Impromptu Traveling…..

This past week, Michael and I had to make an unplanned trip to Texas to clean out his Mother’s house and get it ready to sell.

While it was sad to be going thru 60+ years of her life in that home, it was enjoyable to learn a few new things…..

…..like the fact that Michael was named a “Favorite” in his 4th grade class…..

He is so cute in his dark suit and super white socks!!! I also loved this photo of him…..

It was also fun to find his Mom (Esther’s) pages and pages of shorthand. Apparently when she was doing her Bible Studies, she would revert to the form of writing that she had used for MANY years when she was a secretary at a local bank…..

We found handmade horse saddlebags that Michael and his brother had made from green canvas……

Maybe this was the impetus for his current leatherwork…..

I came home with a few favorite items that I am looking forward to decorating with…..

Clint’s Shaving Mug & Brushes
Candle holders made from old spools
Welcome sign that I have liked for the 44 years that I have been in the home

I found a lap quilt that I made for Esther many years ago. Unfortunately I didn’t put a label on it (shame on me!!!) so I dont know when it was made…..

We spent a little over 20 hours working thru the 4 bedroom house and ended up with 66 boxes (mostly filled with the 700 books that we moved off of the shelves and the 100+ family photos sitting in frames around the house), 10 large garbage bags filled with bedding and clothes, and a dumpster FULL of unusable items.

We enjoyed our favorite Texas foods…..Tex-Mex, BBQ Brisket and good old Whataburger…..

We had one exciting event……

And yes, that is a small tornado!!! We watched it for about 5 minutes as it wandered around in the field and then dissipated. The winds were amazing!!

On the last day, I drove past the house that I grew up in and was excited to see that it looked great. Even more exciting was the kids swing hanging in the tree!!! I hope that they have as much fun in that front yard as I did!!!

It was good to get home again yesterday and get back to a bit of normal life…..and hopefully some creating soon!!!

When you see a tree — part 2

At this point I wasn’t sure exactly what to do next. I finally decided that wanted to go ahead and layer the quilt and do some of the tree branch quilting. Since I couldn’t decide what to do about borders I decided to leave lots of room on the outer edges so that I can”flip and sew” the borders later.

I like to use a fusible batting and was surprised to find out that the stabilizer that I had ironed to back of the sky fabric wouldn’t adhere to the batting so I had to revert to safety pins.

The next step was to add some larger leaves, all completely attached to the top. Then, continuing the layering effect, I added the tree branches over the top…..

I did have to switch to a close toed darning foot to attach the felted branches so that the foot wouldn’t get caught in the looser fibers from the needle felting.

Now it was time to insert the bird nest. I picked some light browns that might work for the nest and added Wonder Under to the back. As an aside, if you ever have trouble getting the paper off of the Wonder Under, you can pop it into your freezer for about 10 seconds and the paper will peel right off. Don’t know why….guess it is magic!!!

I sliced a bunch of tiny “twigs”

….and now it is time to play!!

I debated about using needle felting to make the nest but thought that it needed something that is a different texture from the tree bark.

The nest needed to be fairly small and I was afraid that I would make it too big, so I put a transparent pressing cloth over the quilt so that I could hopefully get it into perspective. I started with a few bare bones…..

….and kept adding “twigs” until it was the shape that I wanted…..

The next step was to add some color to the “inside” twigs to give it some depth.

I felt that the entire tree needed a bit more depth so added some more leaves, this time only sewing down the middle and leaving the edges free. They left wonderful shadows across the surface……

I had recently purchased a new “quilting”tool….a Carpenter’s Laser Square and I enjoyed using it to ensure that the borders formed a 90 degree angle. You can see the laser beam following along both sides of the corner……

I also used it to square up the outside edges of the quilt.

Finally, I tried something new when sewing on the facing. Previously, I had just sewn it on with measuring and then whacked it off at the end but this time I meticulously measured the strips agains the middle of the quilt and applied it as I would a border….pinning at each corner, in the middle, and several places inbetween. I believe that it helped to keep the quilt edges square!!

