Linda M Poole comes to Pelham Quilters - January 2014

The Pelham Quilters may be living through the coldest temperatures we have seen in almost a decade, but we had fun learning some new quilting techniques over the last 2 days.  That's right Linda M. Poole, a fiber artist extraordinaire came to visit from Milford, Pa.  

On Sunday, she taught her workshop, Color Me Beautiful, from her latest book, Painted Appliqué.  The ladies had a ball, learning to use Inktense pencils and paint mediums. Here are a few pictures of us during the day.  The first is a picture of the sample piece we worked on in class.

 

Linda also taught us how to make the perfect oval and fusable bias strips, so we can appliqué our painted butterfly on the background.  Her class handouts are great, it is as if you are given a full pattern with step by step color pictures, taking you through the entire process to make her Color Me Beautiful wallhanging.  

Then on Monday night Linda came and gave us a lecture - Quilts Around the World.  Linda shared quilts by makers influenced by their travels around the world and the various ways we as quilters are inspired to create.  A good time was had by all.  Here are some of the quilts she shared as part of the Trunk Show she shared after the lecture and presentation.  

Lisa Shepherd Batik Tote Workshop with the Pelham Quilters

The Pelham Quilters were very fortunate to have Lisa Shepherd of Cultured Expressions and her wonderful batik fabrics from Ghana come and join us for a Tote bag workshop.  I love working with her fabrics, because they are all one of a kind.

The ladies had a wonderful time and we all were able to finish our bags at the workshop.

Here I am with my bag all finished except for the embellishments.

Here are Cheryl, Millie and Donna with their bags.

I will have to add the picture of the entire group later.  These were pics from my cell phone taken the day of the workshop.  The next day, I took a picture of the group with their bags at guild meeting, but it is on my camera which I don't have at this time :-).

Lola Jenkins comes to Pelham Quilters!

As a TQS (The Quilt Show by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims) Star Member, I get to watch all the available shows.  To be honest I watch some and not others, all depending on how interesting the subject 'sounds', or if I know the featured quilter.  Well, when I saw the intro for the show featuring Lola Jenkins, I almost didn't watch it.  In fact, I think the show had been available for a couple of months before I did.  Boy,  was I glad I did!

First, Lola was a very entertaining guest on the show.  She is energetic and bubbly, with this interesting voice. Yes, interesting is the only way I know how to describe it :-).  But what really got me was her personal story, how she came to quilting and how she tackled each step along her journey.  It is a very moving story!!  Please watch if you can.

But what got me to reach out to her, was when she said she had a goal of visiting every guild in the country.  So I emailed her and asked if she wanted to visit our small, casual guild in Pelham, NY.  She responded immediately, saying she would LOVE to come and that she was presently scheduled to be in NY in September, 2012.  So we booked her, and boy was that a smart move.

Yesterday, Lola taught her Fantasy Landscape workshop to the Pelham Quilters, or at least 9 of us and 3 guests.  We had a ball.  Lola shared her secrets of looking at fabrics with an eye for the scene we have in our minds, vs what fabric as a whole.  She shared the 1/3's principle of design and guided us to our own, COMPLETED, top of the day.

That is right, everyone in the class completed a landscape top and earlier than we had expected!

Let me share with you some pictures from the day....

First, pictures of the quilts she brought with her as inspiration...

This first piece is from Lola's online Art Deco class.  She uses it as a sample for the class.  It is a whole cloth style quilt, with black thread as the basis of the design and then the fabric is "colored" in with colored pencils and other coloring aids.


Each of the following pieces are done using Lola's collage approach.  I tell you, I will never look at fabric the same again!

It is amazing to see what can be done by clipping pieces of fabric from many different pieces of material and pasting it down!













Here are some of the pieces that were completed in this one day workshop...

Barbara and her Apollo Jazz scene.  To you recognize her sky from one of Lola's quilts.  Funny they had a lot of the same fabrics!

Cheryl's piece with her fire sky...




















Donna's, City meets Africa cityscape...  As always Donna listened to the instructions and thought out of the box.  This was supposed to be a 'fantasy' landscape.  I think she captured the essence of "fantasy".

Doris, one of the doll ladies joined us and did a serene, calming landscape...

 Doris Green and her gorgeous water scene. I love the boys running by the river bank.  Sorry Doris, it is prettier than you think....


















Dorothy's inspiration fabric had these gorgeous fall tree's...



















