Time to Play At Last

I was lucky to have the time last week to join the workshop taught by Lesley Riley here at the inn. Who knew roofing material could be such fun! I'm talking about Lutradur a synthetic fabric-like material that can be painted, stitched, stamped, cut, burned, heated, and transferred onto.

Here is the mixed media book that I started in the class. Still a lot to do to finish it, but it was great playing with the image transfers and the Lutradur. I'm definitely going to have get me some more of that stuff!



I also finished hanging/setting up the exhibit we're having at the inn of work by the Califoria Fiber Artists. I have posted pics of exhibit on our inn blog. So check it out.

Fiber Art / Quilt Art Workshops for 2009

I must be on a website update roll. I just finished updating our website for the Hudson River Valley Art Quilt Workshops with all of the information about our 2009 workshops.

Two down, two more to go.

Finally Some Web Progress

I'm finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I have uploaded my updated website and now have pictures of my newer work and also more importantly, information about the workshop I am teaching this year!

I still have to do some more tweaking and update the "What's New" page (I don't know why I left that for the last, but I did.)

We are between workshops today and the sun is shining. It looks like a beautiful day to work in the garden, and since I just repaired the garden cart I should start doing some much needed trimming, but my back is hurting like crazy. So maybe I'll use that as an excuse to spend this glorious day in my studio!

Still Laboring on My Site

It is an endless process managing a website. Just when you think you're nearing the end you discover that there are updates to be made on your updates.

Today I worked on updating/creating the second level gallery pages. I added small image versions of all the new work (or older work that I finally had photographs of). While in the midst of this I realized that I needed to update my art catalog datebase with all of the new work so I would then have the detail at hand to update the website, with things such as size and price. So now I have to tackle that project.

Next I'll have to create the detail pages for all of the images. This is the page that shows a large version of the image and other information about the specific work. Gads, I could spend weeks on this.

So I've had no time in my studio lately, which make me long for winter. Here's picture of what I'm talkin' about!



I'm going to have to do a winter quilt one of these days. I'll have to start collecting white/grey fabrics.

So to keep myself from going innsane (not a mispelling ;-) I've been knitting (mostly socks) during the few short moments when I can keep my eyes open before going to bed.

I know this not exactly exciting blog commentary but it's all I've got for the moment.

Web Revision

I've given up. I started a whole new design for my Crazy By Design website but have decided that given the amount of free time I have (like none), it was just going to take way to long. My poor website is already woefully out of date (the danger of blogs - the website gets neglected!). So I have been working on sorting through all of the pictures I have and making a list of what I need to add to my existing website. The sorting of digital pictures is done. Now I just have to ready them for web publishing.

I was going to hire out my website redesign, but discovered that it just wasn't in the budget at the moment. But I would definitely recommend it if you can afford it, even if for the only reason that it could save you a lot of aggravation!

I have finally started quilting the landscape that I have been working on, but I doubt I'll get much time in the near future to work on it. We are starting in the season when we have workshop, after workshop. Not that I'm complaining about that, because I love this life, but one does yearn for a bit of time for one's self now and then.

I'm also itching to do some more work on the pieces I started in the Nancy Crow workshop. Sigh. I long for snow, which of course will mean that it is finally winter and I'll have time to spend quilting.

You know it seems like I'm always saying that I don't have enough time. I think that is what should be put on my headstone - "She didn't have enough time." LOL! So true, no matter how old I'll be.

Masters - Art Quilts

I just spent several happy hours curled up with a treasure trove of inspiration. The new book, Masters, Art Quilts by Martha Sielman published by Lark Books is most definitely worth getting for your library.



The thing I like the most about it is that rather than the usual one or two images per artist, this book has multiple pages full of work by each of the 40 artists highlighted in this book. Being able to see this range of work really gives you a much more thorough glimpse into the artist's voice. Each section includes insights from the artist. The insights touch upon their process or their inspirations.

I enjoyed seeing the familiar and the new. Many of the artists I already knew about (some I've taken workshops with or I have hired them to teach workshops for the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops), but there were also many artists who's names I'd heard of, but have never before seen their work or some that I'd not heard of.

It is a wonderful chronicle of some of the most talented artists working in fiber today. I hope that this chronicle continues in more volumes of this book. It would make an excellent encyclopedia of fiber art. I immediately decided to buy a duplicate of this book to put in the inn library because I didn't want to let go of my personal copy! I'll also be adding it to the stock of mini fiber art supply store at the inn. It is that good.

