Watercolor Class Part II

Now I remember why I hated art class when I was in school.  I can't even remember that last class I took whether it was in Jr High or High School.  I just remember how inept I felt and knew that art was not an option for me.  Science was my thing.  I liked it and I was good at it! But I was inspired to try my hand at watercolors by Jane La Fazio.  I want to learn what she does - journal sketching.  If you want to get inspired too, check out her blog.

Before I share my misery with class #2, I want to show what I did for homework from week #1.  We were supposed to practice painting our marbles, spheres, balls - whatever you want to call them.  Now I know those that teach art and have learned art the traditional way are tsking about my attitude. I am sorry and I apologize, but ... this may be the reason that so many of us are turned off to drawing and painting when we are kids, and I do understand about learning the fundamentals.

After doing the exercises, I sat on my quaint porch in the lushly planted courtyard here in Key West and decided to try my hand at some leaves. 

I know they are not the greatest, but they are not bad for someone having taken one class. 

 But what's the most important thing, is that I actually had FUN.

 It was enjoyable and relaxing and the time flew by.

Now to this week's class - a monochromatic view of an apple and a pear.  Oy!

 One thing that I found very interesting was a warm up that involved painting more marbles. 

 It's just like when we sit down to quilt and do a little practice sandwich first.

This was not fun for me.

I didn't understand this week's homework assignment.  So I think I will try my hand at more leaves, or maybe a Key West house or two.

First Scrappy Quilt of 2013

 

You may have gotten a peak of this quilt when I wrote about my Disappearing Design Wall.  

Do you remember when I cut up a bunch of my blue and white fabric with my new toy, the Accuquilt Cutter?  I saved all the 2 1/2" strips to bring to Key West for power sewing scrap quilts. In addition to the strips I had a few blocks.  They were box in box blocks.  I have always wanted to make one of these quilts, and I guess at one point I started, but I don't remember when.

 And clearly I did not get very far.

The basic construction is one large block with 2 adjacent small blocks. The unfinished size of the large blocks is 11" and the smaller size is 6".

 Since my scraps were now 2 1/2" strips, I had to modify the construction of the blocks a bit because the original one had varying width strips.

The finished quilt top measures 66" x 66".   It will have to wait to be quilted until I return to PA.

And here's a vanity shot.

I purposely chose to photograph it with a lizard, because as I was walking to my exercise class, I was scared @#%*less when I saw this creature on the sidewalk.  It was about 3 feet from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail.  It was lurking around some trash cans.

I found out later it was an iguana.

They are an invasive species and there are lots of them roaming around, hanging out in trees.  Their presence is blamed on pet owners who have released them as they grew too large.  There are several groups trying to banish them from the island with names such as "Iguanas Be Gonna".  LOL!!!

Watercolor Class

I thought it would be fun and mind expanding to take a watercolor class this Winter.  Key West is home to many painters and I just love the watercolors with local flavor. 

The local art center is called The Studios of Key West (TSKW.org). 

 It was the Key West armory, built around 1900 and is a very cool looking building.

 It's a great old building.  There are artist's studios, lots of classes and exhibits.
 There are also concerts.  It is definitely the place to be if you are interested in learning.

I decided to expand my horizons during this winter sojourn and take a watercolor class.  My instructor is a local watercolor painter named Sean Callahan.    Can you see the mirror slanted over his worktable? That's how everyone could see his demo.

 I know that my desires and expectations were high.  But I was seriously worried about my talent!

I don't know why I am sharing my first attempt.  I wanted to paint palm trees with bicycles leaning against them, and I painted marbles. 

 I am supposed to paint a weekful of marbles.  It's always about the basics!

Stay tuned.

Disappearing Design Wall

We have settled into our place In Key West.  We are staying a while, and of course I have certain projects that I need to bring with me.  I did bring lots of various cottons to make some scrappy bed quilts.  But there are a couple of more serious projects that I want to work on. My dilemma was that our place is mall and there is no place to put up a design wall and I really need that design wall.

  (Isn't it amazing how spoiled we get?)

My hubby was ready to buy some of the sheets of hard foam insulation  But the problem was, where would I put them.  I didn't want something else to trip over, because I do that a lot and I definitely did not want more clutter.  One day, I had a brainstorm and the solution was at Home Depot.  And although there aren't a lot of chain stores here in Key West, there is a Home Depot.  

This is the wall where I wanted to place my design wall.

Here's another view.

My idea was to use a "bamboo" roll-up shade! Mine cost less than $20.00 and it measured 72"x72".  

I did not have a wall that was wide enough, but it did not matter.

 It was hung with 3 hooks above the door jambs.

.  Two of the hooks were screwed into  studs. 

 The hooks were put in as high as possible because I planned on leaving them in place for next year.

 This is the plastic bamboo shade completely rolled out.

It covers part of the sidelight of our French door, but that's OK.

