What i did at CREATE… or how Cheryl got her groove back.
As you may know, this summer has been extremely busy and while I am happy to have made my sister’s wedding flowers, after the initial design they were a bit monotonous to make. I felt pretty uninspired, and because my work schedule freed up, I spent Friday 8/27 at CREATE in Rosemont.
Now, I don’t have pictures of the event because I was silly and didn’t bring my camera, but you can see some other great recaps and pictures here, here, here and here.
Of course, I saw all of my friends there, and that alone was incredible. The hardest working staff I’ve ever run across, Pokey Bolton and Lindsay Murray were there, and Pokey says I’m going to love Houston, which is getting me super jazzed up to go. And that’s just 10 minutes into the event!
My class was thread painted art quilts with Elin Waterston. Elin is an incredible artist and it was so wonderful to learn from a teacher like her. Patient, kind, and extremely talented. She really demystified the process and I had a great time working on my project (which will be in another blog post for the return of Technique of the Week!) Elin is co-author of the Art Quilts at Play and the Art Quilt Workbook, some of whose techniques I have tried this year.
I got to have dinner with some new and old friends, including Belinda Spiwak.
CREATE also had a “store” onsite that not only showcased Bernina sewing machines, but also a wide variety of Interweave titles and other books and supplies so you can take your creative juices home and continue working.
To wrap up our evening, it was time for the Artist’s Faire, and it was AMAZING. Several artists had table “booths” and you could walk and browse lots of art supplies and original art. The art was amazing! Beautiful stuff from Kelli Perkins, Jamie Fingal, Jane Lafazio, and many many more. Also lots of vintage collage materials from various vendors and some amazing collage artists from the pages of Cloth Paper Scissors. Of course, it was the place to be, and I ran into my friends Melanie Testa, Judy Coates Perez (click her link for super cool recaps of the event) and my new friends from the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild! (HI Karen! HI Sue!)
Want to see the few things I got at Create? Commence the showing and telling!
The book and TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) are both going to be used later this year for a Technique of the Week! And of course, they had all the newest magazines, so I picked up the latest QA GIFTS. It is such a great issue.
I loved the ephemera booths. There were lots of them, and if I were a collage artist, I’d be in heaven, but as it were, I saw a couple of things I HAD to have for my creepy victorian parlor. (You know about my year round haunted parlor, right?) So this tiny (and I mean tiny, these do not even come close to fitting around my neck) set of faux pearls and the cool eyeglasses and case only cost me $6 total!
This is a gorgeous teapot from Altered Ever After, and is featured in an issue of a magazine this month!
These lovely brass findings were super cute on the gorgeous sample artworks by Rene, and I picked up these tiny sets for a future project.
So, that’s about it, and I have to say that I came home SUPER jazzed up to start creating again, and I wish I had allotted more than one day, but the wedding was important and that’s OK. There’s going to be another one, and that’s great too. I think the folks at CPS and QA have a lot to be proud of, and I am looking forward to going again next year!
Technique of the Week #17- Translucent Liquid Clay
Project hours: 12 hours
Design and materials: 3 hours
Execution: 9 hours
This technique was inspired by Kelli Nina Perkins, a fabulous mixed media artist whom I have the great pleasure of knowing, and a technique she shared on Episode 306 of Quilting Arts TV. This technique is how to take a medium by Sculpey, called Translucent Liquid Clay (TLC), and bake it onto a laser print copy to transfer the image onto the clay. The clay is soft and can be stitched through. I changed a couple of things, but had fun with this technique.
First off, you have to find the TLC, which was no small task. Michaels no longer had a spot on the shelf for it, and Kelli mentioned Hobby Lobby as an alternative. I’m glad she did, though my pocketbook is not, I spent a lot of money in that store!
Next up, you have to find an image. I was trying to make this image into something usable for a thermofax screen, but it didn’t work out for that, so I recycled my laser copy into artwork for this project. The tv show with Kelli shows her using a color copy, and this is black and white. Hmmm.
Using the clay is easy according to the directions, and it does tell you this stuff STINKS. Open a window, use your ventilator. Ick.
From there you wet and scrape the paper off of the back. Now, this is “translucent” clay, not transparent. So, this did not have the see-though effect I initially thought, and I can see why you would use a color copy now. However, I took some fabric paint to the backside to color in the squid, and am happy with that effect! It sewed easily and I can think of some other uses I would love to try this on. Hope you try it and have fun!
Party like a Rock Star!
I had an amazing weekend at the IQA Chicago quilt festival. Lots of cool things happened, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I spent each day at the show until it ended, so I had little time to “live blog” the show like last year, but here are the highlights! (Pictures from the hallways leaving the show, because I hate posts without pictures.)