Jacqueline another of our guest for the day, did a wonderful desert scene...



















I love Lorraine's New England scene with a lighthouse and sail boats...



















Here I am with my second Sister Chat piece or as I will call it, Sister Chat II !


















And a former member of Pelham Quilters, Gwyn, a doll maker and Doris's sister as she adds the last rock surrounding the river.

 Now, the queen of landscape collage, Ms. Sandra herself. Her birds are lovely as usual.  Sandra and Donna would ruin the class curve if this was a real art class :-). 

I love June's farm scene.  It looks like a little bit of Tuscany. 

It was a wonderful day, with a wonderfully group of talented women.

A special THANKS to Lola for traveling all the way from Oklahoma City in her PT Cruiser, with her sister Darlene as her co-pilot!

More from Quilting By the Lake 2012

Well you saw what I worked on while in Syracuse two weeks ago in my last post.  But I thought you would like to see what some of the others in my studio class worked on.

I arrived on Wednesday for the 3 day studio with Philippa Naylor.  But the QBL old-timers knew better.  They were there for the 2 day studio and 16 of them stayed in the class to make it 5 days with Philippa Naylor.  What a treat.  Wish I had thought of that! 

But anyway...  this is what greeted me as I walked in the room.  I knew I was in the right place :-)..

Well actually, I didn't get a picture of this when I arrived, but this is where she was at the end of the week.   Diane designed this quilt using PhotoShop Elements and then enlarged the pattern.  This is a quarter of the total quilt.  It is going to be phenomenal when finished.  I hope she sends me a picture :-).  Oh and no, that is not the title of the quilt above it.  Apparently Diane always takes Philippa Naylor's studio classes at QBL and that is something Philippa wrote for Diane 2 years ago.  Sorry to say it, but the consensus was she wears the title well :-).   Funny note, Diane and I decided we were sisters separated at birth.  Our fabric choices for the week were practically identical...  In fact, we ended up swapping fabric while we were there.  She didn't feel she had the right orange and so I offered her a piece from my stash.  Well wouldn't you know it, it was the same Carol Bryer Fallert gradation fabric that she used for the purple!  Of course, I got a wonderful new hand dyed from Diane :-).  Yummy!!

Sitting next to Diane, was Ellen.  Ellen had many pieces going on over the 5 days and one was just better than the other.  No over analysis here.  Ellen was done with this piece when we arrived. 




As you can see, she has another rolled up in the corner behind her.  That was piece made from a Jelly Roll, using the Jelly Roll Race pattern.  I didn't get a picture of it unrolled, but it will be the background fabric for a silhouette style applique.  I like that idea.  Will have to try it for one of my appliques.  Thanks Diane :-). 

This was the piece Diane worked on while we were there.  Oh my,  you have to love how she used that hand dyed background.   Those birches just come alive off of the fabric.  It really looks like you are in the woods at sunset.

The birch trees were made as an applique unit.  She did some thread sketching on the tress before adding them to the background. 

Delicious wouldn't you say!  Can't wait to see how she quilts this one.

Now my friend Donna Chambers and I went to QBL together.  Donna has been toying over the idea of making a quilt in honor of her grandparents who helped start a local church.  They donated a stained glass window when the church was built and translating that into a quilt has been a dream of Donna's.  Well, she used the creative energy in the room to kick-start this dream.  Like me, she arrived armed to tackle a couple of different projects.  But I am so happy she decided on this one.

Donna a goldsmith by trade, is not use to working in such muted colors.  At first she wasn't pleased with the way the inner glass was coming along.  Well, I can tell you, she added a piece of her signature rust metallic fabric around the inner glass and the piece was instantly transformed.  Whoa...  then adding the purple bottom and she knew it would be another winner.  Here she is adding the applique flowers to the center glass.  The bottom will have a photo of her grandparents.  As you can see there is another panel pattern to the right of this first panel.  That will be the stained glass that was donated by her grandparents best friends.  But I think she made a wonderful start in the three days!




As part of QBL the teachers make aprons to be auctioned off on the last night of each session for QBL scholarships.  Well I told you in my last post that Philippa had such a great wit and personality.  Here she is introducing her apron models.  Oh yes, I said models, not model.  As always Philippa outdid herself.  She made 3 aprons for the auction and they were modeled by her husband and two sons :-).