I was super happy with the finished product…..

….especially the new techniques that I had used, including stamping and needle felting. I also felt good about the finishing techniques that I had employed and felt that I had made a piece that was technically better than any I had before.

Having said that, I was completely blown away by the other entries in this challenge…..

Rosie
Sherry
Janelle
Pat #1
Pat #2
Fay

I am DEFINITELY going to have to “up”my game further to compete with these talented ladies…..but a little “ootz” from the competition is never a bad thing!!!

When you see a tree….. Part 1

Do you have a thinking place? A place where you can go to clear your mind and let problems solve themselves. For me, it is my shower!!! While soaking under the warm spray of water I have solved accounting problems, house repair problems, quilting problems and have had more inspirations than I want to admit. My water bill would probably be a lot less if my thinking closet was somewhere else!!!

My latest epiphany relates to a guild challenge that is due at our meeting next Tuesday…. less than a week away!!! The challenge is “When You See a Tree” and, as usual, I had way too many ideas of what I would like to do. Many times the real challenge for me is to narrow it down to just ONE choice and often that narrowing takes place at the last minute!! This particular morning, I kept coming back to the idea that a tree is a place of refuge and the image that formed was a tree branch with a bird’s nest in it.

I was pretty sure that I wanted to use some three dimensional leaves and other accents so I wanted to do something different with the tree bark as well. I have seen tree trunks that were made with cheesecloth and thought that it might be fun to try it myself. The first problem was that I needed cheesecloth!!! After a walk thru my local grocery store I finally asked the customer service person and was told that I could find it in the cleaning section where the rubber gloves are!! Not exactly where I would have put it, but at least I left the store with it in hand!!!

I began by wetting the cloth and loosely folding it in a plastic box. I dribbled three colors of paint onto the fabric…..

…..and then pressed the color through out the cheesecloth. When I squeezed out the excess paint, I grabbed another piece of fabric and used it to sop up the beautiful brown leftover paint…..

The two dyed pieces were carried down to the driveway for a (hopefully) quick drying session.

While I waited for the fabric to dry, I cleaned and put away all of the paint and supplies. Now my husband, when he reads this, will fall into a dead faint because I am SELDOM known to pick up after myself when I am in “creative mode”.

Of course the Georgia sun and heat, which has been in overdrive in the last 3 weeks, was nowhere to be found. The first 10 minutes of “drying time” produced no great difference in the fabric, so I grabbed my hair dryer and started adding some heat of my own.

That did the trick and I was quickly back in my studio trying to figure out the next step. I felt that the cheesecloth needed something else added to it so I pulled out my felting tools and started adding bits of wool roving to the cheesecloth base……

After seeing that it was working well, I switched over to my felting machine which hasn’t been used in YEARS!!!

And, in a few short minutes, I had a wonderful piece of fabric to turn into a tree trunk…..

As I laid it out, I was super pleased with the result…..

Next I picked a background fabric and started thinking about how to add leaves to the piece. I knew that for perspective some of the leaves needed to be very small and fairly dark in color. After thinking about fusing leaves on I had the idea that stamping them would be easier!! I cut a leaf shape out of foam….

….and started stamping on a scrap of fabric, following lines that I had drawn in first. I was thrilled with the results…..

I drew in some tree branches with a Pigma ink pen and then stitched over some of them…..

I was extremely happy with how it looked after I placed the felted branches over the top…..

Now it is time to add the leaves that are in front of the branches and I guess that I need to insert the bird nest at some point!!!

More to come……

WARNING….Judge in training (maybe)

From the first time that I helped in the show judging room I was enamored with the process and wondered if I would enjoy being a judge. The judge at our guild show told me about a two day seminar that was designed to give you basic information about judging and about the certification process. When I heard that it was being held in Atlanta (just over an hour away) I knew that this was my opportunity!!!

