My last class in Arizona, in friendly Flagstaff, was small but good.  We cut freezer paper stencils, then used the Lumiere paints I supplied to paint leaves onto a dark (black) background.  Next, while the paint dried (fairly quickly), I talked about special tips and tricks for sewing with threads that have a reputation for being fussy:  metallic, holographic (the shiny stuff…think Mylar balloon stuff cut into long strips), shiny polyester, and more.  This project is also on the cover of my book and is included as one of the activities in the back (book available here).

First, you paint the cloth:

Then baste:

One thing many of us don’t do enough is to make sample stitch-outs before diving in to the quilting.  I can’t say enough how important and helpful this can be!   Best of all, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to rip it out…just move to another part of the practice sandwich.  Here, one student is checking out how the decorative threads look in various free-motion designs and what she needs to do to get a good stitch on her machine:

Then start stitching:

Stop a bit and muse over what next, then continue:

Then of course there are those miserable thread tails to knot and bury!

I loved the look of the copper leaves:

And then trying out different threads and stitches and stitch-lengths to outline the leaves:

Here’s a cool, silvery, feathery outline:

Thanks for being in my class!

As part of my travels and teaching for the Arizona Quilt Guild, I got to present a lecture at their semi-annual meeting.  They hold one meeting in the southern part of the state, and one in the north.  This one was in Flagstaff, in northern Arizona, and MY how beautiful and friendly a town!  I TOTALLY fell in love with the place, mostly because of the people!  We were booked at the Radisson, which had totally cool artwork and “stuff” to decorate.  Here are two neat pieces:

That second one, especially, gives me some cool ideas for an art quilt…hmm…..

And then there were these carved doors….WOW:

Talk about inspiration for quilting and applique designs!!!!

I gave my lecture at this meeting, and boy was that a challenge!  My laptop DIED two days before, and I was scheduled to do  a presentation using the laptop.  SHRIEK!   AND, even though I had the presentation on a thumb drive as insurance, we couldn’t find anyone on such short notice (that hadn’t already left home) that had a MacBook with Keynote installed, and no Mac stores anywhere nearby to rent one!   Fortunately, I had almost ALL my journal quilts with me (the topic of the talk), as well as my digital projector and video camera (which I use for live demos in class).  My intrepid host Tari Hammons came to the rescue.  I figured out that we could just hold the journals under the camera and project them “live” to the wall!   So I did the talk, flagged pages from my working sketchbook that I happened to have with me to share for that part, and Tari just swapped things out in order.  PHEW!  The group was MOST understanding, and it worked in the end.  But I hope never to repeat THAT experience.  THANK YOU, Tari! for your help…you helped save the day! Here’s me, doing the talk, looking more together than I actually felt:

(The long delay in blogging all this is due, in part, to having to reconstruct my life on the new laptop, which took two weeks to get built and sent from Apple in China….. thankfully, I had backed up fully the day before I left on the trip and had been saving for and planning on a new laptop later this year….so all is well in the end, but sheesh!)

The meeting was the usual guild thing, and this time outgoing President Lynn Kough was presented with this spectacular quilt made by board members…WOW:

Wish I had a better picture… the quilting (by the woman on the right, and I’m SO SORRY I didn’t write down her name…she’s the new Pres. of the guild I think) was GORGEOUS!

There were vendors, too (yippee!), and one had this lovely way to use up bolt-boards and display batik selections effectively:

Finally, here are two pictures from downtown Flagstaff…  The cathedral:

and this cool tree-sculpture on the Northern Arizona University Campus (between my hotel and downtown)…when the wind blew, the leaves clink and tinkle and dance…way cool:

What a wonderful, friendly, art-friendly town!   I don’t think I could ever live that far from salt-water, but if I could, Flagstaff would be very high on my list of great towns!

We were treated to a spectacular Arizona sunset while staying at Monument Valley, and an almost as wonderful sunrise.  These photos were taken from The View Hotel, third floor–and note, reservations are ESSENTIAL…book EARLY.  These photos are taken (duh) looking West, over the parking lot…in the first photo you can barely spot the glimmer of a car up and to the left of the (c) symbol:

And sunrise, looking (duh) to the  East over Monument Valley:

(Notice the photographers set up on the stairs, on the left, by the restaurant…the best spot to get the classic shot of both “mittens” which you can see in this photo, above.)

