Craft Napa prep and play

When this posts, I will be at my fifth Craft Napa, teaching Fearless Free Motion Quilting – Start With a Square. I am pumped – my class is almost full and we’re going to have a blast! But there was just a wee bit of prep work involved of course:

At the last minute, I decided to make one of these for each of my students. It took waaay longer than I anticipated, but I’m pleased with the outcome. Lest you think I’m terribly clever, this is the idea of Joanne Sharpe that I copied (with permission).

I did come up with one tiny clever idea on my own. So as to save time, I chose to spray baste my initial fabric sandwich I made for these card holders. I always spray baste using the Patsy Thompson way of doing it, on the wall. The only thing that bugged me about that method was that you needed to put paper all around your quilt as well as on the floor to catch the basting over-spray. For some reason I just hated to do that.

Light bulb! What would happen if I spray basted each piece outside, then brought inside and pinned to the wall to assemble? That would eliminate the need to put paper down! Aha – it worked!

I spray basted the backing outside, then went inside and pinned that to the wall:

I could actually even pin it over another project – win-win! Then I put the batting on the backing and took that outside and sprayed it, then pinned that to the wall inside. Finally I added the top and easy peasy, spray basted, on the wall, no paper! It worked so well and was lickety-split fast.

I forgot to take a photo, but I free motion quilted the entire sandwich, then cut into individual parts. Each part was first zig-zag stitched around the edge and then, in one continuous line, I added the vinyl atop and zig-zagged around the edge to secure it. Later I added the line to divide it into the pencil part and the business card part. I discovered that I do not particularly like that type of production sewing but I DO like the end product!

I have been very stressed for about a month and I’ve felt myself on the edge of burn-out. I’m glad that I am mature enough to at least recognize that I am on the cusp. I’ve been very mindful to do things that nuture my creativity. This has to be very purposeful because I have so many “must-do” things. So I’ve tried to add some pure play every once in awhile and here are some results:

This is my take on what Margaret Solomon Gunn calls “pods”. It’s kind of like McTavishing, but much simplified and more appropriate for domestic sit-down quilters. I like the way it turned out and I can definitely see me adding this to my work.

I met Iris White at the Houston Quilt Festival last year. She was my FaceBook friend, but I had no idea who she really was. She is an exceptionally talented designer, inventor, quilter, artist and teacher from Taiwan (“Yu Tien Wu”). She made a point of getting together with me at Houston and so generously gifted me with a set of her rulers (more about that later) and a set of couching feet. I got a chance to use her couching foot for the first time this week and I like:

Now that is my first time using this foot so it’s not exactly refined, but I can see that I really really want to use this foot in the future!

A little glimpse of the packing process for Craft Napa – keep in mind I am teaching just  a one day class and one 3-hour design class at night:

This is just the beginning of “the pile”. It took me so long last year to organize and mount my many design samples, that I decided to organize all this at home and transport them on the boards that will display in the classroom. This will save so much set-up time!

All my teaching supplies and student supplies have been gathered on the Dining Room table. After all, isn’t that what the Dining Room table is for?? Note the all important Assorted Lindor Truffles!

As if that were not enough, I realized there were two new babies to celebrate – a boy and a girl. I need to crank out some baby quilts asap!

And no, they are not for my Grandchildren. I have no grandchildren. My children have not yet produced. I am a failure as a Mother. No, I am not bitter, why do you ask:-/

I’ll hook up on Friday with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday so look for some good links!