The artists included in this book are:

Jane Sassaman
Michael A Cummings
Ita Ziv
Cher Cartwright
Noriko Endo
Deidre Scherer
Carolyn L Mazloomi
Hollis Chatelain
Linda Colsh
Charlotte Yde
Joan Schultze
Judith Content
Kyoung Ae Cho
Jette Clover
Eszter Bornemisza
Pauline Burbidge
Yvonne Porcella
M Joan Lintault
Katie Pasquini Masopust
Nancy N Erickson
Susan Shie
Caryl Bryer Fallert
Jeanette Gilks
Jane Burch Cochran
Pamela Allen
Therese May
John W Lefelhocz
Miriam Nathan-Roberts
Jenny Hearn
Terrie Hancock Mangat
Wendy Huhn
BJ Adams
Inge Mardal & Steen Hougs
Chiaki Dosho
Inge Hueber
Michael James
Velda E Newman
Anne Woringer
Clare Plug
Elizabeth Brimelow

Last Nancy Crow Workshop Project

Since my floor is now clear, I was able to get a quick picture of the last exercise project that I did during the Nancy Crow Workshop.

This is the "mother" of stack and whack. ;-) It is fun to do because you never know what you are going to get and can create endless combinations of color.

I created 6 units because I used 3 colors of fabrics. I was running out of time at the end so I just grabbed 4 units and sewed them together. So I didn't have the time to figure out which units I liked best together. This means that this combination could change completely before I'm done with it. I'm also toying with the idea of just using a component of the composition surrounded by some other unit. Who knows. It is on my design wall and is next in line to work on after I finish the townscape I started this past winter.



Here is a close up of one of the units.



For comparision, here is the piece that I created from the same exercise in the Nancy Crow class that I took in 1998. In the 1998 class, she had us do the exercise first in black and white and then in color (I never made it to the color version). It's called Forest Vortex and is currently hanging in one of our guest rooms. The border is creating with a free form crazy quilt-like piecing method that I learned from Diane Leone (former owner of the Quilting Bee in Mountain View, California). Then I added appliqued leaves swirling to the center of the piece because it looked like a vortex!



Paige asked how I learned to piece the pieces that I created in Nancy's class. Well, it is probably a combination of experience from multiple workshops and classes. It was very useful to have the sewing classes in high school, for example, because I learned how to do inset seams, how to handle the fabric going around curves, and other clothing construction methods (this is useful knowledge for knitting, too). I also took a traditional sampler workshop many years back. The instructor made us promise to piece at least one of the blocks entirely by hand. This really gave you a close look at the seams and how they fit together. The book we used in that workshop is by Diane Leone and I think it is just called The New Sampler Quilt.

I'm sure that in the first Nancy Crow workshop, she gave us pointers on piecing the irregular shapes and curved pieces, but I can't remember for sure, I just know that I learned it somewhere.

I finished one other piece on my day in the studio. The title is The Collection. I'm going to frame it in a shadow box frame, which is why I have not done any finished of the edges. I've been wanting to try a shadow box frame from my work and this is a good excuse to order one now. I'm going to try a frame from the American Frame company. I recently order a frame from them to replace one of our room mirror frames and I was very happy with the quality of the frame. I'll post a picture when it is done.

I used some silk cocoons, mulberry bark, and silk rods from a multimedia pack from Stef Francis that I bought at Friends Fiber Art shop in Lowell, MA




That's it for a day well spent! Ah, I feel much better now.

In the Studio At Last

It's been more than a month, but finally I made into my studio to do more than just look at the fabric and sigh.

I was faced with the choice of clean up this mess or just shove the stuff aside on my sewing desk to give myself enough space to finish off something creative.



Well, I didn't have to think long on that one!

So I finished the piped facing for the collage piece that was a result of a workshop with Rosemary Eichorn.

I'm calling it "Inheritance" (which is in reference to the saying that the meek will inherit the earth).

It was certainly a fun process, but already I can see things that I would have liked to to differently, but then again that is what workshops are for! Experiment, practice, learn. If you're lucky you end up with something you really like.




I really like the way the piped facing looks on Rosemary's work, but I don't know if I'll use it again myself. It was a bit too fussy for me -- probably because it was the first time I tried it!

So having satisfied my creative hunger. My next task was to put my studio in order so that I could find my floor once again and make it to the fabric shelves without tripping on something. By condensing the fabric into taller stacks, I was able to make room for all of the solid color fabric that I got for the Nancy Crow workshop.



It only took two shelves. Wow, it seemed like a whole lot more when I was lugging it around in the suitcase and bins.



I also finished another piece and took pictures of the final exercise that I did in Nancy's workshop. You'll have wait to see those because now I need to set up the new iMac we got for the office. Our office assistant has been waiting patiently for it for over a month.

Still Under Water

That's just figuratively, not literally! My studio has still not been put back together after my return from the Nancy Crow workshop. But I've told myself that I just need to go in there and put just one or two things away each day and it will be finished in no time. Well, I'm still working on it.

As soon as I can see my floor again, I have to x out a day on my calendar, go into my studio and refuse to come out! I'm hoping to get some time during the July 4th weekend.