OH do these photos make me want to play with cloth and dyes!

A student's class sample... compare this to the unstitched version in the top-left of the four-squares (below)

We had an absolute GAS in this class!  I was so thrilled at how the students took my basic design and simply took off with it, experimenting and discovering, and the wide range of results….  Because I actually took a TON of photos, I’ve made some “four-patch” photos to squeeze them all in!   This is the sampler that I share with the students (it’s also in my book–click the photo to view larger):

Sarah's Tossed Leaves Sampler

Well….here are some samplings of leaves the students made.  They were given the choice to make a larger composition or smaller blocks (which is what I used in my blue vest…I promise that post will be up before too long!):

I knew that Deb in KY from the Janome 6500/6600/7700 yahoo group would be in the class, and was pretty sure that Kathy Schmidt (author of Rule-Breaking Quilts from AQS and also in the group, and her blog is here) would be there, but so was Marie!  What an unexpected surprise and fun!!!!!  Kathy and I have been writing to each other for about a year and half or more as she worked on her book proposal, then manuscript, now marketing the book, and it was such a joy to finally meet her!  She is teaching at NQA next year, so sign up, folks!  And I PROMISE, a review of her book is coming, too!

L to R: Sarah, Deb in KY and Marie from the Janome 6600 yahoo group

Kathryn Schmidt, author of the fun Rule-Breaking Quilts, and me (Sarah!)

I think we all look a bit WARM!  After class, Kathy and I then went to a local brew pub and had a wonderful dinner…it felt SO GOOD to (a) get off my feet and (b) have such fun company for supper before she drove the several hour drive home.  I’m thrilled they could all attend my class—THANK YOU!

I encourage students to do stitch-outs. Here is her test-sample

And some stitched leaves. She wanted to control the variables to just one thread, so it gives a really good comparison of what the different stitches can do for your applique.

Then

Another stitch out, again with notes made on the sample; that green thread is great on this peach!

Another good stitch sample, with notes on stitch length and width

At the end of the class, we pinned the samples up on the wall and all took photos so we could go home and be inspired by everyone’s work and try out more:

Student samplers and compositions

More student samplers

and more

even more tossed leaves

and the last one....

Thanks to the ladies of the class….. I had a ball, and I think they did, too!   Here’s to hoping I get to return to teach at NQA again!

Four sisters took my class!

I was SO busy going around the classroom on my first day of teaching, my Intro to Machine Quilting class, that I almost forgot to take pictures.  Fortunately these four sisters wanted a picture with me, so I grabbed my camera and asked the helpful student who took their photo to snap one for me, too.  I LOVE how they all took to the quilting–lots of great designs and work in their class samples.   And can you tell it was hot and humid in Columbus in mid-June…my hair was the frizziest, but I wasn’t the only one in the place whose hair went wild!

In that class, one student shared her BRILLIANT machine needle storage…yes, that’s a ginormous pill keeper!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that large, but it is just perfect for holding those 5-packs of needles, so I’m now on the lookout:

How to store those needle packages

Notice that Saturday is for used needles!  When done, wrap them up, tape the package shut, and the critters won’t get hurt when scavenging at the dump (and neither will the garbage guys).

Speaking of Saturday, that was my Fine Finishes class–with 24 students, which I discovered is simply too many for such a hands-on class.  Next time I’ll set a ceiling of 20 or even 18 so each student gets more of my time.  I really liked this student’s sample using a striped cording on the inside, then a stitched-down strip (the print), then a very skinny bias binding on the outside.  I really like the thin-thick-thin look!

Here’s the back, where she used a VERY wide binding which will cover all the previous lines of stitching…cool beans (to quote my teenager!):

Nicely mitered on the back, too!  The other side of her sample shows the couched yarn edge-finish!

I DID take more photos during my Decorative Stitch Applique class, so that’s up next!