Upstatelisa: guild

Showing posts with label guild. Show all posts

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Reflecting on small miracles...

A little less than couple of months ago (that is, late March),

our quilt guild show registration applications were already out

and I decided I had better enter some of my quilts.
Well, how about 6 quilts/pieces?!

Of course, I find that it's always best
to have some pre-finished quilts on hand to enter in a show
that is happening two months later...

including 1quilt completed in 2009!

1 quilt finished in early 2010...

and 1 quilt finished in late 2010...

but
that doesn't mean
you won't enter quilts that are not yet finished
(I repeat not yet finished!)

like this..

1 quilt finished up at the end of April
(including finishing the hand quilting which I started in January!)

(though I still have to baste on a temporary sleeve for the show)

1 quilt made from start to finish in a month (phew!)...

1 quilt block for the guild block challenge
conceived one day and finished in two days (double phew!) this week...

and
1piece that is actually 5 separate panels that I made last spring
during my Workbook Wednesday series
which I decided to attach (completed this week.. better late than never!)

Of course,
I also volunteered (what was I thinking?!)
to make 3 1/2 ballet skirts (for a mid May performance)

from slippery material and chiffon (yippee!),

making three ballet skirts to look like these...

(and I also ended up doing a lot of hand sewing too on Saturday at rehearsal!)

rented out two vacant apartments,
attended a family celebration out of the country last weekend,

homeschooled 2 children and took care of other mother duties.

And yet, I survived and miraculously got it all done!

Around the same time that the quilt show registration applications were sent in,

I ran my first race!

My first race (5 mi)- Shamrock Shuffle in Glens Falls NY

It is kind of unreal to me....

After baby #3 , it took time before I began regular exercise.

When she was 3, I began early morning walks in the summer.

When she was 5, I joined a gym again.

When she was 8 or 9, I began running a bit on the treadmill at the gym.

Now she is 12 (and I'm 49!), I can say that I run!

I started running outside early this spring and now I am hooked!

Running gives me time to think...

like dreaming up new quilty ideas!!!
or just letting my mind go blank (for a change!)

Since March 5th, I have run...

Yes! that is 192.5 miles!!!

Who'd of thunk it possible????!!!

Certainly not me!

Things are only impossible until they're not.

~Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Friday, May 20, 2011

Cooking up something in my "lab"......

This week, my sewing room has felt a little bit like a lab

and I feel a little bit like Beaker...

I didn't set anything on fire or blow anything up...

(well.... not really!)

but I still managed to make a colossal mess...

Almost every surface in my sewing room was used for something!!!

Like Beaker, I had a lot of trial and error...

Pebeo Setacolor paint, Jacquard Lumiere paint,
and Caran D'Ache Neocolor artist crayons on Lutradur

and some experiments didn't go quite as planned...

TAP transfer on Lutradur versus TAP transfer on polymer clay

...I decided that after spending a lot of time transferring an image with TAP

onto polymer clay (on the right) and baking it.... it didn't look so great,

so I went with the image transferred with TAP onto painted Lutradur (on the left)!

And then I got sidetracked....

Lutradur painted laying to dry on watercolor paper

and spent an evening just painting on Lutradur and not finishing the quilt!!!!

In the end,
I sandwiched the transferred image onto some Peltex
and backed with fabric, zigzagged around the edges,
added an eyelet and then secured it to the quilt right where you might find the park on the map!!!

You can also see the french knots that I added for trees...

and the added quilted lines that I had traced from the enlarged map onto tracing paper
and quilted the roads onto the quilt.

We were also required to make a facing-type binding
and I found a great tutorial here...

Finally, the label was sewn on last night!!!!

And so....

my experiment is done!!!!

"Along the River"

(featuring the Hudson River as it passes by our hometown)

If you happen to be passing through upstate NY on June 4th or 5th,
you can see my quilt (and 5 others) along with many other quilts
from our guild members and visit the great vendors too at our quilt show!!!!

Now who wants to clean up my 'lab'????

Thursday, April 28, 2011

From my vantage point....

I am still working on this quilt for our guild challenge....

and if you look really closely at the 'X's in the right hand corner...

you might see Mr. U and I standing on that bridge last night....

the Might Hudson rages from melting and raining

bet you can't see us...
(of course not!
I'm the one taking the photo and Mr. U is probably nearby!)

Anyway,

with the spring melts from the Adirondack Mountains and the plentiful recent rains,

the area is experiencing high waters,

and raging falls...

The center of our community is the falls
which has historical significance,
literary reference,
and industrial importance....

(lots of paper and paper products are produced in this area)

but as the sign says...

the Might Hudson rages from melting and raining at Glens Falls

you can only see the falls in the spring...

and from our vantage point
on the bridge
we saw...

I've been asked about my "technique" (is that we call it?)
for creating my quilt, "Along The River"
and so...
from my vantage point
(on the floor now)...

here is my attempt at a re-cap/tutorial....

I blew up a map of the area I wanted to include...

I laid some lightweight fusible interfacing on top of the map
with the fusible side up

and began cutting up pieces of fabric (previously backed with Wonder Under)

on top of the interfacing...

Occasionally, I laid a piece of the release paper
(that I had peeled off of the Wonder Under )
over the fabric and pressed the pieces in place on the interfacing...

I created the river in the same way
and cut the interfacing along the edges of the blue fabric...

the river is waiting to be added to the background

laid it on top of the background
and pressed it in place...

fusing the pieces back with Wonder Under onto the base of interfacing

I added the interstate down the middle
in the same way
et voila!

To anchor all the pieces in place,
I sprayed the top of the quilt with a temporary adhesive
(because that is what I had at home but I think I would prefer something permanent)
and laid a piece of black tulle (which I purchased at Joann's) on top of the quilt..

black tulle and temporary spray adhesive

Then I started some free motion quilting....

quilting of the river and the interstate

some lines down the interstate with gray rayon thread
and some zigzags with a silver metallic thread on the river.

I traced the streets off the enlarged map
onto sheets of tracing paper
and pinned them onto my quilt...