The QBL Dancers:  

 
She even made them bow ties in honor of the the Chippendale Dancers.  Of course, her aprons took the highest bid of the night!  Way to go Philippa!!

So that was my first QBL experience.  It was wonderful.  So wonderful I have already signed up for next year.  What am I taking you might ask?  A 5 day class with Hollis Chatelain!!  WooHooo.....

Until next year QBL.....

Cheers!!

Quilting by the Lake - 2012

So I finally made it to Quilting By the Lake!  I have been wanting to go for the last 5 or 6 years, but neither time or money seemed to work in my favor.  Well this year the stars aligned and I got 2 friends from my art quilters mini group to go with me.  Thank You Donna Chambers and Sandra Parrott!!

Together we attended Session II and took Philippa Naylor's Studio Workshop.  We were closed out of both of her classes for session 1, so a word to the wise....  if you see a class given by Philippa in your area, jump on it quickly!!

Well, I couldn't have been happier. First, Philippa is a wonderful person and an equally wonderful teacher.  She has such a sunny personality and such quick wit.  But boy, can she work a room.  Her teaching style allowed her to address everyone's questions in a timely manner, while still leaving enough time for you to progress your projects and for her to give numerous demos on things the students requested or topics she thought were appropriate for the class.  What a great style.  This is definitely NOT an independent studio!!  Especially since the projects we worked on were so varied in nature.  Folks took advantage of the fact that Philippa started in the fashion design business.  So while many of us worked on quilts, others worked on pants, jackets, dresses and such.

My goal for the 3 day studio workshop was to learn how to transform my sketches into full size patterns and then turn the pattern into a quilt.  Well, my mission was accomplished.  We started by looking over photos of my quilts, so she could get a feel for my style.  Then we looked over some of my sketches.  We discussed the various techniques she would use to make each of the quilts I had sketched and decided on one that would give me the opportunity to learn a technique I had not used before.

This is the original sketch @ 12" x 18".  Sorry it is a little light, but the pencil lines aren't showing up very well.  I just wanted to give you a clue of what I walked in to the workshop with :-).....

This is the quilt in progress on the design board @ 40" x 60"  (I tried taking a picture of the full size pattern, before I started placing fabric, but that was even lighter than my sketch in the picture :-(.

This is a picture of the center partially completed, without the applique or side 4" panels :

And here is a picture of Philippa and I in front of the quilt as we wound up the 3 days : 





Unfortunately, I have deadlines on other pieces that I need to meet before I can pick this quilt back up.  But, I am anxious to get back to it.  I have side borders that need to be added to complete the top.  We discussed how it will be quilted, including trapunto and embellishments.  Oh yes and hopefully with the tips I learned from Philippa, I won't cut through my quilt top when cutting away the batting around the trapunto.  But guess what ....  yep, she taught me a trick for that too!!!




I'll share photos of some of the other pieces folks worked on later in the week.  Including the gorgeous piece Donna is working on.
  WooHoo!!

Until next time, Cheers :-) !!

CQ Retreat Fall 2011

Well, it has been a busy month and I had a lot going on, so I guess I am going to have to start posting more regularly again :-)....  I finished the clown quilt that I started during Hurricane Irene, I have finished a top I started over a year ago at Mary Anne Ciccotelli's 3D workshop and I am almost finished quilting a piece I started at this falls retreat....  but I will share all of those in separate posts, hopefully within the next week :-).

Today's post is about the CQ Fall 2011 Retreat two weeks ago at Interlaken Inn, in Lakeville, Ct.  As always we had a ball, just laughing, eating and quilting away!  A little smaller group this year than normal, only 48 of us, but still a wonderful time was had by all.  Somehow I forgot to take pictures of quilts in progress until Sunday, so sorry if I missed sharing some of the masterpieces of the weekend.

This is Claire Oehler on the left, the former owner of the Country Quilter, our hostess and her daughter, Jane Davila on the right...  both all smiles for the camera.

Here is Nancy Mirman, another of our hostesses for the weekend.  She is very talented and has her own pattern line for quilted clothing, bags and accessories.  Nancy is working on a paper pieced star from the new book she and Claire have just released!  Those of us at retreat were fortunate to be able to order a copy and they will be signed by both Claire and Nancy...  WooHoo!!!






Somehow I missed getting a picture of Noreen Lipolis, another one of our hostesses busy quilting, but I did get a shot of her from our Saturday night, Red Carpet themed dinner...