How Do You Piece That Thing?!

Someone asked how I managed to piece the 30-color abstract that I did on day 4. Well, the answer is I'm still working on it!

The way that I am approaching it is to first piece the easy stuff - those pieces that can go together with relatively straight seams to create a "unit" that can then potential be later sewn to the unit next to it.

In the picture below I have circled two of the units that I have assembled this way. I haven't sewn the two units together yet because I'm still working out the sequence. You need to figure out in advance how you are going to fit all the units together so that you don't box yourself into a corner. And even if you do, you can always resort to applique, by I'm going to try to avoid that. It is also a good bet that the look of the piece may change slightly during the construction because I might change a shape to make it easier to piece or I might add another shape somewhere for the same reason. That is why Nancy calls this improvisation - just wing it as you go along.



But as much as I long for a bolt of fusible at this point, I am going to try to piece the whole thing together, as that is part of this project and a major part of the challenge.

It's definitely not going to be easy.

This is probably the part when I should have been asking Nancy for help. She had asked me why I hardly ever asked for help during the class. I didn't know what to say. I know I have a hard time asking for help even when I desperately need it. Probably has to do with some shyness/self-worth issue. (Did you know that in kindergarten I was forced to go up to the teacher and whisper good morning to her in her ear because I wouldn't say it out loud with the class? Good grief, what was that about. ;-) Don't worry, I can now say good morning with the rest of them!

I was hoping to get in my studio this week but we are having a bit of a heat wave here in Greenville and my studio has no air conditioning, so I am procrastinating. Maybe if I can find a small fan . . .

Last Day at the Crow Barn

Wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I'm confused. Well, just a little disclaimer - I may be mistaken about which day some of these projects began and ended. I just looked at the pictures I have for day 5 and realized that is is quite possible that some of them actually occurred on day 4. In any case, the pace was grueling.

So on the second half of day 4 we started to make fabrics composed of solids, solids and prints (stripes and plaids). We were suppose to have 5 light values, 5 middle values, and 5 dark values.

It actually takes longer than you think to sew strips together, especially when each strip is 40-plus inches long! I only had time to put together the lights, 4 middle values and 3 dark values. Below is a pic of some of these composed fabrics.



Here is some more.



Then on the dawn of day 5 we were instructed to cut up our created fabrics to create a design that featured a repeated unit. This project was the most fun for me. Maybe it was because this was something familiar, as we had done a similar project in the first workshop I took with Nancy. Maybe it was because I finally got to use some bright non-solid fabrics! (Oh, by the way, Nancy has a wonderful fun selection of fabrics in her own mini fabric shop at the barn. Lots of great prints and patterns. I did my share of shopping here!)

I created the design by pinning the units first on the design wall and then came the tricky part of putting it together without having to resort to inset seams -- I only had to do one. Whew. I think this is my favorite of all the work I did in the workshop.



The final project was, I think, the very first "stack n wack" technique, or at least I had done it in the first Crow workshop way before all the Stack n Whack books came out -- by at least 3 or 4 years. You stack four large squares (like 24" squares) and cut a certain number of lines and shapes through the four layers, then reassemble them using the different contrasting fabrics. I used 3 fabrics and cut through 6 layers. (No matter how many times I told myself to keep it simple, I refused to listen. Boy, I'm stubborn. ;-) Anyway this project is a lot of fun, too. Nancy said she saved this project for last just because it was so easy and fun.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this final piece! Probably because I was racing like a fiend to get it finished before the deadline. I barely made it. I'll post a picture later this week once I clear a path through my studio so that I can get a good shot of my design wall. I'll talk about it more once I have the picture up so that you can see what I'm talking about.

The final part of the workshop was the grand "gallery showing." Each of us had to take turns hanging up all of the work we created during the entire workshop and then giving a short (3 minute) presentation about what we got out of the workshop and what we thought of each of our pieces. Everyone was encourage to take photos during these presentations as a reference. It was quite amazing to see the body of work that each person created.

Unfortunately the person who I asked to take a picture of me in front of my gallery of work did not get the whole wall of work. I guess she thought it was better to get a closer shot of me. (Looking rumpled, of course.)




So, what was the final analysis of the workshop: I loved it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Yes, it was grueling. Yes, there were times when I thought I was crazy for doing it and working until I was exhausted (I do that at home already. I don't want to do it on my time off). But I do think I will continue to use what I learned. I do think that I final get some of the concepts that Nancy is trying to teach, and if I took a workshop from her again, I'd learn even more.

I think you just have to be prepared for hard work in Nancy's class. It is not a "fluffy" class. As she says, it is a graduate level workshop and you have to be there because you want to give it your all. You have to be prepared for the deadlines and the 12 hour work days. Of course, all of this is really self-imposed because not once did Nancy threaten to kick someone out for not completing a project! But to me, even though I desperately needed time to relax, I couldn't not try to push myself to keep up with the pace. I get the chance to take very few workshops, so I was going to get the most I possibly could out of this one, and that meant keeping up with the projects. But my words of advice -- keep it simple! I'll try to remember this myself next time.

