The David Taylor Workshop

This David Taylor workshop is an intense 2-day affair that, among other things, teaches one to look at nature differently, to study it. Each attendee was to bring several photographs and then defend the one that was picked. The ubiquitous purple coneflower (echinacea) was my choice.

Before attending class, the first step is to enlarge the selected photograph. It should really be your own photo if the quilt is to be shown or sold. Enlarge the photo by printing out sections onto sheets of paper and then taping together. My quilt started out to be roughly 32x44" but will be more like 32x32" square.

Day 1
Tracing paper is taped together to cover the enlargement and then a tracing of the photo is made with pencil. As you can see, I started to trace the whole thing. In class, David Taylor said to ditch the two flowers on the right and concentrate on the big one. I also asked how to handle the seed head of the flower as my first inclination was to make big curvy sections. He started to draw ovoid shapes into the area.

"Seriously?" I asked. "Seriously." he said. "Do it like I did the pine needles in the Chickadee." And so, the seed head will have 107 pieces to applique. I think I can handle that, since he did 403 pine needles. Serious hand applique, folks, but worth it.

After the photo is traced onto the tracing paper, the pieces need to be broken up into smaller sections. It is all about the fabric, after all. The more fabric the better.

The tracing is then transferred to freezer paper and the applique templates are made. I have already given an inkling of how many pieces my flower has, but the total was 157 applique pieces, not including the background.

Day 2
The next day was spent fondling fabric. I am not at all exaggerating. I had a pile of pink fabric in front of me on the table and another pile on the floor at my feet -- messy piles, not neatly folded piles. I was looking for the best spot in the fabric for fussy cutting flower petals. By the end of the second day, I had about 10 petals halfway prepped. This is the freezer paper on the bottom, turn over the edge of the fabric and starch method of applique. Pretty standard stuff.

Once I get all my pieces prepped it is on to the actual applique. The prepping is a good in front of the teevee job and will take quite a while. Stay tuned, I'll show some tidbits along the way.

Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival

This quilt by Sherry Reynolds, Reynolds Crossing, won Viewer's Choice award at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival. Isn't it lovely and what a wonderful setting for sampler blocks. Sherry has only been quilting for five years. Can you believe it?

I was asked by the show's webmaster to take photos of the general and guild(s) quilts. There were 4 or 5 guilds represented. I shot over 300 photos in the one hour I had on Saturday before class and in the one hour I had on Sunday before class. What a treat to be able to shoot unimpeded by people. I have a system: I shoot the quilt and then the placard with the quilter's information and quilt name. I have been doing this for years and it works wonderfully.

Now I need to run the photos through Photoshop to crop out the unwanted around the quilt and get them to the show coordinators. You will understand if I drop in and out won't you? Busy, busy.

Soon, I will post on the David Taylor workshop. I promise.

On a side note:
After shooting Sunday, by the time I got to class I was dripping wet because they had not turned on the air conditioning. My hair was plastered to my head and you could see where the straps of my backpack had been by the wetness of my tee shirt. So today, I had nine inches cut off of my hair. It is so much cooler. And cute! Why haven't I done this sooner? My hairdresser said that as I am getting older my hair is getting curly. Go figure.

Gathering Supplies

The supplies for the David Taylor workshop on Sat and Sun are gathered into one place. There are the boxes of baggies in two different sizes and the box of freezer paper. There is the mini iron and it's holder, a very heavy coffee mug. There is the can of spray starch. There are the two towering piles of fat quarters and half yards of fabrics with their matching threads. A plastic pencil box holds the needles, pins, scissors, pencils, eraser, paint brush for the starch, business cards and other supplies.

Can you pick out the absolutely luscious fabrics that came in the mail from VickiW's Etsy shop? Here is a link to her blog, Field Trips in Fiber. There is one of Vicki's greens that is going to be absolutely PERFECT for the flower center. Woohoo! And the pinks are to dye for (pun intended). Some of my own hand-painted fabric is included but it might be a bit difficult to needle.

The ironing surface that is leaning up against the sewing machine carrier (the carrier is not going), the three rolls of paper that comprise the pattern(s) for the 32x42 inch quilt, and all the other paraphernalia will fit wonderfully into Auntie's wire cart and only one trip from the car to the classroom will have to be made. It's all about conserving energy, baby.

Do you see what is on the design wall behind the carrier? It is the infamous Firewood Quilt. More in a later post.

