A Private Lesson and Key West Update

My trip to Denver had a Part 3, that I was really looking forward to after videoing a segment for The Quilt Show (Part 1) or visiting the Rockies (Part 2).  I had a 2 day private lesson with an amazing animal portrait quilter, Barbara Yates Beasley.

I was familiar with Barbara's art from the Internet. 

 Her quilts of dogs and other  animals are amazingly realistic.

 I would love to have a quilt like that of my girlfriend, Bailey. Barbara lives outside of Denver, so when I knew I was heading to  Denver for The Quilt Show, I thought maybe I could connect with her.  I always told my kids, "you don't know unless you ask", so I asked! I asked her if should would be willing to give me a private lesson.  She checked her calendar and we had a date.  She would provide all the fabric and the other supplies.  I just had to bring an enlarged photo of Bailey.

 I headed to Barbara's studio on Monday morning.

She has quite an organized fabric collection.  She uses small pieces so she has a big variety of many different types of cottons organized by color.

After prepping the foundation, Bailey was pinned to the design wall and the lesson began.

\Barbara starts with the most challenging parts of the animal first - the eyes and then the nose.  Wow! It already looked like her.

The Boulder area is really a hotbed of quilting.  We took a break after Day 1 and went to an exhibit at The Dairy Center.  The exhibit was to celebrate the birthday of a very well known art quilter, Judith Content.  She invited some of her quilting friends to hang quilts in the exhibit for her "birthday party".  There was quite a variety including 3 dimensional pieces.

I spent a second day with Barbara and then flew

 home kind of knowing what I was doing!

It was the perfect time in my busy schedule.  I was able to devote several more days and with a couple of e-mails and a phone call, I finished my quilt.

I think it looks exactly like Bailey and I am thrilled.

If you ever have the opportunity to take a class with Barbara and you have a pet you love, do it.  You can see lots of her pieces at

www.BarbaraYatesBeasley.com

But, if you want to commission one, she does that too!

Key West Update:

We finally heard about our place in Key West.  It's good news.  There is a lot of plant debris everywhere, but our place is in tact and there is no water damage.

Thank you to everyone who were concerned.  It is such a relief.  Key West was spared the brunt of the  storm.  My heart goes out to those who lost their homes in other parts of the Keys.