Regarding the supply list - of course, I didn't use all 100 yards of fabric, but having that range of choice made creating the compositions much easier than they would have if I had had a much more limited palette. Also I now have the fabric to continue playing with the lessons we learns. Most important -- bring lots and lots of black and white fabric. I'd bring twice what Nancy suggests. Many people ran out of what they brought.

Some people used polaroids of their work in progress to help them with their designs, but I never looked at my digital pictures after taking them. So leave the dated camera or printer at home, but take lots of digital pictures so remembering the processes later on when you get home.

With all that piecing I thought for sure that I would be going through spool after spool of thread, but I only used up one large spool of Star thread and I used it in both the bobbin and on top. It is good to have lots of bobbins so that you can prewind a whole batch of them in the beginning and don't have to stop midway in a project to wind bobbins.

I took extra rotary cutter blades, but never changed the one I started with. Maybe because I'm too use to using the blades until they are really annoying instead of just starting to be annoying.

I don't think there was anything that I wish I had remembered to bring. I followed the supply list (except for the polaroid/printer) and used everything.

I enjoyed spending the week with like-minded women. It was fabulous to see the wide variety of work that was created. I tend to be very quiet in group settings, but I loved listening and watching.

Nancy, John, Nathan, and Margaret were wonderful hosts.

I definitely recommend taking workshop retreats where you get away from your every day life and immerse yourself in the creative process and the community of artists. I'll be waiting for my next opportunity!

Day Four at the Crow Barn

Ok, so I finally have a moment to blog to my hearts content! We had a full house at the inn yesterday which meant I was making 30 breakfasts this morning.

But back to the regularly scheduled program . . .

Day three ended with the critique and since the critique didn't hurt (I had heard that Nancy was quite strong with her opinions), I retired to my hotel room exhausted but anxious for the next day.

The assignment for day four was to create a composition in black and white using squares, rectangles, triangles, and lines in various sizes. The size was to be relatively small. You were suppose to just pin something up on your wall and then sew it together quickly. Nancy "encouraged" us by saying, "the Japanese students had the design created and sewed together in less than 2 hours."

No one in our class came close to completing something that fast!

This is what I came up with.



I'm still seeing very architectural elements in everything I've created so far! (My Dad was an architect, so maybe I have a repressed desire to follow in his footsteps. At the very least I know that I am very much my father's daughter.)

This simple little desire was quite the bear to sew together. I was still working to finish it when the next assignment was given in the afternoon. But I wasn't too far behind, so wasn't worried.

But then came the next assignment . . .

We were to recreate that black and white design but with a few little twists: it had to be MUCH larger, instead of black and white it had to use 30+ colors, and all of the shapes had to be "whobberjawed". (Whobberjawed is roughly translated to mean "Wonky" or "Larger, Twisted, Bent, and Generally Skewed".) Again, Nancy mentioned the speed of those Japanese women!

This is the assignment that caused the most teeth-gnashing, hair-tearing, and the desire to sit in a corner and cry. (Ok, I'm exaggerating about the crying, but not by much!) I think I must have put up a design on my wall and taken it down about 5 times. At one point, when Nancy came by to see if I needed any help, I looked at my composition on the wall and pointed to one piece of fabric in it and said "that's the only part I like." And then I took everything down off the wall except for that one piece.

The really hard part was the whobberjawing because you also had to maintain the design elements of the original black and white piece so that when they were put side-by-side anyone could easily see how one was abstracted from the other.

Many people commented that another difficult part was using 30 colors. This wasn't too much of a problem with me because this time I had come with enough solid colored fabrics to have a choice. It was a little tricky to keep the dark/light contrast that the original black and white piece had in the color version, though.

So, drum roll please . . .

There it is - pinned on the wall. If you're wondering which was the one piece I had liked and kept from my previous design, it is the orange and the blue piece in the upper left corner. It is still my favorite part.



I think at this point I had just started to sew it together. Gads, I think I must have paused to stare at the thing so many times just trying to figure out how in the world I was going to piece this thing together. Where was some fusible when you needed it!

Nancy is very opposed to fusibles because they are not archival. I hear you, Nancy, and while I do love piecing and will continue to do a lot of it in my work, there are times when a fusible will make things so much easier! I can definitely see the value of using a fusible to create design studies, so that you can knock out several designs quickly to find the one that works best and then maybe recreating the best one in a pieced design.

In any case, I wouldn't have dared bring a fusible into the barn! So I struggled and struggled to get this beast pieced together. At 9:45pm I gave up. I too worn out to think straight, let alone sew straight. (The next morning, I heard that a number of classmates had begged to stay past the 10:00pm barn closing and were there until 11 - 12 pm.)

