Preparations for Spring Teaching/Conclusion of The Art Quilt.

I'm making great headway here preparing for my spring/summer teaching trips. I've copied, folded (my husband did the folding) and packaged 360 patterns.

I've also dyed and ironed 74 meters of fabric, and dyed a further 42 meters and have mixed up dyes for an additional 26 meters. We still have a fair bit of dyeing and ironing to do, but it is my hope to get the bulk of it finished before I head out on the road at the end of April for my first major teaching trip of the year, to Lethbridge, Alberta.

On Saturday I taught Session 5 (last session) of my Art Quilt class here in Ottawa. In preparation to talk a bit about edge finishes and mounting and framing, I stitched, edge finished and mounted my little demo quilt that I started while talking about "seat of the pants" design. This is my favorite method of framing at the moment. I'm not a big fan of stretching a quilt around a frame. For this piece I purchased a frame, removed the glass, and mounted my little quilt on top of the foam core back that came with the frame. The edge of the quilt is finished with a satin stitch. But why frame? Because this is such a small piece (8-1/2" x 10-1/2"), the frame gives it more presence. I encourage my students to work small with their design exercises so they will be willing to take risks.

Students brought some finished quilts to class. You may recall that in our previous class we did some free-form cutting of curves. On the left you can see the results that Beth achieved. Fun, isn't it? She used a lot of leftovers to make the little trillium piece on the right.

I think I shared this piece in my last post. Since then Heather cropped it further, quilted and faced the edges. Also very fun.

This is also Heather's completed piece from an earlier class where we did seat of the pants designing. We all loved the irregular border.

Cindy used the free-form curves piece she started in the last class, further sliced it and added a leather crow. I think the neutral curves enhance the scene well.

Not sure if you can see the stitching on this piece, but Beth has done a fair bit on her leaves.

Wendy's rooster, inspired by a design she found on the internet, is finished, and quilted with a chicken wire design.

She turned her free-form curved quilt into an Easter wall hanging.

I'm also immersed in Level 2 of my Photoshop course. We're learning how to remove distracting elements in our photos. In this photo I took of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, a few winters ago, I was always bothered by that piece of metal construction equipment in the lower right side. Also in the lower left there is a black post.

I was able to remove both and now I like the photo much better. I'm told it might need a bit of straightening though, and I certainly know how to do that.

 But for now it's back to my dyepots and ironing.