Coming Up and What's Up!

My house is feeling like Santa's workshop right now.  Well actually it is kinda like a thread dyeing factory.  I've been making skeins of Pearl Cotton in sizes 12, 8 and 5, and dyeing dyeing dyeing.  These will make great gifts for my arty/quilty/stitchy friends.  Some have already been given.  There are more batching and some hanging on the line drying.  But for now this is the completed pile in my studio.  The favorite moment is when I twist that skein and see all the colour twirl.  I am also planning a project that uses hand-stitching and hoping to play with it over the holidays. 

My teaching for 2012 finished this past Saturday, and starts up again on January 5.  The old year is drawing to a close quickly, and before we know it 2013 will be here.  I have a lot of workshops coming up locally in the new year, so thought I'd make a special announcement.

On the evening of January 7, I will be delivering a lecture, "From Inspiration to Art Quilt", for the Ottawa Valley Quilters Guild.  I'll be Shop of the Month that night as well, selling my hand-dyed fabrics.  I'll also be teaching two workshops for them:
January 19, Fast & Fun Fused Designs
February 16, Liberated Radial Piecing
Check out their Workshops page for more information.

Also this coming winter, I have a complete series of machine quilting workshops, at all levels at Dragonfly Fabrics:
Intro. Machine Quilting: (half day walking foot, half day free motion) - January 26
Beyond Stippling, Part I (confident beginner to intermediate) - January 12
Beyond Stippling, Part 2 (advanced) - March 23

Beyond Stippling, Part 1 is also being offered on February 23 at the Country Quilter.

Another session of Collage Tree runs February 9 at Dragonfly Fabrics.

The next session of Uncommon and Unforgettable Threads starts Friday, January 18 at Dragonfly Fabrics.  This series is being repeated due to there being a waiting list of those who didn't make it into the first session that started in September.  There are a total of five classes in this series, and the dates (all of them Fridays) are:
January 18
February 8
March 22
April 12
May 3
This class is all about threads: thread sketching, thread painting, thread lace, couching, bobbin work, dyeing thread, and doing hand work with hand-dyed threads.  You can see some photos of the class where we dyed threads here in my blog post of October 29.

I'm also sharing photos here of this past Saturday's class on thread painting.  Students did a fantastic job creating stand-alone appliques using sheers and water soluble stabilizer.  Dragonflies, bottleflies, and butterflies are the perfect creatures to create with this method.

Alice's bottlefly.

 

Ann's butterfly (this one was actually a fully thread painted butterfly on regular stabilizer)

 

Caroline decided to thread paint an iris with foliage.

 

Josee's dragonfly

 

Mary's dragonfly

 

Marylynn's dragonfly

 

Rosemary's bottlefly.

 

Students in the class inspired me to get back to thread dyeing again and inspired me with their experimental colour combinations.  It is so much fun!

 

Thought you might also like to see Josee's results from my new Dye Another Day class on November 12.

 



 

Last week I disappeared off the face of the earth for five days to create a new work of art for an upcoming show. This new work, and the story behind it, will be shared in my next blog post.  I also managed to finally document, with photos, the strip facing method I use on my quilts.  That tutorial will appear in my next post. 

 

Hope you are keeping your calm during this busy season.