Yesterday's Scrap Class

We had a fun day. Yes! A whole day of sewing! Can you imagine? BLISS.

me (center) and 4 of the 11 students attending.

We concentrated on using fabrics that were in our stash rather than going out and buying more fabric.

The pattern was fun and fast to construct. We spent lots of time talking about how to combine things while listening inward at what the maker wanted to create. Students appreciated that!

Theatre Direct rehearsal space was perfect!
- filled with natural light.
I will definitely rent that space again.

As a bonus, I included a demo on how to make a pillow case. I love making those!

I have decided to run a "spring cleaning" scrap workshop every year !

Scrap Class Coming Up

Hearing the words ‘spring cleaning’, one has visions of getting out there in the garage and throwing out old rusted tools, or heading to the basement to collect unused treasures, or going through closets and giving away seldom worn clothing.

How about you look to your fabric bins! Every quilter stores fabric.

Scary!!

Spend a nice Sunday with friends sewing up a super-fun and fast quilt top using those stored fabrics! I am known for teaching scrap quilts and the key thing I teach is how to make your personal combination of colour work. Wouldn't it be nice to reduce your stash of fabric....so you could make room for more?

Sunday, April 29, 2012

10 am to 5 pm -bring your friends, your sewing machine and your bins! Appropriate for ALL levels.

$40.00 includes lunch prepared by local caterer Urban Fair.

Theatre Direct rehearsal space at the Wychwood Barns, 76 Wychwood Avenue, Toronto. (south of St Clair, west of Bathurst)

Sign up!

Silent Auction

I have been invited to submit an art piece for a neighbourhood event at Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood and Community Health Centre. This is the piece I am submitting for the silent auction.

Anemone
4.5"x4.5"
polyester thread work, hand-dyed silk, machine stitched

Things in a frame sell better at these types of events. I framed it in a shadow box.

1900 Davenport Road, Toronto,
 for those who want to attend

I hope it can help raise some money for their centre.

Here and There

My son and I dropped in at Propeller, a gallery on Queen Street in downtown Toronto, to see textile works by graduating students from Sheridan College at the exhibit "Here and There".

I liked the idea from artist, Mary Desrosiers.

An excerpt from her artist's statement:

"This piece examines preconceived notions about size and how ones identity can gradually change over time. Whether that change is from the internal or external factors...... I feel knitting is one of the best visual ways to show the passing of time."

Transformation 2012
hand knitting, acrylic yarn, rayon and cotton threads

My favorite piece was by Francie V.

His Twinkling Perch, 2012, detail
cotton, cutwork, natural dyes, embroidery

His Twinkling Perch and other works from students, furniture and textile.

It is great to see such open-minded interest from a 19 year old!

take pART

"take pART" is a fundraising art exhibit that took place at Arta Gallery in Toronto at the Distillery District. Both my daughter and I were two of 63 artists participating.

"My City"
I work in textile so I made my piece separate and
then glued it onto a canvas.
I stitched into the canvas in a few places.
 I left some tulle and organza hanging off the bottom.

There was wine and hors d'oeuvres during the cultural evening.

Arta Gallery, Distillery District

All works were on a 10"x10" canvas and each was sold for $100.

The grid system was set up to help purchasers identify the works.

My work is identified by Q4. My daughter's was R4.

E1 was painted by Felicia Norris Bartlett ,
a Branksome Hall alumnae.
It was nice bumping into her.
She was a Montreal friend when I was in high school.

The money raised goes to the Student Financial Aid at Branksome Hall.

My City, detail

The event has been recognized by Canada Council for Advancement in Education, receiving the Bronze Award in the Best Alumni category.

My work and my daughter's hung side by side. They both sold.

1930's fabrics

I love the early 30's fabrics. The designs are so playful!

Here are a few examples from a quilt made by quilter Nancy King from the Etobicoke Quilters Guild.

notice the yellow circus fabric

 dancing girls on the yellow center

bicycles and skipping ropes

tea pots and cups

paper dolls and their dresses

chicks and chickens

Weekend Course

I spent this weekend at an Ontario Craft Council sponsored class, Maker to Making a Living with Jacqueline Sava.

They never teach you the business side of things in art school.

Jacqueline had the perfect perspective with her "maker" experience and her MBA.

I did this because I want to make more money doing something I love.

I have lots to think about and calculate after this intense weekend. Before I make a judgement on any idea I will make a spread sheet and figure it out properly and not how I usually do it, which is with my heart and intuition!

I did manage to fit in some ART in between all the business stuff - a performance of a musical at St Michael's College School on Saturday night where I use to be choreographer.

And for my readers who love my pictures, here is what downtown Toronto looked like last week.

Crossed Off My List

All the final details have been done- adding the sleeve, making the label and signing the work.

That's all I can show you until the exhibit is over

I am off to the post office to send my latest work to Rome...unfortunately, I am unable to get it photographed before it goes. I'll have to get it done there.

Stitching Time

"The first thing I did 

was take down the clock 

running dutifully on its one cell 

of battery and move the hands 

forward,"

FORWARD?? I would have moved them back, dear poet Alice Friman! Especially this week...

"...one hand

chasing the other under the shadow 

of the thin red whip driving the whole 

terrible mechanism."

travel blanket - stitching the cactus from the south of Italy

Sunday afternoon, I sewed through time and was in my element. One hour seemed to last 5 minutes. That's when you know you are doing the right thing.

Love and Hate

I have this love/hate relationship with my art work.

I love it until about 3/4's of the way through....

then I hate it and don't want to finish it because "it's not working out".

Then I push forward (that is the painful part) and about one week after I finish it, I love it again.

Off I go to get it professionally photographed and I am too embarrassed to take it out of the bag because it is so bad!

What's with that?

Today, I was at the 3/4 mark. Ugh! I left my studio and went to buy fabric!

This is called fabric therapy, apparently!

Notions

straight pins

thimble and pins,
early 18th century, brass,
found in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Pointe à Caillière Museum