I made it to the Pamela Allen class at EBHQ.
This is all the stuff I took to class, except my sewing machine is not in the picture. (above). The pieces you see are pieces that I made in a previous class with her at Quilting Adventures.
Pamela’s work (below)
Tooth Fairy
Tooth Fairy (detail)
more Tooth Fairy detail
This is what it looks like when I work in a class. (above) What a mess!
My background for the House & Garden quilt. I really can’t help starting new projects in her class.
First draft
Pamela working on my piece
Lots of flowers and flying dots.
Not so many flowers and flying dots.
Not so many flowers and no flying dots.
Final composition. I like it, but I have to admit that I had a very hard time working with the darker colors (the black around the flowers and the blue/black checkerboard. All I could think of was that I wasn’t used to it. I haven’t been using much black lately and, as you know, have been trying to make cheerful quilts. This quilt-let seems a little dark to me.
Julie’s piece. I love the line up the left hand side.
Group Sampler project. We had 15 minutes to make our part of this piece.
Julie’s two fish. Can you find the second one?
My fish – with dots, of course!
I am tired and about to sign off, but I thought I would put up some photos for all of you to drool over while I go recover from a FAB day. More tomorrow.
As promised, I made the hand today – mostly. Here is a progression of pictures.
Back of first side:
I did the drawing of my hand before I thought of the wrist. Something caught my eye and made me think of the glove edging, so I added it after I had already cut the Tear-Away stabilizer.
Pieced first side ready for applique’.
When I saw the challenge, I could only think of Hearts in Hands.
Preparing the second side. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but sort of figured it out as I went along.
I decided to put a spiral on the back. It seems to be a powerful sign for me. This side is evolving into the front. I used some glue to keep the spiral down and flat before stitching.
Both pieces ready for quilting.
First bit of quilting. I had to rip it out, because the Libby magic has worn off and the tension was terrible. I wanted to use Glitter, but couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did. I did not have a 90/14 topstitch needle, which is what Libby recommends, so that may have been the problem.
Quilted and ready for binding. I plan to do a blue satin stitch around the edge tomorrow. I hope I can.
I bought a slim volume from the Gualala Arts Center (707-884-1138) containing quilts from the Penny Nii collection. Sue Friedland wrote: “Title: 4 x 4 x 12 BY 3 X 3 X 9 The 4 x 4 x 12 refers to a collection of art quilts commissioned in the 1990s, from leading international artquilters, by Penny Nii of San Francisco. The twelve 48 inch square artquilts, by such luminaries as Michael James, Judith Larzelere, Libby Lehman, Theresa May and our own Sue Friedland, have never before being exhibited publicly. With them will be nine 36 inch square quilts by local artquilters — Mary Austin, Annie Beckett, Suzan Friedland, Kathye Hitt, Iris Lorenz-Fife, Janet Sears, Carol Tackett, Bonnie Toy, and yourself…”
I had a hard time actually getting a hold of someone at the arts center who would sell it to me, but eventually I received my copy. The quilts are great. Star by Leslie Gabrielse is interesting because of the incorporation of classical elements into this art quilts. Jane Sassaman’s Brocade in in her style, but looks very similar to a row quilt.
It is worth getting a copy of this little catalog. I hope it has success so that other quilt exhibits will be encouraged to print catalogs.
I am shocked that it has been a month since I have posted anything. No sewing has taken place except some beading that I did on Kissy Fish. I worked on it in the car as we drove, but the beading doesn’t show up very well in this photo. Here is a detail, but it is also difficult to see the beading and embroidery. I am off to a quilt show in Seattle this weekend and will hopefully have a cleaner (more sewing machine friendly!) house and lots of inspiration when I return.
Pamelala is Pamela Allen, an artist who has come into her own in recent years using fabric and through quilts. Pamela came from a painting and assemblage/mixed media background. Her background includes classes that many quiltmakers never take: college level design classes. She brought this background and shared it with students at Quilting Adventures on Staples Mill Road in Richmond Virginia.
If you haven’t been to Quilting Adventures, make the trek. Joyce and her team have done a fantastic job selecting fabrics that speak to those of us who don’t do reproductions, small calicos or brown. You won’t see these varieties of fabrics at Quilting Adventures. If repros and brown are what you are looking for, Joyce and her staff will cheerfully direct you to other stores in the area that have the fabrics you need. There are lots of bright fabrics as well as many, many tone-on-tones. I could have bought the entire store. I did my best.;-) In addition to fabrics, Joyce also carries a nice selection of fabric alteration supplies: dyes, paints, fabric crayons. She carries the supplies, but also has samples of what happens to the fabric when you use the various supplies.
I took two classes from Pamela. The first, a fabric portrait class, was an exercise in negative space. The portrait I made is NOT a self portrait. We were given the assignment of working with the negative space first and later filling in the details. It was interesting to think about the fabric of the negative space defining the portrait. I have a hard time seeing the negative space, but I got some practice in during this class. I was able to use the Glitter thread from Superior on Joyce’s Babylock machine to appliquilt the pieces down. I have to figure out the hair (if any), the mouth and the nose (OH GOODNESS!!!). Pamela has a gentle manner in directing her students without being a doormat. She also has firm boundaries, which I appreciate and takes care of herself. I probably could have spent a week with her working on this piece. Of course, I didn’t finish, but am well on my way.
Self Portrait, in process
The second class was a class on composition. My piece is a garden and was limited by the distance I had to travel and the supplies I was able to bring. It also helps to remember to bring your supplies. 😉 Mrs. Kristen, a fellow Mavette, was quite generous in sharing her stash with me, so I was able to make a small piece.
Jaye’s Garden
First we assembled the background and then we laid our design on top of it. I used some of the leftover circles from the bullseye quilts and created a garden. This piece lends itself to hand stitching and I hope to be able to do some and complete this piece. During this time when the machine is better left under plastic, the timing is perfect. I’ll try to get to it. The piece is on its way to completion, but also not completed.
I would recommend classes with Pamela. She is a teacher who forces her students to think, is diplomatic about student work and gives the class the opportunity to work in a positive critique situation. She is an artist and also a teacher, not an artist who thinks s/he can teach. You can find more of Pamela’s work at her website.
I spent the day in a class at Quilting Adventures in Richmond, VA with quilt artist, Pamela Allen. Pamela is from Canada and you can see much of her work at her website.
If you haven’t been to Quilting Adventures, drop what you are doing and go. The shop is great: bright colors, fabulous samples of dolls, quilts and what paints and dyes look like on fabric as well as examples of what you can do with them. Joyce and her team have done an outstanding job with the shop. They are not all things to all quiltmakers, but I think everyone could find something there!
In the class, the topic was Mavericky portraits. Mine is not a self portrait, and is clearly not complete. I took the above photo before I started to quilt it. I “appli-quilted”, which is to say I appliqued the pieces down as I quilted them.
It was a rocky road to quilting as I wanted to use the Glitter thread, but had used very fat batting. I took my initial attempts at stitching out after several frustrating thread breaks. Joyce, the owner of QA, calmly and ably assisted me and replaced the batting with thinner batting and the quilting went much more smoothly. I was able to finish all I wanted to on one machine.
People may be afraid of Glitter, but it is wonderful thread. It gives the sparkle of metallic threads without the headaches. I have tried it, now, on three different machines with minimal issues. It does not like the fat batts, though.
I still want to do some work embellishing, the silk flowers especially need centers of some kind. I also need some kind of hair, but perhaps I will leave her hairless. She is very much still in progress and her personality is not developed, so we will see what comes next.