I covered the slats with black felt that I brought from home.  

First I tried spray adhesive, even though I find it very messy.  It held for a day or so, but then slid off in the middle of the night.  So then I hand stitched the top and bottom in place with a whip stitch around the slats. It sounds harder than it was.

 I started using my new design wall right away.  

The blocks sometimes did not stick as well as I would have liked.  So sometimes I need to use pins.
Addendum:  These blocks must have been just too heavy. 
 I have not had to pin at all when I have put smaller blocks on the wall.

At the end of the day, I can reclaim my dining area, by rolling up the shade - blocks and all.

 Until everything disappears, except for this unobtrusive white roll 

at the top of the wall near the ceiling.

 In the morning, I roll it down again so I can begin to work.

When we are done with our stay, I will remove it from the hooks in the wall 

and either take it with me or store it for next year. 

Money well spent.

Wednesday's Wanderings Contruction

I have to apologize for taking so long to post my construction technique for the Wednesday's Wanderings quilt.  Thanks to many suggestions and many trials and errors, I found a solution.  For those that are interested I changed browsers, from Internet Explorer to Firefox.  

Yay, blogging life can go on!

Back to quilting now.

  I don't tend to do things traditionally. 

 I also try to limit the amount of work I have to do to make a quilt appear precise.

So I want to share my unorthodox technique for creating my WW blocks

 and how I put them together.

If you have been following this project, you will have seen that each week I created a block.  Each week the block was constructed with batting on the back. If there was a background it was quilted through the batting prior to adding the applique.  This makes it very easy to quilt since I didn't have to quilt around the many parts of the design.  Handstitching  and embellishing were done with the batting in place also.  The batting keeps the fabric from puckering when stitching.

So the back of a block looks something like this:

or this:

I save scraps of batting that I save for small quilts.  

They are all low loft, but you can see that I used a few different types.

 Putting the rows together was the first step in assembling the quilt.

 I butted 2 blocks together, only the blocks, 

and zig zagged stitched them together with a walking foot.

And put them together a row at a time.

I placed Row #1 at the top of the backing fabric, wrong sides together.

And then butted Row #2 up to the first row. 

I pinned both rows to the backing fabric. 

 I used a lot of pins so that the backing fabric stayed flat and didn't bunch.

Then I made a fusible sashing to cover the seam between rows #1 and #2.

After I fused it down, I top stitched along the edges though all the layers.

And then I kept adding the rows to the background.

Until all the rows were added, sashed and topstitched.

Then I added the sashing strips vertically to end up with the top.

Frustrated!

There is something wrong with blogger.  This is the platform I use to do my blog posts.  It won't let me put photos in my posts.  What good are blog posts about quilting without photos???

I keep checking several times a day to see if it works now. But not yet. This morning I found out that there are others and it is not just me. 

 

I have lots to share.  The post about how I put together my Wednesday's Wanderings is written and waiting for photos.  I also have a unique solution for a temporary design wall that I can't wait to show you.  I will keep trying and will post as soon as they let me.

Wednesday's Wanderings Quilt

Here it is.  All the Wednesday's Wandering blocks sewed together into a quilt. I have not decided if I want to add borders or just bind it the way it is.  It needs to ruminate.  I would love your input.

I had to surf my blog to put the blocks into the correct chronological order. 

I was surprised that over the course of a year, I needed assistance for this, but it gave me the opportunity to reflect upon my activities and travels of 2012.

I was surprised at how much was squeezed into a year. Reviewing the highlights, it started with our sojourn in Key West, then a trip to Israel.  After purchasing my cute little blue convertible Beetle, my second book came out with a coinciding trip to the wholesale Quilt Market in Kansas City to promote it.  My first lakeside quilter's retreat was then followed by the unveiling of the chuppah and the wedding of my youngest son. Then I delivered a torah cover commission, visited Mark Lipinski and his radio show, and finally "Frosty Flakes" was published in the December issue of The Quilt Life. 

I don't think I could have squeezed much more into one year.  Looking at the blocks and reminiscing about all these events and the many others gives me such a warm feeling.  It was indeed a very good year and a very busy year.  I feel so fortunate that I have been able to elevate my love of quilting  and designing into more than just a hobby.  I have connected with so many people that looked forward to see where I went each week and how I depicted it.

I have been conflicted about whether I want to continue this weekly chronological fiber trip.  It has brought me so much joy to come up with an idea each week and then figure out how to share it.  Some weeks it was easy, other weeks it was hard.  But it was always fun.  But at this point I have some large quilts and projects that I want to work on that I need to devote a concentrated amount of time to design and develop.  So I am going to bid WW a fond farewell with melancholy in my heart.

I will continue to share my journeys both quilting and travels.  This brings me great joy to share what I know and have learned with others. In this vein, if you want to see how I put all of the blocks together, come back tomorrow. You may be surprised.