Classes in Sisters & TLP Update

First up, Cityscapes, with Hilde Morin

As soon as permission was granted, I grabbed photos of Hilde's class samples. Of course, phone pictures fall short of the real thing. The sense of scale is lost and details disappear, but I took them anyway! You can see professional photos of Hilde's work on her website.

Malecon, by Hilde Morin
60" x 47"

Anonymous Script, by Hilde Morin
26" x 19"

Everything in Hilde's work is pieced. Piecing overlapped buildings, sky, and ground requires a "big picture" way of thinking. Once you have the big picture in mind, thinking in lines and deconstructing it is the key to piecing it.

In two days, my work did not progress very far. Some people zipped right along, but I spent a fair bit of time selecting fabric and piecing my first buildings.

The beginning of my Japanese cityscape.

Hilde is a generous teacher and makes herself available to her students by email after class. I may have to take her up on that offer. Piecing the curved building into the picture will be a challenge, but...I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

If all else fails, applique to the rescue, but don't tell Hilde! Ha!

Hilde & moi

Class was over too soon!

On to the next...Printmaking, with Sherrill Kahn

This woman is an unlimited wellspring of creative ideas and information! We spent most of the day watching demo-after-demo as techniques flowed along from one to the next.

Sherrill demonstrates some gelli prints

After the first set of demos we were sent off to our workstations. When faced with blank fabric, my mind went blank as well. The choices were overwhelming! What had I just seen???

At that point I realized that I should make notes. Copious, detailed notes! 

It would have helped to refer to Sherrill's book, but my copy was resting comfortably in my suitcase at the motel where I'd forgotten it. Grrr.

So, naturally, I shopped instead of working. 

My new stamps

When I came back I used my new gelli plate and one of my new stamps to start the layering process, adding some stencil work and a wash of (new) Dye-Na-Flow paint. 

Kinda looks like crap, but that sometimes happens during the experimental phase of learning! 

Sherrill was encouraging, praising my use of positive and negative stencils and suggesting the wash to unify the piece. Maybe I'm failing to see its potential?

Even though I didn't produce a whole lot, it was a fun day and my head is still spinning with ideas!

Sherrill & me
Can you believe she's 73???

Only one more class to go, but it can wait. I didn't realize I had so much to say about everything, and this post is already getting long!

Now for The Library Project update!

I love the library project! 

It has pushed me to tackle projects that would otherwise still be on my "some day" list. You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean!

Trying to be reasonable, I chose four projects to work on this year. To see what I chose, click here.

So far I've completed two of the projects, and one of them was the "scariest" one on my list! 

I started "easy", with Scrappy Plus.

To see Scrappy Plus in progress, click here, and here, and here.
To see how to do a flange binding by machine, click here.
To see the finished quilt, click here.

Then I dove head first into the one that scared the pants off me. Piecing Irish Lass was easy, but quilting it...now that was scary!

Quilting in progress

To see more about Irish Lass, click here, and here, and here.
To see the finished quilt, click here.

After my busy time in Sisters, Rayna Gillman's "therapy strips" sound good, so a free-form quilt will be my next Library Project goal.

This one is moderately scary. The strip piecing will be fun and relaxing. Putting the strips together...well, we'll see!

Linking up with:
The Library Project July Report, at Chezzetcook Modern Quilts
Design Wall Monday, at Patchwork Times
Anything Goes Mondays, at Stitch by Stitch
Linky Tuesday, at Freemotion by the River
Fabric Tuesday, at Quilt Story
Let's Bee Social, at Sew Fresh Quilts

Try, Learn, Grow!
Carole

Comments are welcome and will be answered by email where possible. Thanks for looking around!