I got back to my hotel to find the front door locked. Obviously I was out after curfew! Luckily, an employee who was just driving out of the parking lot saw me at the door and stopped to let me in.

I fell into bed, had my champagne and piece of chocolate, reviewed the millions of emails that my husband sent to me about a million little things and tried to reply, only to have the emails sit in my outbox because the internet connection was too slow. Very frustrating.

Too tired to even knit. I'd definitely need a double shot latte then next morning.

And Now For a Brief Intermission

Ok, Ok. I know I promised to not take so long between posts, but I have a life you know. ;-) LOL! Actually it has been so hectic and crazy at the inn with the workshops and the chocolate that I haven't been in my studio to even put away the fabric that I took to the workshop in the past 3 weeks. So actually I don't have a life outside of our businesses at the moment. However, relief is in sight. We have no workshops all next week, so I should have no problem finishing off the Nancy Crow workshop story.

In the meantime here is my intermission photos!

The Irises are in the garden at Olana, the home of Frederick Church, who was one of the Hudson River School Painters of the early 1900's.



This is the woods above the Katerskill Falls, which was one of the favorite painting sites of the Hudson River School painters.



I get to visit these places when I deliver lunches to the painting workshop groups. So, while I'm working hard and putting in an at least 16 hour days, I at least get to see some inspiration for future fiber art!

Day Three at the Crow Barn

I was raring to go on the second day of class because I was so happy to have kept up with the projects -- and I had found a Starbucks close to the hotel for my morning latte!

So that day started out like the first one, the assignment was posted on the wall, we all copied it down, Nancy explained it, and away we went.

Today's assignment was to use the fabrics we created yesterday afternoon to create two compositions. One of them was to be big, bold, and dramatic! The other was to be small and intensely busy.

I thought that this was going to be a piece of cake because this time I remembered to create strip-pieced fabrics that had "lines" (thin strips) on the outer edges. Wrong!

This is where the gnashing of teeth and hair tearing started. I started with the big and bold design because in order to be dramatic, I'd need large pieces of solid color and if I started to cut them up for a small busy piece, I may not have the right thing for the larger piece.

I think I must have pinned a design on the wall and then taken it completely apart at least 3 times. I was really wishing for that flannel sheet for the wall now. And even though Nancy thought my color choices were fantastic, the same could not be said about my design! Arrgh. The time went by so quickly. We had to have the two compositions completely sewn together by 9:00am the next morning because then we'd have a critique.

I finally settled on a design that I liked reasonably well and set to sew it together. Hmm . . not as easy as I thought, but I just tackled it bit by bit until I had it done. Whew.

But then, egads, now I had to create the small busy piece and I was running out of time. So I threw something together and hoped it would do. I think I left the barn at 9:00pm that night. (The Shaw Inn locks their door at 9:30pm so I had to get back before that.)

So here are the two pieces I ended up with. I do like the large one but the small one you can tell was just thrown together.



One of the questions we had to answer during the critique was if we were satisfied with the composition of the small piece or was it something that we just threw together to get it done! Obviously, I was not the only one who had problems with time.

For the critique we all moved around the room to each person's work area where that person had to stand by their work and be photographed (Nancy encouraged everyone to take pictures of the work of everyone else for reference -- but NOT for posting on blogs). Then the person had to answer the questions that Nancy posed in an articulate and thoughtful manner! I don't remember the specific questions but they were generally about explaining how we met the assignment requirements and how we interpreted them. I'm not sure I was too articulate, but I survived it. ;-)

I was happy to head back down the driveway to the inn at the end of the day. Ready to fall into bed.

Addendum to Day Two

Yes, indeed, anonymous commenter, there was much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair but that was yet to come! Day Two had only a bit of eye rolling and sighing as I tried to create a connected composition with fabric that had mostly lines in between shapes. I'll know better next time -- I hope!

As I said, I left the barn at 8:30pm, which was a lot earlier that others. I was relieved to have actually kept up with the assignments at that point. The first class I took with Nancy I had to leave and go home each day at 5:00pm because I had taken the class locally and had my family to contend with in the evenings. So I got so far behind in the assignments that I don't even want to think about it. So this time I just put my head down and focused on getting it done!

I was so happy to have a good selection of fabrics, the appropriate solids, to choose from so that I didn't have to spend time agonizing over making the wrong fabrics work together!

And since I am writer who agonizes over saying the right thing, I am going to spead out the blogging about the workshop over several days. ;-) But I won't let it go for weeks this time.

Day Two at the Crow Barn

I'm doing two posts on the same day because I know some of you want to get down to what actually happened in the workshop!

