A Little Autumn Inspiration

Just dropping by to share some photos with you of the beautiful autumn leaves here in my part of the world. On Friday we took a little trip to Gatineau Park in Quebec, which is just across the river from where I live in Ottawa, Canada's Capital city. The leaves were pretty glorious. Was trying to capture some reflections of them in the water.

Hope you enjoyed this bit of autumn inspiration. It is raining now so likely the leaves will come down before they have fully peaked.

The Cherry Tree Quilts Retreat in the Okanagan

I`m home recovering from a big bad cold. My husband caught it in Venice, and I came down with it two days after getting home. It wasn`t so bad the first few days, but things got worse near the end of the first week, just as I was heading off for a week of teaching in British Columbia.

I flew into Kelowna, British Columbia a week ago this past Sunday to teach for a week at the Cherry Tree Quilts retreat. This is the fourth consecutive year I have taught here.

I found the weather in the Okanagan Valley perfect. Warm, but not too warm, and sunny every day The leaves were beginning to turn, and that provided a beautiful and strong contrast to the very blue skies.

Once again I stayed with my friend Barb, who is the owner of Cherry Tree Quilts. Can you beat this view of vineyards and the lake? Barb wakes up to this every day.

Cherry Tree Quilts has expanded several times in its first five years of business. It is a well-stocked quilt shop with lots of beautiful fabric, on the Main St. in Summerland, British Columbia, Canada.

Keeping true to my tradition of sharing the cats and dogs I meet in my teaching travels, let me introduce you to `Bing` (yes, as in Bing Cherry).

We had a large, bright and spacious classroom at the local United Church, where 18 eager students gathered to get creative.

On the first day we dyed fabric to be used for the nature piece each student would be designing in the last three days of class. My voice made it through day one, but it was very sore.

On Day 2 I had no voice, so our only option was for me to use a whistle to get the group`s attention, and then whisper the instructions during my demo to one of my students (Joan, who used to be a school principal). Joan imparted my instructions to the class in an authoritative fashion ;-) We managed. The topic was Liberated Radial Piecing. Although I am aware that for many students the main event for them was the three-day design class coming thereafter, they embraced a bit of liberated piecing with great gusto, and it gave them something to work on when the going got tough with their nature designs. I think Judy was the first to complete her radial design.

These are only a few of the designs that developed. There were many others, but I was sick and just didn`t get photos of all of them. This is Ellen.

 Brenda,

For the next three days I managed to have enough voice to impart what I needed to over an hour or two of talking throughout the day, and then one-on-one consultations with students. I rested my voice in the evenings.

Designing your own nature quilt (my class is called `Inspired by Nature, Designed by You`) takes a lot or front end work to choose a composition and create a pattern. After that it is a slow and painstaking process of choosing the most appropriate fabric for each part. Some great pieces were started, and I look forward to receiving photos of them when they are finished.

Beth:

Judy

Brenda

 Debra

 `
Lynne

Alicia

 Ann

 Joan

Again, this is just a sampling of pieces started in class. 

Some students brought Show and Tell of their own work, and I have to say this is one of the most experienced and talented groups of students I have taught to date. I will have to get permission to share some of their own work on my blog.

Here`s the group! What a great group, and how patient they were with me in my less than optimal state. Thank you Enid, Alison, Judy, Joan, Lynne, Carole, Val, Dianne, Beth, Anne, Grovenore, Brenda, Debra, Doreen, Ellen, Rita, Ann, and Alicia!

I had one day to tour around on Saturday before flying home on Sunday. Barb took me to a couple of wineries. We ended up having lunch at Hillside Winery, where the remaining photos were taken. Did a little shopping and headed home for a late afternoon nap.

My cough is improving, but my voice is still hoarse. I`ll be resting it more this month as I am headed to the studio soon. Stay tuned!

A Week of Experimentation

I am happy to share that over the past week I've had an opportunity to experiment with some ideas. During our vacation on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick I got inspired by raindrops on leaves. I set a goal to learn about how to create the look of raindrops on fabric. Turns out that it is quite easy. I simply googled "drawing and painting water drops". There are numerous art sites that explain how to look at a waterdrop. No wonder I love them. It is all about the hi-lights and shadows! My first experiment involves fusing raindrop shapes to a piece of fabric to make the drops look "raised". Then I went at them with Prismacolor Artist Pencils to add hi-lights and shadows. I must say I'm very pleased so far. I'd also like to try a few different techniques and see what else I can come up with.

I've also been enamored with boats and reflections on water of late. My idea was to dye some pole-wrapped shibori in a marine sort of colour, experimenting with different widths of stripes. I tried different strings and tried varying the space between each round about the pole. So far so good, but I think the next step is going to be to paint in some of the white areas with whatever colours are reflected in the water, probably using thickened dyes to paint with.

