This past week I was invited to lecture and teach in Simsbury and Avon, Connecticut, for the Farmington Valley Quilt Guild.  It was so much fun, and quite a large guild, too!  On Wednesday evening I presented a lecture, The Decorated Quilt: Beads, Embellishments and other Treasures, at the Eno Memorial Hall in Simsbury.  There were easily over a hundred women there in the HUGE hall. I was lodged at the Simsbury 1820 house (guess when it was built):

The Simsbury 1820 House

I’ll do a couple more posts about the trip, including pictures of the town, windows, and other cool fodder for quilts and design ideas!

I had sent down some of my postcards (made by me and received by me) and ATCs to help advertise the class:

The next day, at the beautiful, modern public library in Avon, CT, about twenty women joined my class on Fabric Postcards, which is a non-threatening introduction to art quilt techniques and making fabric postcards.

I set up next to the only flat, blank wall so I could do something new to me:  using the videocamera and digital projector to project what I was de monstrating onto the wall behind me.  This way, EVERYone in the class had a view as if they were sitting next to me (or on my lap!).  It took some getting used to… I’d forget to make sure my hands were in the range of the lens, so they got good at reminding me LOL…thanks ladies!  I think this will work, and I definitely got better as the class went along.

Each student had a spot at their own table, but we set up a workstation area for paint and another two for ironing.  The class included my “chunk and jigsaw” fusible applique method and using angelina, so that took place at the ironing stations.  I also taught painting techniques using textile paints (Jacquard opaque, Setacolor transparent, and Lumiere metallics) using direct application, stencils, and printing (with mats, bubble wrap, stamps) and Shiva paintsticks  in both direct application and rubbings.

The ladies were grand, I got to meet folks I’d only met before on line (hi Judy!  hi Vivika!), and learned from them…something that always happens when you teach!

Here’s a view of the program room where our class took place:

And here are a range of postcards–if yours is among them, drop me a comment and I’ll add your name to your card!

Easter eggs using sheer, fused fabrics--By Marie

and

Textile paints and Shiva Paintstiks--by Diane

and

colorwash abstract under tulle--also by Karen

and

Karin's license plate is "Outdoors"

and

An array by Betty

and

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and hope the students learned and enjoyed too!  Thanks to Judy R., co-program chair, for finding and inviting me and doing all the work her position with the guild entails, and thanks to all the ladies who took their time and talent to come to my class.

Thanks Betty for filling me in on who did what!

As you read this, I am teaching in Connecticut, so hope to have some fun class pics soon… in the meantime, there has been another sure sign that it is spring!   The other night as I took ‘Widgeon out for his pre-bed walkies, we must have disturbed someone large up in the tree.  Several LARGE someones.

Looking down the driveway

Here’s the view the next morning down the driveway…follow the blue arrows to two of the large someones… yes, the BUZZARDS are back to roost!  Last spring, at their peak, we had 36 (THIRTY SIX!) just across from us.

I have developed this absurd fondness for the ugly birds, and was sad when they didn’t set up a rookery filled with nests and not-so-little-peeping baby vultures. I am told that you know it is spring when they are here because they need the warm thermals rising from the ground to lift the scent of carrion.  Lovely, eh?  Ahem. Think of them as your friendly neighborhood cleaning crew…

Paul spotted about 14 during ‘Widgeon’s morning walkies, so I trotted out and took these pictures.

Four friends in the trees

These four were soon joined by another from the pine tree next door (they are quite difficult to spot in the shaggy pines).

On a stump on a pine tree trunk

This one guy cooperated tho…

and yet one more:

Sleeping in late....

By the time the sun has risen the birds are  out and on the thermals.  Next, back to quilting….

Today’s post is about a new pattern I’ve designed to help folks who want to start art quilting or for folks who are experienced art quilters but want an appealing yet fairly easy pattern.  The class to teach Birch Pond Seasons (when I get winter and spring made, I’ll have four views of the same pond across the four seasons) for the first time went swimmingly well as you’ll see by the photos!  The pattern itself will be available in about two months (guessing…have to send it away for printing the large sheet this time).

As you might guess by that rather extended absence from the blog, I’ve been busy! Between the first draft of my next article for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine, getting together the stuff for taxes (not only ours but mom’s, too…bleah), attepting to get some sleep, going to wrestling meets, the usual family and household stuff, making a new small quilt for the article, and teaching, I’ve been rather behind the curve.  A while back, I got to teach my Birch Pond landscapes pattern for the first time at Maine-ly Sewing, and it was a gas!  I will definitely be polishing up the instructions, sending the pattern off for printing (it’s oversized, and copies at Staples are about 6 times more expensive than shipping it away and getting it professionally printed).

