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When the world began to change, I quickly realized I was going to have to adapt or go home. So adapt I did, kicking and screaming. Now that we’re 7 months into this I am accepting that our current norm may stick around for a long while. This week’s casualty was the in-person Road to California show which on Wed announced it will be entirely virtual as opposed the the hybrid they had proposed. Sigh. Do you not looooong for a real quilt show? This week I have come to a deeper realization that there are some positive outcomes from…
It’s been a productive week but I don’t have a lot in the way of visuals to document the week. I have some Really Big News that I can’t talk about yet that I’m both pumped and terrified of (it has something to do with the Houston Quilt Festival). I’ll write about it as soon as I can. I had a fabulous experience this week that lifted a HUGE weight off of my shoulders. I had a total of 14 videos that needed editing, videos that ranged from 3 – 11 minutes. They needed some bits snipped out, a bunch…
Last week I wrote about how my friend and dyer Linda Waddle kindly offered to over-dye my languishing whole cloth trapunto quilt. The silk had faded from a delightful icy blue to a putrid yellow/blue/gray mix. Linda and I rolled on thickened dye as a Hail Mary move – what did I have to lose? Here are the results: The silk took the dye well. You just can’t see it in my photo but it is a wee bit splotchy but I am fine with that and I think it adds interest. I had to have Hubby hold it up…
This virtual teaching thing does have its advantages; this week I had a few adventures with friends and, started and finished a project just for me! I had been wanting to solve a problem with my patio chair arms – they get wicked hot in the sun and their edges were just a wee bit pokey. I had this idea of creating some sort of a wrap for them and this week that took hold. I ordered the proper outdoor fabric that kinda sorta matched the existing furniture and that took 6 weeks to get. Once it arrived, I got…
Free motion quilters from the Camarillo Quilters Association joined me yesterday for six hours of Fearless Free Motion Fills and Frills and it was a blast! This was my first six-hours-in-one-day workshop and I was honestly worried about how that would go. Remember Mikey in the Life cereal commercial? I feel like Mikey, he liked it, I liked it! I am so relieved and encouraged that I truly enjoyed the experience and I think my students did too. There is a different skill set to develop to engage students online and I continue to develop that new skill. Of course,…
Sooo, this is what I’ve got for you this week, a 3 min promo of my online teaching and lecture opportunities. It only took weeks to figure out a 3 min video! I’ve also been working hard to get set-up on an online teaching platform that I can’t share yet. Once everything is finalized and it’s up on their site I will be excited to share! This way anyone can take my class and you won’t have to take it through a guild. They will be live online classes and I’m beyond pumped to try this. I presented today…
Okay, no sewing going on this week so let’s look at what else happened: I did take a great Zoom for Teachers class from David Owen Hastings and learned some interesting tidbits. Of most interest to me was his set-up. He didn’t go out and spend a lot of money but had great sound and light. He used an Ikea lamp for lighting, something kinda sorta like this and it worked well. He had everything on one screen – his slides, thumbnail photos of workshop participants and chat, all on a super-wide monitor. He kept all his things close…
Finally, I finished “Tea and Silk”! I’ve been working on it for maybe a month and it really should not have taken that long. I wrote about it previously here: This one was an emerging project – I didn’t have a plan in mind when I started it. When I first put the tea bags on that gorgeous silk, I swooned: My photography does not capture the sheen of that fine silk, it is luscious. I made the tea bags in one of the most fun classes ever – Libby Williamson‘s Tea Bag Art class at Craft Napa last…
NOTE #1: I forgot to do this last week: Leah French won the giveaway for Teri Lucas’ ebook. Thank you for your responses! There were 106 comments and my random number generator chose 53 as the winner. You all seem to especially like Aurifil, Superior threads and Glide. Normally I respond to every blog comment, but not for giveaways. That would have complicated choosing the 53d actual reader comment. NOTE #2: There was a temporary problem with comments last week due to a new spam filter. I’ve since fixed it and I hope I caught all of your comments.…
What a week – this will be a short post! I’ve been working all week doing videos, creating new handouts, messing with tech, buying more stuff to teach online with. All this for me is brand new. I needed to repackage and rethink everything to make teaching a success online. I only have paid tech help in my world so this has been a wild journey. Every time I think I’m ready, I’ll round a hairpin turn to discover another issue I need to figure out. Some of this has been fun, exploring and reasoning my way through. The wonderful…