Monday, June 16, 2008

Back Home

I arrived home from Newfoundland late last night and am trying to get reorganized in my life again. The 2 weeks seemed to me to be a very long time to be away. My family managed well without me, and they realized how much I do to make things run smoothly at home. They are very appreciative of my efforts - it has been wonderful to hear how much I was missed!
My first experience with Quilt Canada was completely overwhelming for me. I was not prepared for the volume of activities, the overwhelming excitement, the energy required to participate in 4 days of classes and constantly learn new things, and the lack of sleep/rest.
The classes I took were wonderful and I enjoyed each of the teachers, from whom I learned a ton of new things about quilting and about teaching. Here is Anne Morrell Robinson teaching a 2 day class on Stitching a Flower Garden. This was a fun class and I learned new things about many areas of quilting including how to use fusible stabilizers, making and using bias tape, composition of quilt designs, and a new way of binding corners. We had a real struggle learning how to use the sewing machines they had for us and that made the class quite a bit more challenging than any of the others.
My next class was fabric painting with Margie Davidson and it was my most favorite class because I remembered again how much I love fabric painting! I have painted with Setacolor paints for many years but have never taken a class on how to use them "properly". I found out I was doing everything "right", learned many new techniques, and was totally inspired to paint more fabric!
My last class was with Valerie Hearder and was called "Painted Skies for Landscapes". This was challenging for me because everything was new, having only done one quilted landscape in my life and that was many years ago. But she was a great teacher and taught me so many new things, I still am amazed at the volume of material she covered in one day. Here is the inspiring classroom she set up for us.
I will show you what I made in these classes when I get the rest of my photos downloaded, and get some laundry done.
I will also tell you a bit about my second week of my holidays travelling across the province of Newfoundland with my Mom, my daughter, and my 2 sisters. It was more of the same in terms of constant activity and sensory overstimulation, combined with lack of sleep...but lacking the quilting component!!
I look forward to checking in with my quilt blogger friends and see what I have missed!
And I long for some time to sit quietly and quilt!

4 comments:

Andrea said...

Glad you're home safe and sound - we've missed you. Looking forward to catching up once you've had time to get some much needed sleep.

Gina said...

I'm so glad you had a great time. I'm looking forward to seeing the photos.

Love and hugs xxx

Rose Marie said...

Wow .... what a week you had and all the new things you learned along the way. Looking forward to seeing what you made.

Julie said...

I'm so glad you made it back safely. Quilt Canada sounds great!