Road to Ca 2019 - Day 6 - Thread Painting and Thread Sketching

Instructor for this class is world famous Nancy Prince - and she is a wonderful instructor!
Taking this class was on my Quilter's Bucket List!

I don't know if I have ever had as good a teacher as Nancy..terrific class..and I learned so much!

Here is her butterfly on the quilt...she had us take one with our phones for reference...

She shows each step of the process using an overhead projection of what she is doing on the machine...so much nicer than crowding around a machine and barely getting to see what the teacher is doing...She gave us reasons for why she does each step the way she does and then had us do our own!
 

Here is what I finished in class for the thread painting part of the class. Just have a few more white areas to finish and the top yellow-gold area..I kinda think he needs a second wing (though I have seen plenty of pictures of Monarchs with their wings folded together like this)...so I may add the second wing (makes mine different than the teacher's!) and I think I need to tone the red down to a burnt orange..and the bottom part needs another pass or two with the lighter yellow or maybe a light gold...and it needs some more shading...Thread painting is like coloring books...you have to blend the thread by layers... many layers! All of her thread paintings are done the same way we did in class...off the quilt and only attached after the quilt is quilted, bound and has its label on! She uses a stencil cutter to singe away the edges of the bridal tulle that supports the stitching - not having one of those, I will have to carefully clip the pieces of netting away... I have almost no distortion in mine - just a wee bit near the top of the wing.

And here is what I got done for the thread sketching part of the class - just have to finish the one butterfly in the top left corner....now..I am thinking I am going to use the Inktense pencils and color in the objects... The lines look darker than they will after I wash the Solvy off - if you look at the bottom where I traveled from one spot to another without lines, that is the real color...because the design was printed on Solvy with an inkjet printer, the thread just looks darker..

I finished off this year's show with a massage..(I get one every year...they are so soothing to aching backs!)

Road to Ca - Day 4 - The Quilts, the Vendor Mall and Party Time!

I got to the Convention Center and noticed a whole lot of people streaming up the sidewalk..one of the ladies said there was a fire alarm and they evacuated the Center! So I stopped walking towards the Center and talked with a Security Guard  for a few minutes and after a while, we noticed they were all going back into the Center..Made my way to the Center and almost immediately ran into one of my friends! It was fun to catch up with her!

Saw all of the wonderful quilts (Road to Ca will have pictures of them on their website in a few days..much better pictures that I would take!)
Here is one that I really liked:

Espalier - Joann Webb

Walked the vendor mall and found a booth for a designer that I follow - this was her first time at Road...I asked her if she had any of her cute HedgeHog fabric and she said it had sold out almost immediately! (this was the first day of the vendor mall!) She offered to look at home to see if she had any so I did come back on Saturday and got a piece...soooooo cute!

I met up with one of my friends after she got off work (one of the same gals that took the shirt class on Monday) - we walked around a different part of the vendor mall...

After the vendor mall, it was time to get in line for Party Time...we snagged some food and were probably 20th or so in line...We knew a group of other friends were going to be coming so we got to a table once the room opened up and we had 9 seats filled! Two were guys! One of the gals had persuaded her hubby and her brother to join her and her sister-in-law in the quilting adventure - they each have their own Featherweight!!

The theme for this year's party was Elvis (they had a traveling tribute show of quilts featuring Elvis) - our table's name was Hard Headed Women...one of the guys said...but what about us guys..so he wrote '...And Two Guys' on the card! This same guy got a huge set of fabrics from the Left, Right, Center game...a beginning to his OWN stash, LOL!

Loot that I came home with:

There is an Infinity Scarf  kit in there! (so I will have two!)...A king size quilt backing, a crib size batting, a pounce pack with miracle chalk, chalk pencil, sharpener and several stencils, a yard of Star Wars fabric, 3 fat quarters, a yard of Christmas fabric, three patterns, and  mini pack of hexies...I also have the fabric necklace that I won in the vendor mall - fabric is rayon - makes a really nice necklace!

Road to CA 2019 - Day 3 - For Anne

This class was an applique class where we were learning to us the Appliquick tools... Teacher was Diane Kirkart.

This is the end goal! A pot of flowers!

We worked on just the bigger of the roses and the bigger of the amaryllis flowers.

Here is what mine looked like at the end of the day:

Not dreadfully impressive as to quantity..but I did like the technique enough that I bought the Appliquick rods...one has a 'pickle fork' end and the other has a kind of a hoof! Better than my homemade version of a Popsicle stick with a grove in the end and Pearl's wooden turning tool (it got  very gummy with the gluestick).

The gal (Rosa) that invented these tools was also at Road and was demoing in the vendor mall...I ended up watching her technique and it was a bit different that what I was struggling with in the class..I hope this will make the rest of the flowers turn out better!
She has some really nice scissors..with an extra hole and a kind of a curl at the bottom...would be nice to have but they are so pricey!! Maybe someday...

I have most of the applique done on the inner pieces...not quite sure how to do the stamens on the amaryllis...gotta read the pattern to see if she describes how to do them. And I think the pink needs to be darker...so I will go over that part again..

Road To CA 2019 - Day 1 - Double Gauze Class

Road to CA 2019

I colored my tote bag from last year...it was just begging for inking!

Day 1...Day dawned bright and WINDY!
This class was making a T-Shirt out of Double Gauze...a very interesting, lightweight and almost airy fabric...
My three friends that go on the Quilter Run also were in class so it was a fun day for all of us!

First we had to cut out the pattern...deciding what size was a major dilemma for me! I brought a t-shirt that fits to try to get a sense of how the sizing went..but finally just matched my measurements up to the package..one of the ladies at our table said sometimes she doesn't follow all the exact lines and so that gave me the idea to grade it to a larger size on the bottom since I detest shirts that hug my posterior! So I went maverick!! Turns out I probably could have gone a size down on the shoulder and sleeves.

My back was hurting quite a lot, so at the suggestion of this same gal, I moved my cutting board over to the ironing board so I did not have to lean over the table.

I had made a mat board tote bag a few weeks ago for my new folding mat. Its built on Peltex - a double sided stiff interfacing...

That worked out well!

After we cut out the pieces, we first sewed the seam on our domestics, then went to one of the sergers that was set up in the back of the room..might have been nicer to have twice as many, but...we all did get to use them.

We got done with the shirts so fast - even though double gauze is a squirrely fabric and wants to slide all over the place -  we were done right after lunch. Some of the gals bought Infinity Scarf kits from the teacher...but...I was looking at my leftovers and with just an extra seam, I figured I could do on from the scraps..so I did...

It felt GOOD to walk out of the classroom with TWO completed projects - WHOOHOO!! (that doesn't happen very often!)