But first a word about the environment of the Crow property. The minute I arrived at the property I knew that I would enjoying being there just for the magnificence of the property. First off I love old barns but they were surrounded by flowering trees and shrubs. Every morning as I walked from my car to the barn studio I would take deep breaths of the heavenly scents of the lilacs.



And I loved the whimsical sculptures created by Nancy's husband, John, that could be found throughout the property. I'd love to show more pictures, but Nancy is very opposed to photos taken of her workshop to be posted on blogs and I'm not sure how far this extends - whether includes photos of her property or not. So I'll mostly be showing only photos of my own work. But I took lots of pictures! ;-)

So class started promptly at 9:00am and the first assignment was put on the wall. We all feverishly copied down the instructions because once they were removed from the wall, they would not be put back up! Then Nancy explained the assignment and sent us off to our workstations.

The first assignment was to work with just black fabric and white fabric. We had to choose one color to be the "Lines" and one color to be the "Shapes". We cut the fabric in the strips of various widths and then sewed them together in different configurations to create new fabric. Then we had to cut up this resulting fabric into units and create an interested composition featuring the lines.

This is my result still in the design stage. (Note: I should have paid attention the suggestion to bring a batting sheet or flannel to put on the design wall. I was forever pinning and unpinning pieces to the wall. Of course, the design walls were wonderfully pinnable anyway.)



I struggled with the design until Nancy stopped by to explain that to make the lines into a composition, they needed to connect in someway. Duh, I think I finally got it.
Below is my finished piece. I'm not sure I like it -- it looks like a floor plan to me, but it at least looks like a composition. I think I needed to have more "Lines" on the edges of my made fabrics to make the composition come together. I had trouble getting the lines to connect.

We did a similar exercise in the first workshop I took with Nancy. I don't have a picture and don't know where it is (I might still have it), but believe me the result in this 2008 workshop is much better!



It is an interesting exercise and I'm anxious to try it again at home (maybe in the winter!)

That was the morning assignment. After lunch (also made wonderfully by Margaret), we were given the afternoon/evening assignment.

The second assignment was to choose two solid color fabrics and create new fabrics in the same manner as the Black and White assignment, but this time we would do two sets of created fabrics - one using color A as the lines and one using color A as the shapes. We were suppose to pick one "favorite" outstanding color and then a contrasting color. I choose a brilliant blue and a soft brown.



Nancy stayed in the studio in the afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00, but then left us to our own devices in the studio until they kicked everyone out at 10:00pm. (Dinner is served at 6:00pm and of course, can't forget snack time at 3:00.)

Sewing strips of fabric together may not seem like a lot of work but everyone was cutting and sewing like crazy and still it took all evening and then some to get everything done. The strips are all cut selvage to selvage, so these are lots of long seams. We had to have all of our made fabrics complete because the next morning we'd be getting the assignment that would use these fabrics. I think I left at 8:30pm that evening feeling very tired.

Still, when I got back to my room at the Shaw, I broke out my bottle of Mumm DVX Champagne and popped that cork. A glass of champagne and a nice piece of chocolate. What a great way to end the day.

Day One at the Crow Barn

I'm finally getting moment to blog about my experience at the Nancy Crow workshop! I was reminded to hurry up by an Anonymous reader (and you know who you are. ;-) because people are waiting! I know my mother has been bugging me about it.

Anyway, my plans to blog daily were very quickly thrown out the window due to the bad internet connection at the hotel, but more importantly by the fact that I was too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything other than read and respond to the millions of emails sent by my husband (and I thought I would be able to get away from work by driving to Ohio, right).

So what happened? Well, here's the deal:

On Sunday morning I left my comfy room at the Bedford Resort...



And drove off towards Ohio in my fabric packed car . . .



I arrive in Lancaster, OH at around 3:00pm and checked into my room at the Shaw Inn and Restaurant. While it was not quite the Bedford, it was clean and comfortable.

Next stop -- The Barn! They were well prepared for the needs of people bearing loads of fabric. There was a drive way that looped around the barn so you could pull up right next to the doorway to unload. It all went very quickly with the help of Nathan, Nancy's son, who made it look easy carrying in all the heavy stuff for me.



I was one of the last ones to arrive, but I quickly set up my studio away from home - setting my sewing machine and fabric stash in my little corner.

After set up time, the dinner bell rang and we all followed the call. A lovely dinner, created by chef Margaret Wolf, was set out buffet-style in the dining room area. With both workshops (the other workshop was taught by Fran Skiles) there was almost 40 people there.

After dinner, we were given a brief overview of the workshop plan and rules of the barn. Then one by one we stood up and introduced ourselves. There were quite a few people from New York and there was also another innkeeper! I think the furthest anyone had come was from Hawaii. It was a wonderfully deverse group of talent and professions. But what was also amazing was that two women who had been in the first Nancy Crow workshop that I took in the early 1990's in Mountain View, CA were there, too! They were both in the Fran Skiles workshop that week and were staying around for the following week for the Master's class with Nancy.