After showing the students how to fuse up fabric (both large chunks and smaller bits) they began composing their quilts.  The easiest way proved to be setting out the large pattern (the piece of paper is about 18×22), placing parchment paper on top of the pattern, then the pre-fused fabrics on top of the parchment.  Here you can see the pattern through the parchment on the lower half of this quilt.  This student did a fabulous job with her sky; she had one piece of fabric that was perfect, but WAY too narrow, so we cut, spliced and overlapped for it to look like a summer’s cloud-dotted sky.

Another student chose a dramatic lightning-streaked sky and dark mountains for her quilt:

Working from farthest away (sky) to the front (foreground), we began with the sky, then the distant hills, then what I have called “the woods behind the pond.” You could cut a single swath of fabric to go across the entire quilt, but I think by cutting chunks and “piecing/fusing” a band, you get greater depth in the piece:

Creating the woods behind the pond

To make the tree trunks, we created “new fabric” by cutting strips of white, cream and gray, then cross-cutting into tree trunks:

Using strips to create new "fabric"

One student decided to go for wild and funky colors… I’d love to see how this one turns out after she adds the birch trees, foreground plants and quilting.  Here is her quilt at the adding the pond stage:

Adding the foreground in the wild and funky one

After the pond, we added the foreground and rocks:

Adding the foreground and rocks

Or, you could add the birch trees behind the pond first:

Adding the birch trees behind the pond

Two sisters took the class together, and decided to combine forces.  Rather than both of them working separately, they decided by late morning to create one quilt together and get it to nearly-done stage, then make another at home.  Here is one of them “building” the scene and adding the birch tree trunks first:

Building the scene

Finally, a nearly complete top (minus borders):

Birch trunks added...next, foliage!

At the end of the day we discussed border selection, quilting designs (the ones on my quilts, which you can see here, are designed to be do-able by newbie machine quilters), and  using a facing to finish the edges.

And thanks to one student who went home and finished up, a finished student quilt…hoooray!  I REALLY like how she added red flowers going back to the sides of the pond…really helps lead the eye to the pond and the birch trees behind it:

Finished student quilt (thanks Martha!)

So, how do I know (besides the willow and oak twigs flushing yellow, and the maples sporting a tinge of red on the tips)?  The Library of course…. you see, it has this South-facing stone wall that gets warmed by the sun:

The Stone Wall at the library

The old part of the library is the building upstairs.  In the mid 90s, they expanded significantly the only place they could:  down, under the grassy slope.  Here’s the new entrance:

And the Amphitheatre park next to the library which, as you can see, is still quite snowy:

Amphitheater Park

Here’s the view across the street, over the rest of the slope down to Camden harbor:

Camden Harbor, early March

Well, the readers of Camden know quite well that the crocus at the base of the wall come up about three weeks before any other flowers peek their little green shoots above the ground.  Here is what I saw:

Buds on the climbing Hydrangea

And, for a tease:

Just a bit of green

And last of all, DRUM ROLL PLEASE:

White crocus!!!!

Actual BUDS!!! Soon, true open flowers…woooohoooo! Time to put away the snow stuff!

I had fun on two Fridays not long ago… I got to teach a very small class (of 3 students) at Quilt Divas in Rockland, Maine.  LONG time readers may remember that I was elated about this time last year to learn that my pomegranate notebook cover project, selected for a book by Lark Books, was on the cover of Creative Quilting With Beads. (by the way, only two copies left at my little store, but I have plenty of the beads available….they are hard to find so I bought a kilo!).

I hope the students had as much fun as I did.  Pam loves jewel tones and hand applique, so instead of doing the fusible applique thing, she did hers by hand.  Can you believe she had NEVER machine quilted before????  I can tell she’s gonna go gangbusters now!

Pam's cover, as she is beading

Judy also likes bright jewel tones, and had brought a range of batiks.  I think if this brown batik had been in stock (Judy bought it at least a year ago which, SOB, means it is likely not around anywhere) each of us would have bought a couple yards….

Judy's cover

I had a new idea, to piece the “table” area below the pomegranates, so Karen pieced up her bottom section. I love the summery colors (and we certainly need color…keep reading):

On the way to the final class, it had snowed yet again, so here is my little, old and bonked by reliable Subaru in front of the French and Brawn grocery that has been on the corner for over a century:

My green subaru on the corner

And the view down Main Street (PS…isn’t the building with the big round window in the roof cool?!):

Beautiful downtown Camden, Maine, Feb. 2009

On the way home, there was more beautiful snow on trees:

Even more trees and snow

Then I decided I had best dig out the trampoline.  Here is how much snow we got in the Wednesday/Thursday storm….that is my hand, and I wear ladies’ large gloves….that’s a lot of snow!

Lotsa snow...about four hand widths...on the trampoline