Brenda's NYC Blog

     

In case any of you are interested,

I am blogging our New York City trip at

www.kings2013newyorkcity.blogspot.ca

I have the first entry up and running.

-Brenda

Jaynie's Class: Learning from a Creative Teacher

On Saturday some of us met at Q.E. to learn about creating cording

which can be used to create art pieces.
We laid out our supplies.

Jaynie got her teaching area ready and included some of her recent art pieces which use this technique.

Thankfully she included her first attempt at this technique so that we

weren't too intimidated.

We checked what the finished cording should look like.

 After seeing her demonstration, we were all sure we could do it.

Let's get going!

I was glad Vera brought these neat pieces which she did in a modified version of what we were doing in class.  I love the one in the forefront

as it looks like a hobbit could pop out from behind the fuschia tree.

I also love that Vera incorporated chocolate wrappers into the work; now I can justify eating chocolate as an artistic necessity!



So who was there?  Well, Jan was there swearing at her machine.

 Erin was there not realizing her teacher was checking up on her.

 Vera was there with her numerous supplies.

Colleen was there sporting her Florida tan.

 Shelley was there using some supplies left over from her teaching days.

Wendy was there with her seriously wonderful nubbly yarns.

And I was there channeling inspiration from the view outside.

 I skipped out in the afternoon because I wanted to hang out with a fellow who has a big place in my heart.  Nope, not Bob!  Nathan!

I hope Jaynie doesn't expel me from her next class just because I skipped.

I hope those of you taking the New York Beauties class get as much out

 of it as we did out of this one.

Thanks, Jaynie. 

 

 



Tempting Me Away from My UFO

I have one more big UFO to finish for our challenge and I've been procrastinating for a very good reason.  The center of it is four pieces of a circus panel .... sounds simple, right?  Let me say this about panels: 

&*&$#(@!*%.
 Yes, ladies, that is me swearing, something I rarely do.  The four parts of the panel aren't equal.  Two are each an inch shorter than the other two.  I've been solving it by adding sashing to them which will be uneven amounts.  Then I have to do the dreaded math to put my broken dishes blocks around them. 

 

So I've been piecing the top from Jill's scrappy class.  It's going to help me do the dreaded circus UFO eventually because it's a pattern where I've started in the center and am working outwards too.  I don't think I've done a quilt like this before and it's working out just fine.

 Jill suggested pressing seams open so that's what I'm doing.  It's a little more time consuming than pressing them both one direction but it helps with the bulk at intersections.

I will be blogging our NYC trip if you want to follow along, but I haven't set it up yet so will give Jill the address and she can pass it on to you. 

Happy Easter!

 

National Quilting Day ... Bah, Humbug!

National Quilting Day - today, March 16th, is really the American Quilting Day so it has nothing to do with us, right?  And hasn't it just been created by quilt shops as a money grab??  We should ignore it and move on to other crafts, shouldn't we???

So I decided to paint an unfinished birdhouse today instead of leaping into my stash of incredible humdrum fabrics.

I had you wound up there, didn't I?  Even painting my birdhouse had something to do with quilting.  See the roof.  I bought this last summer

at a flea market in Kalispell, Montana from this

amazing old dude for a whopping $10.

Vera was teaching an applique class over at Queen E so I stopped in to see how it was going.  I did a double-take in the parking lot.  Just how popular was Vera's class?  The parking lot was crammed, so much so that I figured some wouldn't be leaving until midnight as cars were triple parked.  The full lot was actually because of a dance competition at the Comp. 

Vera's students were enthralled by her demonstration. 

 It kept them both serious ...

... and happy.

Here's Audrey...

... and Esther ...

... and Barb H. ...

... and Joanne who is always hidden in the corner ...

... and Eileen ...

... Jaynie, too ...

... and Leona who brought show-and-tell.

This one is Leona's too and I should have taken a close up so you could see Overall Sam's toys.  Leona needs to put this in our 2014 show

 so that you can see it there.

And, truthfully, what stitching did I do today?  Well, at Jill's class last week I took a photo of my layout for the center of my Carpenter's Wheel. 

 It didn't look very good so I played around with it

and then started building the wheel.

  As I set out the pieces at home, I took photos on my iPhone so that I could refer back to them to make sure I wasn't making any errors in the pattern.  I didn't plan to do any ripping on National Quilting Day, did I?  I find that it's way easier to spot an error in a picture than by looking at the actual pieces.

 I hope you had time for quilting today too.



Call the Lumberyard! We're Stitching Carpenters' Wheels

On Saturday, March 9th, our scrappy (scrappy as is fabrics, not scrappy as in confrontational) teacher Jill presented Year 2 of scrappy quilts.  After two years, it's an annual event, isn't it, Jill?  After all no one said, "oh, yes, I am out of scraps" did they?

We sewed a bit...

... cut and pressed a bit ....

 ... colored and planned ...

... stitch ripped ...

 ... and stitch ripped some more ...

... got advice ...

... compared fabrics ...

... laughed a lot...

... got organized ...

... and saw our projects emerging.

I wish I could take the next two classes (Vera's applique and the New York Beauty one), partly for the knowledge gained but mainly for the quilting camaraderie.  I can take Jaynie's, thank heavens.  Don't miss the chance

 to take Crocus classes, ladies.  They are terrific days.