In love with the APQS George

One month in, it is safe to say that I'm in love with the George.  I've been able to deal with different threads, the height of the table and great lighting means I don't sit in a strange way so my back feels fineeven after a pretty long session, and my husband and son say they don't even hear it when watching tv in the next room.

To get better fast, I'm trying to quilt every day and re-read my books by Diane Gaudynski, Leah Day, et al.  Self-imposed boot camp!  I decided that in addition to making test pieces, I might as well make some actual things.

By value

Somehow it seems intuitive to sort fabric by color, but now that I've been at this longer, I listened to the very good advice of Maria Elkins to sort my fabric in preparation for my next class with Nancy Crow by value.  I'm taking 4 "under the bed" style boxes, so Saturday I sorted by 4 value ranges (very light, medium-light, medium-dark, dark).  As Maria points out, in a box full of lights, it isn't hard to spot a particular color.

This didn't take very long because I had a cardboard value finder.  I may go back later and set my camera to black-and-white mode in order to spot some of the borderline cases so that I can refine my sort.

I'm taking a photography for textiles class soon and this photo is a good reason why.  My darks came out looking like medium darks (on the left) and they really are much deeper colors than that.  This flash photo really bleached the darks out considerably.  I'm looking forward to getting better at this!

Does this count as 15 seconds of fame?

As part of the local  AQS show promotion, a past president of our West Michigan Quilter's Guild was on the TV news this morning and my Wombat Dreaming quilt can be seen peaking out of the bottom right corner (the black one with the brown circle).  Fun!  I don't recommend sitting on art quilts, but sometimes you make exceptions!

Arcus for AQS Grand Rapids

"CONGRATULATIONS! The jury has accepted your quilt, see attached, for further
consideration in the 2014 AQS QuiltWeek® Contest in Grand Rapids, Michigan" begins the email I received today.  

It is great to be able to be in your AQS show in the area you live.  For one thing, you get to go-- and they put a little ribbon indicating your participation on your name bade and then all the vendors are extra lovely to you.  It is a bit like having a "please congratulate me" sign on :) 

The quilt is called Arcus and is machine pieced.  No applique or fusing is involved in the construction of the arcs which I free-cut.  In other words, you "have at" a yard of fabric with the rotary cutter--which takes some getting used to.  This one is machine quilted primarily in long arcing lines, but also some busier patterns inside the black  and brown sections.

Wonderful Time at the Macomb County Quilt Guild

Hats off to the members of the Macomb County Quilt Guild near Detroit, Michigan!

 I was delighted to be the lecture-and-trunk-show guest last night at this vibrant guild.  The officers and general members provided a warm welcome and were a great audience for my first ever guild talk.  We had a lot of laughs and I was lucky enough to be at the meeting just after their bi-annual show--so I got to see some of the winning quilts during Show and Tell.

The black and white image above is tipped over (the left side is actually the bottom).  That technical difficulty aside, these two works have been accepted for display at Fiber 577 in Perrysburg, OH June 7 - 8, 2014.

The top image is a 40cm x 100cm quilt called Aubergine & Avocado Salad for Charles Rennie MacIntosh.  The second is 24 inches x 56 inches and is called Midnight at Reeds Lake.  Both are my original designs.

Just entered quilts so now on to the next thing

Today I entered two quilts to be considered in an curated traveling exhibition.  That means I worked rather intensively on those two for some time and then worked to get the photos right for a couple days.  A make-shift photo studio in our sunroom worked out much better than trying to take the photos in my small studio.  I also treated myself to a new camera that has a better lens-- truly enjoyable to use.

Now is the real test.  That is, not to spend the next two weeks in a state of "phew!" but instead to get a large project back up on the design wall and progressing after a couple months' hiatus.  I've been reading Lisa Call's list of goals and she'll shame you right into a better work ethic.  I stop into her blog from time to time for just that sort of kick.