The Whirlwind of Classes and Talks

It's no secret that I've been a busy girl as of late.  I'm decent at spacing out my commitments and making sure I don't have too many things pressing at the same time. My calendar usually looks well-balanced and responsible. However, I often forget to leave room for the incidentals and unschedule-able things, like illness, vehicular issues, and Acts of Nephew, among other things good and bad. A particularly crappy inclement spring has seen more barometric changes than the weather network* and left me with less energy and fighting spirit than usual. Renovations have meant my sewing corner has moved, rotated and/or been inaccessible since January - tricky when keeping up with two guilds and two bees! And then, of course, there's been hockey. Glorious hockey. Junior, Olympic, NHL, KHL, AHL, WTH?... I will admit that while I sometimes drop the ball on keeping up in quilting blogland, I never go more than two days without checking in on the hockey blogs. In fact, I was caught at a guild meeting streaming a game during a presentation.  I was LISTENING, of course, to the presenter and looked at all her slides, but I also didn't want to miss any changes in the score.  That being said, if I'm the presenter and you are in the audience, feel free to live-stream sporting events.  Just keep me updated on the score!  (NOTE: this does NOT apply in the scholastic setting - secondary students are required to pay attention in class, even if I'm boring.  Therefore, if you by any strange chance or coincidence are a high school student who has me as their classroom teacher at any time, I will not accept any excuses of "But Ms. M..... !You said on your blog....". So there. You have been warned. Also - how did you find this blog, anyway? Get off the internet, go outside and/or do your homework, please and thank you!)

Speaking of giving talks, classes and presentations...

I had the distinct pleasure of leading a workshop on improv piecing at Saskatoon Quilters' Guild spring retreat at the end of April. I do a lot of improv piecing (crazy piecing, free-piecing, what have you) These were the samples that I made up plus more that I made during/after the workshop:

Most of my job was just to give encouragement and provide a little guidance on making such unusual pieces cohesive. Here is all the beautiful work they did!

I was a proud, proud teacher, (though truly I think an improv workshop leader is really more of a permission giver and 'can't' preventer than instructor.) They all had such different styles; not surprising since they've all been quilting for years. Having never given that workshop before, I was quite pleased with how it went. The gals gave me some great and constructive feedback, too.

At the last meeting of Saskatoon Quilter's Guild, I got to see some of their work continued but wasn't able to snap a pic. I had the privilege that night to give a talk on modern quilting. Of that, I have no photos but since no one fell asleep, I think it went well, too. Put a mic in my hand and I can talk, boy!  Only trouble?  When you're the speaker - you can't stream the hockey game...


*As one of many folk around here with climate migraines, I can say that spring is not a great time of year, especially with the yo-yo of sun/snow/sun/snow/rain/snain/snow/sun/rain we've had this go-round. If these manned missions to Mars advertised a permanently consistent air pressure in all compartments, ships and colonies, migraneurs would risk experiencing every bad thing that's ever happened in a scifi film.... Aliens, schmaliens!

Thread-painting

Yesterday was a pretty good day.

I took a thread-painting class from Monika Kinner-Whalen at My Sweet Prairie.  Monika does these amazing thread-painted artworks and was generous enough to share her talents and process with us.  I've wanted to take it for ages and finally just booked a morning off and went for it. It was so much fun!

Tentative first stitches

She started us off with "cheater" fabrics, getting us to see the colours and shapes and get used to the feeling.  It's a lot like free-motion quilting.

Adding more dimension

When we were comfortable, we switched to our projects.  Monika gave us copies of chickadee photos taken by Edith Maracle (with permission, of course!) and let us choose a background fabric.  We used a lightbox to trace the main spots, used the photographs for reference and went to town!

I'm not finished yet but here's where I left off when class ended:

I grabbed some shiny black thread for his eye. Can't wait to work on it more!

I learned so much in such a short span, met some lovely quilters, and gained a new appreciation for rayon thread. If you are in the Saskatoon area and have a chance to take one of Monika's classes, I highly recommend it.  She's lovely and a wonderful teacher - so supportive!



Oh, and the Blades won their 18th game straight.  And it was a great game.  I love them even when they're losing but it's so much more fun when they're not.  GO, Blades, GO!

Ceremonial puck drop.  Nicholls (20) is the Children's Wish Foundation Point Man this year.  For every point he gets in the regular season, Acklands-Grainger donates $50 bucks to Children's Wish.  He cost them $100 last night. ;-)  yay!