International Quilt Festival

Last week I traveled to Cincinnati for the International Quilt Festival. 
I have been really spoiled,  because for the past years this festival has been in Chicago.  Even though I traveled by myself I never felt alone.  The people were extremely friendly and at dinner time I met new people.   We talked about the classes that we took that day or the classes that we were looking forward to taking over the next couple of days.  Walking down the street people greeted you because they knew you were a fellow quilter. 

I was also fortunate enough to attend the Play "Gee's Bend".  I highly recommend if you have an opportunity to see this production.

I took two classes:  Digital Collage for Mixed Media taught by Beth Wheeler and Illustrative Quilting taught by Pam Holland. 

In Beth's class we selected a background and a cutout photo that were supplied by Beth which she printed on fabric for each student. When then embellished our printout with paint and stencils.  We also learned how to print on twill tape.  We quilted and then bind.  I still need to bind my project.

Pam's class required us to trace a drawing on fabric.  We painted the drawing with pigment inks. I added words to my drawing.  We then quilted the drawing with smoke monofilament thread.  I had such a difficult time with the monofilament thread,  it kept winding about the thread spool and breaking.  I finally completed the outline quilting of the tree.  Still need to quilt the background of the quilt.  Pam also talked about the properties of  types of thread and needles.

I highly recommend taking classes when you attend the Quilt Festival.

I Have Really Lost My Mind This Time



The Miracle is not that I finished.  The Miracle is that I had the courage to start.

 I have really lost my mind this time.  I have signed up to run a 5K in June.  I have never run a long distance in my life.  I have tried playing recreational sports in my younger days.  Now I wait until now and decide to run a race.  I have secretly wanted to run in a race and finish.  My biggest fear is that I will not be able to complete the race but I am going to try. 

I have been on a weight loss journey now for the past two years.  I have been working out religiously now for 15 months.  Now I am working on being able to run the a 5K.  There is an application for the iphone call "Couch To 5K" I and using this in addition to my workouts to get me ready for this adventure. 

I have also created a quilt to keep me inspired.   I have completed the top and now I need to quilt and bind.  I will hang this quilt in my office at work so I will know that I need to stay strong when the temptation to eat something that I know will not help my dieting.

The Quote that I will stitch in the border:  "The Miracle is not that I finished.  The Miracle is that I had the courage to start"

Quilts of Gee's Bend

Generations of African-American women living in a poor, isolated rural community in the Deep South make quilts to keep their families warm and to brighten their homes. Their quilts were “discovered,” collected, and displayed as major works of art in a traveling exhibition that took the country by storm.

The remote rural community known as Gee’s Bend occupies an area of land some five miles across and seven miles deep inside a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Alabama River. Geography has defined life in Gee’s Bend over several generations. The first African Americans to settle in the area were the slaves of John Gee, for whom the Bend is named. Cut off on three sides from the outside world by the Alabama River, a ferry operated sporadically until the 1960s. Much like an island, the community remained insulated in large measure from the forces of change. The descendants of the first people in Gee’s Bend continued on as small farmers who did well in the early 1900s when cotton prices were high. They suffered as cotton prices declined in the 1920s and fell on very hard times during the Great Depression. What nature created at the Bend, history has reinforced. Isolation is only half the story of Gee’s Bend; the other half is tradition. Because the inhabitants of Gee’s Bend were left largely to themselves for nearly 100 years after the end of the Civil War in 1865, many of the community’s traditions and folkways survived virtually unchanged well into the 20th century. Quilting is one of the most important of these traditions.

The quilts in the exhibition represent four generations of artists who took fabric from their everyday lives—corduroy, denim, cotton sheets, and well-worn clothing—and fashioned them into compositions that more closely resemble modernist abstract paintings than familiar quilt patterns. The women learned the craft from their mothers or grandmothers but the emphasis was always on individuality and innovation. Quilters made the tops by themselves and occasionally got together for the quilting. Most of the quilts in the exhibition are of the type known as piece, strip, or patchwork. As Mensie Lee Pettway, a Gee’s Bend quilter says about tradition of quilt-making, “A lot of people make quilts just for your bed, for to keep you warm, but a quilt is more. It represents safekeeping, it represents beauty, and you could say it represents family history.”

As a result of the exhibition of these quilts,  there were quilt kits sold that provided patterns for these quilts. I was given these kits as gifts.  I finally completed my first one.  The colors are not as bright as I would have liked,  but I am satisfied with the completed project.  I plan to complete the other three quilt kits this year.  I have also collected the stamps that were sold and have plans to use them a small mini quilt.  I will be attending the International Quilt festival in Cincinnati and I have bought a ticket to attend the play "Gee's Bend" while I am there next month.

Cancun

My husband and I took a trip to Cancun in February.  We had a great time.  The beaches were beautiful and the water extremely blue and the food great.   We we spent a day visiting Chichen Itza which was very enlightening.  All of the walkways at the park were covered with Indians selling  their wares.  I was looking for fabrics and was really disappointed because I did not want a tee shirt.  However,  I found two batik panels,  which I will use in wall hangings.

