Walking in Memphis

By the time you read this, I'll be in Memphis TN for the comic book industry job I have. Be there through Sunday. Missing my brother's birthday and my sister's candle party...

My back is not fully recovered so no sewing has happened in the studio. Lots of reading and crocheting, but little sewing. The ideas are building up, and the big IQA show in Chicago is looming with all kinds of ideas and classes to take and money to spend there...

I am teaching my Fiber Art Divas group how to make the Yo Yo Flowers (sorry for those of you still waiting on the pattern). I'll let you know how it goes. This is just coming off of teaching it as a half hour demo at the Riverwalk Quilt Guild's Gathering show.

I have a project to take with me on the plane, but we'll see how much gets done. I may just nap instead.

In the meantime, I submitted one of my sad February quilts for a "ghost for a ghost" project over on Astulabee's Blog and Flickr page. Go check it out!

International Quilt Festival- Chicago 2009

I'm super excited about going to the big IQF show in Chicago this year! I usually take all the days off of work, plan out every minutia of my time there. I take lots and lots and LOTS of classes, at least one class every day of the show. I also spend inordinate amounts of money, usually bringing several hundred dollars of my saved "allowance" of our household budget. I may have friends coming to stay with me who plan to attend the show this year, and my quilt friends locally are all taking classes too.

But... (and you knew something was coming, right?)

I got the show catalog this year, and wow... what a downer. The classes are just not that exciting. I was hoping for a repeat of some of the classes I didn't take last year, no such luck. The dyeing classes, gone. The foiling and tyvek classes, gone. There is ONE class listing for Sunday, and it's one of the "samplers" in which you get to sample a demo from about 10-15 teachers. In fact, I have the Houston 2008 catalog on my desk, and putting the Chicago catalog next to it... it's downright anorexic.

Is this the state of the quilt show in Chicago? Were there not enough people last year? Every class I took was very full. I don't get it. I'm so disappointed that I didn't even fill out my class form online until this week, and I checked the Quilts.com website EVERY DAY until the class list was posted.

What will the show floor look like? Will it also be similarly reduced? Is it the economy?

I did eventually sign up for the Thermofax class and the Embellish it sampler class, but I really didn't have the same giddy feeling I did last year. I'm still looking forward to the show, and buying new supplies, and seeing the lovely quilts.

What I did on my Winter Break...

Picture heavy!

Our tree, with my gifts under it.

Bastet, doing what I did on vacation, lounging around.
One of my Art Quilt Workbook exercises, finally done.
The project from the workshop presented by Rosalie Dace, called "Close Up". This is some bacteria magnified a bazillion times.
My version of "close up" was Pomegranate seeds.
And the Cloth, Paper, Scissors article on making these snowmen was just too cute to pass up. The bottles are small plastic shampoo bottles from all of the hotels I went to and used up this year. I pulled these bottles out of the trash thinking they would be good for beads or pins, and found a better use for them. I recycled!

More to come! Lots of cool stuff coming up!

Online Art Studying

I am extremely fortunate to be in Judy Coates Perez's new online Color Theory class. I won't show you the whole exercise so as to preserve what I paid for and to not give Judy's work away, but I am having a buch of fun learning. It's my first online art class.
I am also in a group studying the chapters from the Art Quilt Workbook by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston. I finished my chapter 1 exercises a bit late, but they will have to do.

The Bounty - Show and Tell

I saved for quite a while to take a goodly sum to IQA Chicago, knowing it was the place to find odd tools and such. Here's a look at everything I bought.
I made several trips to the Cherrywood Fabric booth, and spent over $30 each time.

A pattern I coveted from last year's show(!), a jelly roll for a couple of baby quilts I am making, and two fat quarters of dupioni silk from Vogue fabrics.

18 inch batting samples from Hobbs. These were $8 a bundle, and there's 2 different bundles here.

Only at a show like this can you find tools you can't find in stores. These Clover pompom makers and needlefelting molds are exactly that.

Lakehouse fabrics bought at the Tammy Tadd booth. There's about $90 worth of fabric here.
I plan to try some dyeing this summer, so I bought a gradation kit from Pro Chemical and Dye.

Two orphan blocks of embroidery that I bought for $5 a piece. I love the idea of rescuing these poor things. The Kewpie doll is really ugly, and I had to have it!

Another place I can drop some serious money is at the Quilting Arts booth. I bought some cool embellishing kits, and the first season o fthe Quilting Arts program on DVD. The little hearts are from an antique quilt booth, made of a cut up quilt with hand piecing and quilting on them. Not sure what I will use those hearts for, but they were 50 cents each.

Booths selling wool were everywhere. And while i am not looking to get into making quilts or projects with wool, I do have a DVD bu Jane LaFazio who does a little wool applique piece I would like to try. So with access to great hand dyed wools at the show, I indulged a bit. There's $20 worth of wool here.

Lastly, a bit about being Teacher's Pet. In my experience, I have gotten a "gift" from each teacher I was the Pet for. Now, I will say, that I NEVER expect this, and it's a wonderful thing that they do, but I must say that I also EARN my rewards. As Teacher's Pet, you are not paid, and you also paid for your enrollment to the class, so the job should not be so overwhelming that you do not get to enjoy it. You get a pin to collect as your reward, but this is something extra that teachers may do. I always get there very early, ask the teacher throughout the class if they need anything, and also help them pack and clean up IN ADDITION to the duties given by the show organizers. These kits were my reward for the classes I took.

That's it (I know... this is a lot of stuff, but Chicago only comes once a year)! I hope to post some pictures eventually of the stuff I made out of these supplies!

Tsukineko Inks Workshop

Yesterday, I took a class on Tsukineko Inks taught by Judy Coates Perez. She is a great teacher, and I enjoyed the class very much. It was held at the College of DuPage campus in their arts center, which was a great space to take a class. This was the ink project I worked on during class. I love how it turned out, even though I did not have very many colors of ink. Guess I have something to spend more money on. Judy was so nice, and her work is utterly amazing. I wish I had one smidge of talent as she has for artwork. Her samples were cool, and I don't know why I was suprised that her works are wholecloth. Duh! Her daughter, Nina, was there, and she's got amazing talent too!

As I made this pomegranate, I thought back to my ideas from December, when I bought a pomegranate for a series of quilts. That made the decision on February's theme for my weekly quilts pretty easy. I changed my mind from "heart" or "recycled" to "pomegranates" pretty quickly! I have 2 ideas for the weeklies, and I am sure I can come up with one more. I also wondered how I would outline, as the inks have the tendency to run a little bit, since they are not "paints". When I got it home, it was obvious to outline the project with black thread. It was still cool unlined, so I took pictures of it beforehand.

Can I name-drop for a second? Also in my class were Laura Wasilowski and Frieda Anderson, and I am sure there were other professionals in the class, but I didn't realize... It was pretty cool. One day maybe I can quilt full time, but for now, the role I have in the comic book industry is a pretty neat job to have.