The class was to start the next morning at 9:00am sharp, so we all went home to our respective hotels to get a good nights sleep.

Off to a Nancy Crow Workshop!

I'm finally on my way to the workshop at Nancy Crow's Barn in Ohio. I am so excited about taking my first away workshop! I'll finally get to experience what everyone does when they come to our workshops.

I thought I'd never get on the road yesterday. I had not even packed anything until that morning, as we have been so busy at the inn, with the workshop, and the chocolates. Gads, it is always something!

Here is a shot of the "Fabric Beast", as Mark called it. It's all of the new solid color fabric out of the washer/dryer and waiting to be ironed. Will I get it done in time?



The answer is No. But what could I do when I ran out of time -- I just stuffed the wadded fabric into a plastic bin and loaded up the car.



Anyway, already it is marvelous to wake up this morning with no breakfast to make and no calls to answer, no bills to pay (those will come later for sure!), and no toilets to fix!

I decided to start off with an "attitude adjustment" by staying my first night away at a posh resort in Bedford, PA - the Bedford Springs Resort. I hadn't actually planned to do this, but I had had no time to make reservations for a place mid-way between home and Ohio. Also because I had no idea where I'd be when I was ready to stop for the night because I had no idea when I'd actually get on the road yesterday morning. Plus I had some stops at some stores a long the way to drop off some chocolate samples.

So at 7:00pm yesterday, when I had had enough driving I told myself that the next town I came to that had reasonable sounding lodging advertised along the highway, I'd stop. So I came to Bedford and there were several lodging possibilities, but I also noticed a sign for Bedford Springs Resort - "history restored". Sounded like an interesting place to check out. So I followed the signs and discovered this huge posh resort out of the pages of the elegant past!


I was not exactly elegant looking after 7 hours on the road, especially with a car packed to the gills with wads of unironed fabric. But I put on a brave face and left my car with the valet and went into the check-in desk. I only flinched a bit when the nightly rate was quoted -- I figured, what the heck, I really deserve and need this break/holiday and it would be my Mother's Day treat! So I said just give me a room on the low end of the rate scale!

So this is my "low end" room! I think I've died and gone to heaven. I think I danced around the room in glee for at least a couple of minutes.



It was late already so no time or desire for a regular dinner (not to mention that I had nothing suitable for wearing in the high class resort dining room), so I ordered a cheese plate thru room service. Lovely.



Then I thought of Sherry B, who was a student at one of our workshops last year. Every day after the workshop was done, she ordered a glass of champagne and sat on the porch to relax before dinner. So decadent, so deserving, and what a great way to treat yourself. I remembered making a vow that if I ever got the opportunity to go away to a workshop, that that is exactly what I would do! So here's to you Sherry!

Winter Leaves

Here is my latest creation. It is called Winter Leaves. I made it for the NY SAQA trunk show and for the SAQA auction that will be held later this year. It is 12" square.



I have a companion piece started but it may be a while before I get to work on it. I've be distracted with other things.

For the first time I got to join in the fun at one of our workshops. The instructor was Rosemary Eichorn, who I have always wanted to take a workshop from and never had the chance even though I use to live not that far from her in California. We collaged and played with tyvek, expanding paints, melting felt with a heat gun, and other cool stuff - like painting and melting potato chip bags!

Rosemary also showed us how to add piping on the edge and a facing finished border. Nice. I'm not quite finished with the piece that I created and as usual I'm not quite sure if I like at this moment. I think it needs something still.

Then the other distracting, but exciting news is that I am finally going to get to escape to a workshop myself! We had a free week in May and so I looking around the web just to see if perhaps a workshop that I'd like to take happened to be during that week and I found one -- Improvisations with Nancy Crow at her barn in OH! Yipeee! The class was full, but I put my name on the waiting list and crossed my fingers.

In the beginning of April I got an email from The Barn saying that the class was still full and would I like a refund of my deposit or did I want to wait and see if they got a last minute cancellation. What the heck, I told them to let it ride. So 2 weeks ago I got the good news! I got in! But now I had to face the reality of the infamous Supply List.

The first thing I did was post a query to the QuiltArt list about which was the best online fabric shop for quick and cheap stash building. The QuiltArt folk know everything! But, wow, I was totally overwhemed. Not only did I get a great bunch of suggestions for online shops, but a number of generous women actually sent me some fabric from their personal stash. Nancy Hinds, Sue Hill, Diane Pigg, Pam Morris -- Thank you so much! You're my heros.

The issue of course is that Nancy requires solid color fabrics and I rarely get such a thing. Below you see the entire extent of my solid fabric collection. I have some "near solids" but I know that Nancy frowns on that. Oh well, I'm taking my "non-solids" anyway, but I did just put in an order for some of the Kona solids. (I got mixed reviews on the quality of Kona solids, but as they were also the cheapest, I decided to get them anyway, as one person on quiltart wisely said, I'll be using them for class work and if they are cheap I won't be afraid to use them!)



