On September 4th, Jan, Carmen Sharon, Heidi and I hung an exhibit of art from members of our group Fiber Art Fusion. The Exhibit Opening Reception was September 6th and about 100 people came. We had tons of food and a photographer!
It was very exciting. To see your work hanging in a gallery is very rewarding. To see other people looking at your work is exhilarating. The curator told me today that there was very heavy traffic through the exhibit. Many people came specifically to see it and it was very well received.Then I spent six days at the East Cobb Quilt Guild Show.
Three of those days were on the judging team. We took the quilts which had been dropped off by their owners, sorted them by category, labeled them with a pre-assigned number, stacked them with the same corner lined up (for ease of judging) and in general watched over these precious babies until the judging started. The judges arrived and worked their tails off to judge the nearly-400 quilts in two and a half days. The head of the judging team did a spectacular job of organizing and holding it all together. It's fascinating to be behind the scenes.I especially like hearing the comments about the work being judged. First, lest you think I remember anything about your quilt, I don't. It all blurs together by the end. I can't even tell you what they said about mine! But in general there is a consistent base of comments. And in the one area most of us rush through -- finishing. That means bindings. For goodness sake, make nice bindings. Practice if you are not good at it. And one other comment of interest is on the pillowcase method of finishing. If you are entering a traditional show, then you need to quilt your piece so the quilting lines can be seen from the back. And don't forget to trim loose threads and pick all the animal hair off your quilt. These are basic things which many overlook.
Oops, back to the East Cobb Quilt Guild Show. . . then I spent the next two and a half days demo-ing at Fiber on a Whim's booth. I love to do product demos, especially when it is a product that I like to play with. I think I'm pretty good at it since Kristin kept giving me big smiles!
Okay, so she was giving those big smiles because she won a ribbon for this awesome piece! Way to go Kristin!Fiber Art Fusion members won lots of ribbons at the East Cobb Quilt Guild show. It was thrilling. I won third prize for my What's Up Tiger Lily? coat.
It started out as scraps for the trash can. Then was resurrected and made into this coat. I have a matching pair of Donald Pliner Zebra shoes -- similar ones which can be seen here on Manolo's Shoe Blog. One day I'll be brazen enough to wear the ensemble in public!For the past few weeks, Sharon and I laughed every time we got together because we had not yet finished our Journal Quilts for Houston. Lunch, coffee, shopping. We are good are helping each other procrastinate. But in the end we both finished and shipped in time for the deadline. I only finished because Sharon came over and helped me whipstitch the binding in place.
Why do I always wait until the last minute? I knew about this Journal Quilt for months and months, yet I kept putting it off. I guess other things come up and fill the time. I do budget time for things like this, but not until the week or two before it's due. And although I budgeted two weeks for my Journal Quilt the first week was eaten up by school volunteer activities and cleaning the house from my absence, and the second week, my in-laws came to visit. We took the girls to the Georgia Aquarium. An incredible site to see.
So I worked in the little spare time I had. On the eve of my shipping deadline the water main in front of our house broke. Remember back a year ago? Well another section of main blew out and millions and millions of gallons of water poured out through this break. The water gushed all night -- and here we are in the middle of an all out watering ban. The crew who first came just turned the pressure down and decided to let the morning crew fix it. But by midnight the break had worsened and we could hear the water roaring from inside the house. The fix-it crew came in the morning.
They had to cut down a tree, pull out bushes and dig a hole big enough for a swimming pool.
Meanwhile, inside my studio, I was quilting and doing my best not to totally freak out. The name of my Journal Quilt is "Peace" so it is someone ironic that this was all happening. In the end I finished. But the stress of possibly not finishing was overwhelming. Stress is not a good way to get your aerobic workout!
Today, Jan and I took down the Hope Exhibit. It was sad to see the empty gallery space. But joyfully, the curator invited us back for next year. Transformations will be the theme. And since it is an election year I'm delighted by that theme and have ideas swimming around in my head.
And now, back to the studio.
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