The seminar was held in conjunction with the East Cobb Quilt Guild show, “Georgia Celebrates Quilts”. Since I had to be at the venue early on Sunday morning to deliver the quilts that I had entered, I contacted the person in charge of receiving and judging and asked if I could help during the morning. She jumped at the prospect of having another volunteer so I happily joined the throng of women receiving the quilts and preparing them for judging. It was interesting to see the process that they used and see how it differed from the one that our guild uses.

I was also excited to be allowed to remain in the judging rooms as an observer. This show is half again as large as our show and was being judged by TWO judges which made things even more interesting.

The two judges were Scott Murkin and Cindy Erickson. I had seen them both judge our show over the years but it was fun to see them work together…..

In the categories with fewer quilts, they judged separately but the larger categories were split and each judged half of the entries, holding out the quilts that they deemed to be the best. Then they convened and selected the ribbon winners from the ones that had been held. I had never seen this process and found it extremely interesting to see how they worked together as a team.

Then, on Monday and Tuesday, I attended the initial Judge Training seminar. It was a VERY interesting two days as we discussed various aspects of the judging process….from preparation of contracts to handling special situations that arise in the judging room.

When we first started looking at the quilts and making judgements on them, it was hard to think about what you might say about each quilt but as we looked at more and more quilts, it became easier to see and verbalize what you were seeing. Much of the discussion centered around ways to make constructive, helpful comments rather than comments that would just discourage the quilt maker.

IF I go ahead with the process it will take 3 to 4 years to complete the training. The jury is still out on that right now (pun NOT intended but it works anyway!!!)……

So, how do I look in black????

cartoon judge drawing royalty free vintage drawing gerichtssaal stock images photos

Camera play

I have mentioned before that I want to try to “up my game” in the quilting department, but I want to do the same with photography. When we were in China last summer I started working thru an online photography course and loved the things that I learned there. This summer my plan is to go thru the course again….slower this time…..and really spend time getting to know my camera and learning to take better photos.

With that in mind, I hope to spend at least 2 hours each week out and about, testing the things that I am learning. Thursday was the first of those days and, since flowers are such a fun subject, I headed to the local Botanic Garden. It also helped that I could spend all of my time in the atrium area and not have to venture much into the 95 degree weather!!

One of the first lessons is about “Depth of Field”. Depth of field relates to how much of the photo is actually in focus. As an example, in this photo……

….you can see every part of the photo in full focus. That is a wide DoF. However, in this photo…..

….only the front flowers are in focus and the back is blurred out. This is shallow DoF.

I did this by changing the focal length using a lens that would let me zoom in. The further I zoomed, the more blurred that the background became. This can also be done with apperture settings but I will test that next time!!

I learned a few things while I was out and about…..

…..Using a tripod is necessary to obtain better focus.

Incidentally, our current tripod is HEAVY so that may be my next photographic purchase. However, I bought it 44 years ago as a High School graduation present for Michael so I really hate to replace it!!

….When using a tripod, you need to use a cable release and, most importantly, dont let the strap hang down and swing because it messes up the focus……

…..Our telephoto isn’t super high quality and is pretty hard to focus. I am going to play with manual focus next time and see if I can make it work better that way.

These were my favorite photos out of the 95 that I took…..

Michael pointed out how cool the shadow was in this one……

I was trying to get the “alien” looking head in focus on this flower. In this photo I didn’t quite get that, but did get the two yellow and red bumps focused……

My absolute favorite for the day was this one…..

I love that you can see the fuzz on the edge of the petal!!!

I also played some with shutter speed and moving water. In this first one, it was in bright sunshine so I was able to use a super fast shutter speed. The result is that you can see the individual drops of water as they fell……

When I moved to a slower shutter speed, the water turned into a solid sheet…..

I wasn’t out for very long at all but it was fun to see that I remembered some from my work last summer and encouraging that I can learn even more this summer. We are traveling for a month in Europe in September/October and I want to have a good grip on the fundamentals well before then.

This was a good start!!!