an influence as that still seems too small! I bought some 3 foot wide paper as well so we shall see what happens. I am feeling ready for 4 foot by 6 foot but am not sure the world is ready for Birds of Paradise (the flower) that big! My pelicans aren't even life-sized yet though so there is room there for enlargement!

I enlarged 6 pictures! Two are different versions of pelicans, one is a great blue heron, one is the Birds of Paradise, one is a trillium and one is lilies. As they require rather different palettes of fabric, I do have to make up my mind soon! I think the four following pictures are the frontrunners right now.

This is one of my favorite pelican pictures from last winter.
This is the first quilt I did with the Bird of Paradise drawing. It was from two pictures I took out in California. I still have the original of one of them so can add more detail. This one is only about 18 inches by 24 and the whole thing is appliqued. I have already cropped the image as well so there is more flowers and less background. I am learning a bit about composition! I have always wanted to do this picture again using the Ruth McDowell piecing techniques as I really prefer piecing. My background will be a lot more interesting also!!


This is my favorite Great Blue Heron picture. I have several other detailed pictures of this bird as well. He came and posed for me quite often.

This is my absolute favorite Pelican picture although I like the background of the other one a bit better.

Our Opening Reception for the Personal Landscapes Show at SUNY-Oswego

What a thrilling night to be able to have one of my pieces be displayed at the wonderful Tyler Gallery at SUNY Oswego as part of a exhibit of quilt art. Pat Pauly did an awesome job of hanging the show and again displayed her genius at design. This was the sign introducing the show as you walked into the gallery. It was very exciting to be a part of it. It will be hard to have my quilts shown hanging on sheets at our local club show! We all commented on that! There is nothing like seeing your pieces displayed as art pieces in a beautiful setting like this!


This was the curator and designer of the show and the accompanying catalog, Pat Pauly, talking with one of the artists (Sally Dutko from Ithaca).
This was a view down the gallery. Marcia DeCamp's piece is first (Jet Trails), then my Yellowstone piece and then a piece representing the Perseus meteor shower.


This is Marcia's husband Bill, Marcia, Pat Faulkner and Nancy Hicks. The quilt right behind them is by one of our RAFA group members (Ren) and was about Oswego where the show was. She teaches geography at one of the local colleges. The women are all members of our quilt art group.


This is Linda Bachman and her husband. Linda's piece is right next to her and you can see Jeanne Beck's piece way in the background.


This was Pat again enjoying herself with Jeanne Simpson and Marcia. Janet Root's piece is in the background.


This is Nancy Murty's magnificent owl which won a prize at Schweinfurth a couple of years ago.
This is Pat Pauly's piece in the show. It is one of my favorites.

This is Nancy Hicks' entry. She was working on this one at the same time I was working on mine!

RAFA Day and One More Spider

Whew, everyone at RAFA today got up and showed their pieces so fast that it was almost impossible to take pictures!! So I have a few blurry pictures to share!


This was Anne Fischer's piece which incorporated photographic images that she manipulated with Photoshop.

This is Donna Patrick's newest jacket from the latest Priscilla class. It incorporates some of Elin Noble's beautiful fabric.
This is Janet Root's jacket from the August Priscilla jacket class.

Again this is the front. Doesn't Janet look terrific!!

She was so excited about the class and the possibilities, she made a second jacket which she brought in to show!



This is Linda Bachman's finished piece from the Rosalie Dace class that RAFA members had this spring.

This was Liz's jacket from the Priscilla Kibbee class.

This is Marcia's latest jet trails which she has trapunto'd. It looked fantastic!


This is one of two pieces Mary Rankin showed. She does such beautiful work!

This was Julie Brandon's Migraine 2 or was it (My Grains - 2).

This was some Notan that Sarah was playing around with. Very nice designs.

I think that this is some kind of banded orb weaver. It doesn't have the fancy web like the Garden spider of the other day. I am having trouble identifying it and another spider that I saw today. It must be the season for them to be getting ready for winter, trapping lots of food!

Purses, Purses and One Spider!

Before reminiscing about today's accomplishments, had to show the cover of a catalog for a show starting this weekend at the Tyler Gallery at SUNY-Oswego!

Pat Pauly curated this show and the opening is this Friday (Sept. 5). The catalog is downright beautiful and I am sure the show will be as well as Pat does an incredible job of design to best show up each piece of art! I feel very honored and priviledged to have been invited to participate. Kudos also go to the Editor and printer for the wonderful job that was done. It is so professionally done and I know Pat was terribly busy with family, colleges and vacations during this time.

Of course, I had to take a picture of my page in the catalog! If you double click, you can see the inspiration of the piece.

Well, it was purses and purses and one spider but spider comes first! Of course, this was in Bill and Marcia's garden but I had the camera that would work the best so I got to post the picture!! They also knew that I would be compelled to find out what kind of spider it is!! So, ta da drum roll please-----It is the common Garden Spider also known as the Black and Yellow Argiope. It is found most often in the late summer, early fall and is known for being very large (1 inch), building its nest while it's head is down (as you can see) and having as it's centerpost the zig zag silk piece which you can also see above. I had thought when I originally saw this that it was something that the spider had found to use in his web but now we know!!

This is the spider from the underside and you can more clearly see the zig zag web!

So this is one of three purses that I cut out and partially sewed together today. As I didn't have the webbing for the handles or the zippers, I had to stop here but they should go quickly together. They are from the pattern called Laura's tote from Creative Thimble. They are the authors of the Professional Tote pattern which I love and have made several of.


This is Priscilla's partially done "orange jacket" which contains very little orange -- well it was SUPPOSED to be an orange jacket. Marcia's "orange jacket" is still pinned neglected on her wall but she has been super busy lately with all the exhibits she is participating in as well as a trunk show she will be giving at Schweinfurth in November! Of course her orange jacket doesn't have any orange in it now -- it is mostly red and black too!
This is Marcia taking a break from the long arm machine and machine quilting on her Janome -- she was already questioning the wisdom of this. I really like this piece but it will be challenging to quilt!