40 Ford

Aren't they cute?

Easily Amused

Because of an extremely wet spring and summer, a cottonwood tree in the neighborhood was delayed in releasing it's cotton. But when the cotton started to fly it was horrible. This stuff lays quietly on the ground in the morning but after it drys and the breezes pick up, the afternoon is just white -- like it is snowing. We have a moron, for a neighbor, have I mentioned that before?
On Wednesday, the day I shot this photo, he waited until afternoon to go out into his front drive and grind on this car (up on blocks) he has 'worked' upon for several years. Then out comes the spray can of primer. Can you picture this? He is painting away on this car and the cotton is flying. Of course the cotton sticks to the wet paint. He is cussing and stamping around waving his arms like an ape while CarGuy and I watch this whole thing from our front porch.

Hot August Days

August Calendar:
• 40th high school reunion
• county fair
• company
• sculpture show
• car show
• trip to Denver-town to see Auntie
• quilt show
• catch breath before the next round
• in between the weekends: work

It's no wonder there has been no quilting accomplished! But the photo opportunities abound! And knitting on the Plain Vanilla vest progresses -- what else would you call the pile of off-white stocking knit vest fabric that lays in the lap as one knits?

This daylily is growing in the garden and has nothing to do with quilting. Unfortunately, the garden is suffering from inattention and the weeds are out of control.

The item in the last post was a purple cone flower (echinacea) and VickyW made a palette from the photo. How cool!

Aren't these colors delicious?

I have been flitting hither and yon madly shooting photos. I have taken photos of some wonderful eye candy lately in a variety of subjects that range from men, to flowers, to farm animals, to machinery. Why you ask?

I am taking a 2-day David Taylor workshop at the end of the month. This workshop, incidentally, is the same time as the quilt show I mentioned in this post. Follow the link to his website, you will be totally blown away by his work. Now realize, this is not going to be a fast project since all the applique is by hand. Yes, you read that right -- by hand. The only embellishment is the quilting.

And so, I am doing some pre-work by pulling fabrics, poking buttons for background fabrics, the color of which is not apparent in this photo, and ordering an11x14 print of the actual photograph. I figured out how to tile-print my photo so I can do that and then get my tracing -- all before workshop even begins. I am hoping that by doing enough prework I can get right down to the stitching in class.

Can you tell what the subject is of the photo?

This Takes the Cake

One of the small quilt groups that I belong to (and I am not going to name names no matter how much you beg) likes to make a donation quilt every year, enter it into the county fair and then donate it after the fair. The quilt this year is a cute child's quilt.

Warning: rant ahead!

But the quilt is definitely not show/fair worthy and I am speaking from a judge's standpoint. This quilt has quality problems. I volunteered to put on the binding that was made by another member. The binding was made from torn pieces commingled with cut pieces and they all were stretched out of shape when it was ironed -- not pressed. The whole binding was one ess-curve after another before I tamed it into submission.

The highly visible portions of the quilt should get it marked down:
• the green stem is visible under the applique. Someone was lazy and did not cut the stem to fit and tuck just the edges under the flowers like one should with applique, but just ran one long length and then slapped the flowers on top.
• the buttonhole stitching is sloppy; a zig-zag stitch would have worked much better.
• the appliques had no quilting so that when the quilt is turned over there are big puffy areas surrounded by dense quilting (and this was a long armer who did this).

So back to the binding. As I was putting the final stitches into the binding I kept wondering how I could get out of having my name associated with this quilt. I was embarrassed by the quality. Monday morning the quasi-leader (and I call her that because even though she is not the leader of the group she is the power behind the throne) came by my work place to pick up the quilt. She told me that only one quilt per group could be entered into the fair and so the other quilt (that was done by three members of the group) will be the group quilt and this quilt, the one that everyone (all 12 members) worked on will be entered under her and the leader's names since they did the majority of the work. Say what? They appliqued the floral strips, period.

On the one hand I was glad that I would not be associated with the quilt. On the other hand I felt like I, and the other 9 women, had been slapped in the face by being told that the two of them were the ones that did the most work.

I have been considering leaving this group because I have been unhappy with it for quite a while. This instance just sealed the decision.

Okay, rant over.

I wrote the rant above on Tuesday this past week. Yesterday I went to the fair. The quilt pictured above received an Honorable Mention and the other quilt garnered a Second Place. I am now wondering about the judge.