Albert Cote Workshop

My UFO list has grown again thanks to some landscape work and two workshops from the last two days. A local talented Fibre Artist and quilter, Albert Cote gave a "rug" class at our guild in Guelph.

While this is not a new technique it was much larger than I had attempted before. A few technique tweaks made the process a little easier and improved the design process.
I caught photos of almost all the samples. There is a lot to do to "finish", but as usual I was impressed by the variety of fabric and design choices.

There were a few like myself who were not ready to commit 5 large chunks (20"x36") of REALLY NICE fabric to an unknown project, but after seeing the results and the potential in this exercise, my next one will be more exciting.

The first three photos are process. After stacking smoothing and stitching all around the "rug" to anchor the 5 pieces, a design was drawn and then stitched. The remainder of the day was cutting into the layers to reveal the different colours.

This one, mine, shows a hint of my default topic, Botanics. But I did finish the cutting. There is still a lot to be done, the quilting and washing to fray it and then any embellishing I decide to add.

Enjoy the rest. A lot of very talented and colorful work here.

Until I finish this one.....................

Another Workshop With MY Girls

Gathering once more in the work room at Creative Sisters in Kitchener, we spent  Friday working on   another Botanic wall hanging.
The pre-workshop assignment had been to gather photos of a leafy branch. This was not as straight forward as it sounded for some. If you can't find the perfect simple branch with a few leaves, how do you separate what you want from an overwhelmingly leafy view?

When we finally gathered it was really great to see people "branching out". Some chose simple and some chose the full tree. Some chose to do a double sided leaf approach and other chose to use "crumbs". It was great to see how the group had grown in confidence and were happy to go in different directions within the theme.

Here are some of our interesting results. You can see how far they have progressed.

Post Workshop Reflections

We  had a great time!
The day flew by and my friends sewed their little hearts out. The set up was marvelous. We rented space in a local quilt shop and they provided all the hard material, tables, chairs, cutting materials and YES, even COFFEE. They were great. Creative Sisters in Kitchener/Waterloo www.creativesisters.ca

Sew here we are, all working hard, nose to the job.

What a disciplinarian I was. NO ONE was talking....









And what we they working on so hard in the first hour...........exercises!
Practicing those minute movements necessary for the very small. And they did such a marvelous job..............I GRADED their WORK! ( once a teacher always a ..........)

LOL

Straight A Students

( Well I didn't expect any less!)






And of course, what we they all there for????? TREES.
Definitely the most beautiful trees ever stitched by humans!!! My goodness, some of my friends realized they had never really looked at trees. But that's true, I think for most of us and most things. To be a true artist you need to LOOK at things.

But I know you'll think they all did a marvelous job!

So my girls are all set, now to add thread painted trees to their next landscape.

Then we moved on, for the rest of the too short afternoon, to creating a friendly perch for their Chickadee!

Practice came first. ( I'm so mean! )

Then they FINALLY got started........
But alas for this blog installation, they didn't get finished.
So I will have to collect photos over the next little while as these fine sewers add their special touch to, what I know will be, a lovely keepsake of this great day!
We worked from 9 in the morning till after 3 in the afternoon, a day of tough concentration with a terrible taskmaster.
( ps. they all want to do it again! ) LOL