Road to CA - Day 3

Today was Happy Village day....oh my...the villages that were constructed...

We snipped our fabric into little squares and stepped pieces and stuck all the little pieces onto the batting and glued the shapes down with dots of Roxanne's GlueBasteIt and then had a blast adding doors and windows and roofs and steps and trees...After those were stuck on firmly, we auditioned pieces of tulle..I ended up liking a golden tulle best..though the white shimmer stuff looked pretty dang good as well..

I got most of my village buildings quilted..at least there are no pins left..but a couple of areas need to be outlined. Oh..and I need to outline all of the doors and windows and steps and add some thread painting to the trees..There were only a few that got as far as using the machines. DH says he thinks the sky needs a bird or the ocean needs a sailboat..have to think on that!

I liked the Viking machine that I used..it has needle down..and the presser foot lifts just slightly when you stop stitching, allowing you to pivot without actually lifting the foot..the auto thread cutter is pretty neat as well..they want 2K though for the classroom machines..or 3.5K for a new one in the box..eiii..

Here is today's haul:

A yard of DecorBond interfacing, a bag of SewBatik's light batik scraps, the cutest froggie fabric....
I got the pin from the Skizzix booth..almost talked myself into getting one of the small cutters..but decided to sleep on it...got the bird journal from a crafting group for signing up for their newsletter..
I also got a cd by Bron Journey, the harpist that plays during the show..and I bought Karen Eckmeier's Happy Village book, which she autographed.

Road to CA - Day 2

Day 2 of the applique class and I have pinned all of the elements except for the eye of the bird, the branches are stitched, one leaf is stitched and the belly of the bird and half of his tail are stitched:


We learned the whipped stem stitch including making it variable weights, a brick stitch and the turkey stitch..which I need to practice.

My purchases yesterday and today at the vendor mall:

I actually got a couple more fat quarters - you can see where I used them on the bird applique as they are the branches and the multicolored leaves. I got three spools of Kimono silk thread - its half again as thin as the YLI silk that I have been using..a threader for my serger (which I need to resurrect..its been sitting for a number of years...), some shimmery tulle for tomorrow's class (I have black and green and plain white to audition..but I think I am going to like the shimmery stuff...)..and a small bottle of the colorless textile extender that seals chalk or pencil to fabric which is also one of the techniques from this class..


This is the teacher's piece in the Instructor's Show..gorgeous pheasants and chalk enhanced machine stitching..( I think if you click on the picture, it will get bigger so you can see the details)


Its been really nice weather so far..but tomorrow is supposed to rain! It will be fun getting my roller cart of stuff into the convention center..I better bring a towel! I already have the huge golf umbrella out..

Road To CA - Day 1

Road to CA 2012 has officially started!

Attended the first day of my two day applique class by Sandra Leichner...she is also one of the judges for the show this year (this is the fourth judge that I have taken classes from!) Anyway..she's an interesting teacher and I really like needle-turn applique much better than the prep'ed edges like starch.She has oodles of tips and tricks..I really like her quilts. Her quilt 'Tea with Miss D' won one of the big awards at Houston..

We are doing her pattern 'Garden Bird' - here is my project after one day - we traced the pattern onto a vinyl overlay and learned how Sandra does inside corners and the points on leaves ..my branches are mostly done..and the leaves are just laid on the background fabric for now..hopefully will get to the bird tomorrow:

(Ekk..you can see I didn't pin them down yet as the placement is all off when you compare it to the next photo....)

And hopefully mine ends up looking at least SOMEWHAT like this when I am done!

Really funny. story...we were stitching away on our branches after getting some instruction on how to do the deep inside V's or tree crotches..one of the gals at my table is a speed demon with applique and got done before the rest of us. Sandra came by and was checking her stitching...Called everyone over to see her nicely done tree crotch, embarrassing the gal...everyone gave her a round of applause..to which she said "Oh great...Y'all stand around admiring my crotch and now y'all have given me the clap'...