Another Mini Quilt

Wow,  it is March.  The first two months of the year have gone by so quickly.  Time really flies when you are having fun.  If you have been reading my blog,  I have been trying to stick to my goal of posting each week.  I have fallen a little behind,  but I am back. 

I mailed my Mini Quilt to Swap Partner.  She posted that she liked it and that was a relief.  When you enter these types of swaps you are not sure whether in other person will like your work or the theme.  I am now waiting for my mini quilt from another partner.  The deadline was yesterday for mailing and the most annoying part about being in the Swap is that people do not deliver within the timeframe that is established.  Oh, well!!

While completing the mini quilt for the swap  completed another mini quilt from the artwork of my daughter.  It is fun finding treasures from your childrens work that can be used in your hobby.  I am pleased with how this one turned out.  I screenprinted the drawing on the fabric. 

While I working on one project I am also thinking about another project and tearing up my workspace with fabrics, buttons and books.  It looks like a tornado hit.  I have been trying to get my workspace organized but it is a slow process because I would rather work on a project,  but the clutter  causes me to procrastinate.  But this year I am trying to complete the projects that I start and I have to say that I am making progress.

PERSISTANCE

I subscribed to Lesley Riley's newlsetter and the other day she published  an article on being Persistant.   I wanted to post a version of her newsletter because it gets right to the heart of being successful at achieving goals. 

Are You Where You Want to Be?

We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are.
~ Tobias Wolff

If you're not where you want to be, it is because you gave up too soon. It's that simple. Persistence wins out over talent every time. Do you ever look at someone else's art and say, "I could do that." I bet you've also had an idea for something and then seen it in print or online.....created by someone else. It happens to us all at one time or another.

I know that you are capable of doing whatever you set your mind to. You were born with an innate talent. Some artists appear to have been born with a silver pen, pencil, needle or paintbrush in their hand. Others, like you and me, need to work at it, to persist in finding and developing that innate talent.

At an early age, so many people assume that if something doesn't come easily for them, then they are just not cut out for it. 95% of them will give up on a dream way too soon after a few unsuccessful attempts. The other 5% will persist and go on to fulfill their dreams and ambitions.

Persistence means no excuses. You know the saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." You need to be tough to get going on your dreams, tough enough to take a no excuses approach. That means calling yourself out on all those reasons you have for not taking action on your dreams. 99% of the time your reasons are excuses. Do you know where excuses come from? Excuses arise from fear.

Persistence requires a thick skin. Rejection, set-backs and disappointment are all a part of any success story because success requires risk. Risk means going out on a limb and limbs can break. Success requires being uncomfortable. It requires stretching outside of your comfort zone, time and time again, in order to achieve the kind of artist success you desire. It means feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Persistence requires never taking NO for an answer.
Persistence is what makes things happen. History is full of examples of men and women who persisted through and against incredible odds and circumstances to change how we live, think and act - Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther King, Thomas Edison, Rosa Parks, Oprah Winfrey to name a few.

Surely you can muster up the persistence required to make your art dreams come true. It can be as simple as getting up each morning and saying, "Today I am going to_______," and then doing it. That's all it really takes.

Here's what another wise Riley had to say, James Whitcomb Riley -

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.

I must say I agree. How about you?

Published newsletter by Lesley Riley, The Artist Success Expert, is the founder of Artist Success, Solutions for the Struggling Artist. To receive her bi-weekly articles on creating your own success as an artist, visit www.ArtistSuccess.com.

Quilting Swap

I am behind in my posting.  My goal is to post once a week.  However,  I just read a piece in the Sunday paper that addresses resolutions.  I should celebrate the small achievements and not beat myself up over the misses,  so there I am Celebrating that this is my first miss and I have been updating my blog.

I have been following one of my fellow quilter's blog and the topic of her post last week was "Why I Don't Do Swaps".  Really a topic near and dear to me.  If you are not a quilter I will explain what a SWAP involves.  There are many versions,  but the basic is that you complete a project and send it to another member in the swap group and they complete a project and send it to you.  There is usually a theme to the SWAP.  I belong to a yahoo group of African American Quilters,  who at this time of the year have an Black History Month swap and a Mini Quilt Swap going on.  I am participating in the Mini Quilt Swap and I have just completed my project and need to get it into the mail by the deadline.

The positives of participating in a swap are that it pushes you to do your best because you are sending this project to one of your peers.  You get to see how others use thier creativity.   There is a sharing of techniques and ideas that you could incorporate into your knowledge base.  Not to mention,  IT IS FUN GETTING ART IN THE MAIL. 

I am always hesistant in participating because I am always concerned that my work will not meet up to the standards of some of my peers.  I feel that I am still practicing and some of my stitching may not be straight or my measurements might be a little off.   Then I have to think that this should be fun and not stressful.   As I make this statement I hope that my Mini Quilt partner likes my quilt and is not too critical.