I'll be taking my laptop with me to the workshop and hopefully won't be too exhausted to post my progress.

A Neater Studio - For the Moment!

My studio is neat and organized -- or at least for the moment. I thought I better snap a few pictures before everything goes to heck again.

All my fabric is neatly arranged and I can easily see that I need more lights and darks!



In this pictures you can see the new Elfa drawer units that I bought. Lots more storage and I can finally have all of my threads and UFOs in easy reach. (You can also see that the clutter is starting to collect again!)



And speaking of UFOs, I'm finally finishing this Crazy By Design sign that I started when I was in California and selling my work at art festivals. I wanted to create a booth sign and thought it would be nice to have an art quilt sign rather than a painted or printed sign.



I have it bound but will now add a finishing touch of beads around the color patches under the C and the D.

This past Saturday I also worked on a landscape/townscape that I'm creating in hopes of entering it in some big show. I've already missed the deadline for the exhibit that I originally intended it for (this is starting to be my new MO) and the next is fast approaching and I have yet to start the quilting. If I miss all the deadlines I'll have to post pictures here. I hate not be able to post pictures just because some venues will only accept work that has been totally hidden from view. What if the piece you enter doesn't make it in the exhibit? Then you've had to keep something your proud of hidden away (like hiding your feelings) and by the time you can bring it out into the light, you are already onto the next several projects and the elation of finishing it is long gone. Oh, well. I have no time to worry about this at the moment.

I have also been working on a redesign of my website: www.CrazyByDesign.com. It is way over due. I had been hoping to hire a web designer to do this, but after getting several estimates, I had to accept that it just wasn't in my budget for now. So I am going through the labor intensive process of doing the thing myself. I know that the prices that professional web designers charge is worth every penny because it requires lot of work and knowledge and graphic design abilities. Unfortunately, I more time than pennies and even the time is in pitiful supply. I designed my current site and I'm hoping to get the new version up in the next couple of weeks.

I still have had only minimal time in my studio because it seems like I'm working around the clock on not only our workshop and inn business, but now it is Life By Chocolate. I am glad of the business, but exhausted by the end of the day (if not sooner).

In my studio I am currently working on a piece that I will hopefully have ready to enter into one of the Quilts, Inc exhibits but because of their strict rules, I can't show you progress pictures! But picture this -- because my studio is small and has no large table space, I'm having to use my floor space (all of about 4 x 6 feet) as my design area. I sit on the floor and cut and design. I'm under the ironing board, so when I have to iron a piece, I must scoot out from under the board, then slowly scramble to my feet, trying not to step on the design, the scissors, or rotary cutter (closed, of course!). I'm making progress, but slowly!

I have finished another knitting project - a wonderfully fuzzy and soft sweater made from Dakota yarn by Tahki. The pattern is from Knitting Pure and Simple. Knitting I have time to do because I can do a little bit each day right before my eyes refuse to stay open any longer while sitting in bed with the dogs playing like wild banshees all around me. (Focuses the concentration to have to work in these conditions and not drop stitches! LOL.)




I'm standing in front of our Valentines chocolates display at the inn. We now have our chocolates in 3 local co-op or health food stores, so it is going fast, but there is still some there for the last minute Valentines gift or the "oh, no I forgot to get anything for you for Valentines" gift after the fact.

We had a tiny ice storm the other day which dressed the shrubs and trees in the most wonderfully glistening glaze.




We are lucky to be on roads that are kept very clear of ice and snow, which is why I can still be in love with the winter! Although, there hasn't really been much of anything to keep clear of. There is currently just a minimal dusting of snow and the sunny is shining this morning. The weather report is predicting snow this afternoon, but we'll have to wait and see. We are in an area that these storms somehow shift away from at the last minute.

Well, better finish up with the blogging and get to work this a.m. I have chocolate bars to wrap for a new order, and Mark just created a new variety of chocolate bar and needs a new wrapper designed.

My First Solo Exhibit

Yesterday we hung my first solo exhibit! It is really gratifying to see a selection of your work all hung together, especially at times when you are feeling like you haven't done anything worth while it such a long time. LOL.

The exhibit is at the Massry Residence, 180 Washington Ave Extension, Albany, New York. I am the featured artist on their lobby wall for the months of February and March. I was invited after a student at one of our workshops recommended me to the director at the residence.





I'm looking a little disheveled because we drove up to Albany as a "nice" little ice storm was just picking up steam and so I was dressed for mushy weather and the result was some wonderful hoodie hair!






Other exciting news is that our online store for Life By Chocolate is live! Check out the chocolate bars that feature images of some of my quilts.