Thursday: I spent the day in a full day class with Maggie Wiess on Thermofax screen printing. It was great fun, and I think Thermofax screening is right up my alley. While I love my Gocco, the supplies are getting more and more expensive, and hard to find. Thermofax printing is similar enough, and there are enough services out there to provide me screens without buying the machine that I can make use of it. I can’t wait to finish my project from class. After class, the show floor opened, and I walked the floor, spent money, and took a Make It University class on Little Windows resin. When Pokey Bolton called my name, she said “Oh I know her!” and even gave me a little hug. Wow!
Friday: Bright and early I got to the show and took the Embellishment Know How seminar, which was about 8-9 demos on embellishing your work. Afterwards, I had lunch with Steff and Catherine, and did some shopping with Steff. I made it through the whole vendor area, and had some time for some of the quilts. The Art Quilt reception was Friday evening, and Steff and I attended. I made a tiara last year that I didn’t wear because I could not stay, but entered the “tiara parade” this time. Now, style counts, so I entered as the “queen of mean” and my skull pendant on my tiara even has a crown on it. Instead of a Miss America wave, I threw up the “heavy metal” horns and rocked down the aisle. Well, I guess this paid off, I was a runner up! Best of all, my co-runner up was none other than Melanie Testa, and we chatted for a bit and really hit it off. We also got a chance to speak with Karey Bresenhan, Bonnie McCaffrey, Laura Krasinski, Maggie Weiss, and many others! Melanie, Bonnie, Steff, Catherine and I went to dinner. Bonnie even taped us doing our “Shopping Show and Tell” for one of her video podcasts!
Saturday: Wow, how could you top yesterday? By hanging out with Melanie Testa for a portion of the day, that’s how! I took her MIU class first thing, and we shopped a couple of booths and looked at some of the quilts afterwards. My friend Amanda and her friend were visiting the show from Baltimore, so I went to lunch with them, and then got to hang out with Melanie a bit more. It was really good to get her perspective on art quilting, and her story on how things in the art quilting wold are going. It gave me a lot to think about. At that point, it was time for Surviving the Runway. It’s was an 80’s Prom theme, and I made my Prom Queen tiara in ridiculous over to top fashion. I am sure You Tube Videos will surface. It was silly, and lots of fun. I didn’t win, but had a great time with everyone. Bonnie McCaffery even gave me some sideline help. So fun!
Sunday: I got to sleep in a little bit (one extra hour). Arriving at the show at the opening, I did the last of my shopping, and got a call from Steff, who was there shopping with our friend Pika. We all took the “good girl Doll” class from Debbie Crane at MIU, did some more shopping, and took one last gander at the quilts. I spent literally my last dollar saved for the show, a grand total of almost $700 spent on the show overall. It was an amazing time. I felt like I really was part of the “it crowd”, and was a bit of the MIU groupie, but had a fantastic time, and can’t wait to see the shak out of the many things I discussed with everyone.
I’ll post my “Show and tell” things I bought on the next post!!
A graphic update!
OOO! Pretty pictures!
On the way back from a work trip, I saw this neat pumpkin patch. Fall is finally here.
The troublesome trio were at it again when Catherine (center) was speaking at the Wheaton IL guild. Steph (left) invited me along, and we had a blast. We also decided to take a class together at the Mancuso Quilt show next month.
My guild, the Riverwalk Quilters Guild, had their annual small quilt auction so I made this altered spoon, and attached it to a quilted background. The spoon was inspired by directions in a recent Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine article written by Kelli Perkins. I wanted to try this and also wanted to figure out attaching the spoons to quilts for a project I am making for my house.
I also made this small 6 by 18 inch wall hanging, that the DH loved and didn’t want me to give away. I forgot to photograph it before I gave it to the guild, so this picture is taken on the hood of my car.
Speaking of Kelli Perkins, she recently did a giveaway on her blog of supplies from her studio, and I tossed my hat in the ring. I got this package today.
Here is what was in it! My cat, Lillith, is modeling some of the lovely bits of ephemera and yarns and buttons and other amazing stuff Kelli sent me. Thanks Kelli!
Lastly, I went back to this for the first time in over a year today. I’m back on the wagon!
"New Work" pages updated on my website and some non quilt art
The new work pages of my website are updated with weekly and monthly quilts. What’s nice is to be able to see the themed works grouped together.
I do occasionally do non quilty art, and here is one of those things I did. Kelli Perkins had a tutorial on altering silver spoons in a recent back issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. I traded these online with friends. I plan to alter a few more and attach them to a quilted background. It would make a nice Christmas kitchen gift.