On the beach in New Brunswick I picked up the most beautifully-coloured mussel shell. Silly me, I did not keep it. That is OK because this is how I remember it. Part of it was purple and purple-blues, and part of it seemed a butterscotch colour. So I spent a fair bit of time choosing a palette like this and cutting out squares in various sizes to make another quilt with free-hand curves. The blocks will be in various sizes and have lots of movement

Finally, I also experimented a bit with screen printing. You may recall that back in July I took a class on Screen Monoprinting on paper. This past week I applied the same principles to fabric. While we used silk paints on paper, I used fibre reactive dyes on fabric. I painted the liquid dyes on the screen and left them to dry. Note, the liquid dyes do not seep through the fine mesh of the screen. I should have taken photos of the painted screens but I forgot.

 



I was really just playing with colour. This was just a rough start to my experiments. With paper we used wall paper glue to screen the dried silk dyes. With fibre reactive dyes on fabric I used thickened print paste (sodium alginate). I pulled the dyes through the screen with my squeegee using water thickened with print paste.

 





 

I was able to get two prints from each screen. Still a few glitches to iron out, like how to keep the screen from slipping or moving while I'm "pulling" the squeegee. I need to work on my setup. I need to pull out a proper table to do this on, and not just on the edge of my washing machine. I also need to determine just how much thickened print paste is needed to "pull" each screen.

 

I find my screens a little too small. By the time I tape them to make sure I have a clean crisp edge, I'm only left with a design space of about 8" x 10". Think I'll invest in a larger screen, but first I better figure out what I want to use this method for. Reflections is one idea.

 

It's been a long time since I've had the chance to do this much experimenting in a single week. I'm pretty excited about it! Stay tuned!





A Little Detour into a Week Long Escape

Last week I had another little "vacation". I had offered to look after my sister's dog while she went on vacation. This is my niece "Sunny". This gave me a quiet (more or less) week in Waterloo, spending time finding out how it would be to take care of a dog full-time.

One thing I'll say is that dogs sure are easier to give vitamins and pills to than cats! This dog eats ANYTHING, including her own poop, if I don't get to it fast enough. She's a bit of a nervous nelly. One day it got quite windy, and I had the windows open, and some papers blew off the cupboard. Well, that threw a monkey wrench in our week. While relaxed the first two days, she got quite jumpy. Dogs need routine I understand. I lead anything but a routine life. The first two nights she stayed up late with me. Eventually she said, "to hell with this" and headed upstairs to her own bed by 9 p.m.

During my "vacation" I spent a lot of time with my Dad (now 92) and took him off to his audiology appointment.

So I might add that I was in "home territory", the area I grew up in. I had not visited the St. Jacobs Farmers' Market in a long time, way too long, but I sure had a good time that week. Lots to see and do and buy. The best hummus comes from this market!

Did I mention here that I have been dreaming about a "She Shed" (garden shed) as a sort of refuge? I've fallen in love with the idea and especially the look of "shabby chic" furniture. Whether or not I ever end up with a "She Shed" as a retirement project in a few years, I started collecting a few items at flea/vintage/antique markets. During my week I got to be a "tourist" at times, and visited at least seven markets/shops, some of them twice.

What did I come home with? This wonderful shabby primitive bench! Isn't it a killer? This one made it back home to Ottawa, but some of my purchases are still in my sister's basement. I have a small car.

Had to have this "shabby" wash cupboard, which I realized my sister's white hydrangea would enhance nicely! I borrowed her antique "milk glass" vase (belonged to our grandmother) to give it a romantic look. Oh, and I bought this multi-tiered cake plate at a vintage market. This little scene makes me very happy :-)

This curved window, reclaimed from an old building I'm sure, is now sitting on the shelf in my studio. This was photographed in my sister's basement, with it sitting on top of the shabby table I scored.

And look at this adorable "chippy chair" I got for $25. It's a really old and strong plank chair.

Let me show you the one that got away! At one of my two favorite antique markets (this one Southworks Cambridge) I found this delightful cupboard with 36 drawers. Someone had taken the time to paint it in white with all the drawer fronts in turquoise, and every knob in white. The price was excellent. I bought it, and then learned it would not fit in my car. It broke my heart to have to take it back and ask for a refund. It shall ever be the one that got away ...

You may think I've lost my marbles, and maybe I have! But I sure had a great time, and am going to find a way to incorporate these pieces somewhere in my guest room or studio so I can enjoy them, even if the "She Shed" idea falls off the radar. It's just not a financial or time commitment I can make right now. Isn't the fun in most things the dreaming and planning anyway?

So all of this distracted me and pulled me from feeling inspired about my work. I realize I have way too many ideas and way too many things I want to do. IT IS TIME TO NARROW THINGS DOWN AND FOCUS. Stay tuned as I do this! And have a fantastic Labour Day Weekend wherever you are!