Noreen, is in black on the left.  Sorry Noreen for not getting a better shot.  But thanks to all 3 of you for a wonderful weekend!!  P.S...  no I don't dress up for theme nights..  so I played the roll of Paparazzi and took photos :-)....





And here is Donna Chambers working on her one of her mosaic pieces....

Donna, a goldsmith by trade, is so talented and has her own jewelry line.  Check out her jewelry website for a little quilting inspiration :-) 
This is Donna's mosaic technique.  She will be teaching it to some lucky quilters at The Storytellers Retreat coming up this weekend and at Hartsdale Fabrics this winter in December and January.  Her workshop filled up so fast at Storytellers that I am going to be her assistant.  This shall be fun, can't wait until Friday :-).

Gay sat next to Donna in the Patio room (we love the sunlight and view of the garden during the day).  Gay is part of the gang from The Pelham Quilters guild I belong to.  A bunch of us (Donna, Lorraine, Margaret, Jeanne, Evelyn and I) have been coming to retreat for years.  We even sit in the same seats.

   
Gay worked completely by hand this weekend.  She does stunning hand applique and hand quilting.  We were all so jealous when it was time to pack up.  No machine, etc... to load up!









Here is Lorraine busy at work...

Lorraine was working on Christmas presents for her grandchildren this year. Sitting next to her is Margaret.  Margaret always finds such lovely panels to incorporate into her work.  This year she was working on a Dahlia piece for her sister.

Remember, in my last post I mentioned I had won 2nd place in the Art Quilts category at the ViewArts Show in Old Forge, NY.  Well Marie won 1st place in the Wallhanging category and her lovely piece was used as the cover image for the Exhibit's Program.  Way to go Marie!!  Marie always works on very complicated paper piecing patterns.  Here she is taking the easy way out, doing a 'simple' cat paper piecing pattern....  lol.

On the design wall behind Marie is Ashley's circle quilt, seen here..

Ashley is my long time buddy and retreat roomie.  Can't believe I didn't get a picture of Ashley, but her gorgeous colors will have to represent her :-).

I also didn't get pictures this time of Jeanne or her Mom, Evelyn.  Guess I was so focused on quilting this weekend that my picture taking duties seem to have taken a back seat.  Sorry Jeanne and Evelyn.  I will remember to include you in April for our Spring 2012 retreat!

Well, now let's go next door into the room where we always here the most laughter coming from.  On the design wall right outside our door was Dory Higgin's house piece, made from all striped fabrics.

Actually, Dory sits in our room, but the design walls were all busy when she went to lay out the piece so she slipped next door.

Also in the room next door is Jane Davila.  If you are a quilter you know Jane's name.  She is the a well known quilter, teacher, speaker and author.  She teaches across the globe, has a great quilt pattern line and has written a number of "Sew Simple" quilt pattern books.  Not sure how she will use this pattern, but I believe it is being created using a Jelly Roll....








Barbara comes every year and works on very interesting patterns.  This year, she is turning a photo into a stunning floral piece...

 You can see her pattern on the table in front of her in the first picture.  It is an enlarged version of the photo in the bottom left hand corner of the picture below.  I can't wait to see what it looks like in the spring, at our next retreat!

Here is Jenny intent on laying out a nice blue and white top...  

I believe those are called tumbling blocks.  There was another quilter working on a tumbling block pattern, but I didn't catch a photo of it.



Just like I don't remember whose top this is, I just loved the daisy fabric.  I think it is one of those BQ block patterns...

Love the polka dots fabric as well!

 

Here is my piece.  I stated it in a 3D Workshop with Mary Anne Ciccotelli over a year and a half ago.  The mariners compass as well as the circular flying geese are all 3D, using Mary Anne's folded fabric method.  I completed the circle after the workshop and then it just hung on my design wall, waiting for me to figure out what to do next.  It finally spoke to me a few months ago, so I drafted out the rest and packed it up for retreat.  The side boarder geese are folded as well, using the one seam flying geese method.  They aren't sewn on at this point, but I have finished the top since coming home.  More on that in another post.

Well I hope you enjoyed visiting with me today.  As you can probably tell, we have a great bunch of quilters who retreat with the CQ ladies every 6 months.  It is such an inspiration after a busy summer when I get so little quilting done.  

I hope to bring you up to date on my other projects soon, but until then, Happy Quilting!

Hugs!!