TKDAA 2016

This year's TKDAA conference has sadly come to an end and unfortunately it is now time to get back to the real world and work, but I can't resist taking a few minutes to capture some of the incredible inspiration of the past few days.

The weather in Dallas was chilly but sunny most of the time and the view from the Rockwall Hilton was spectacular! The hotel is located on a large lake and there were actually people out boating most days even though temps were in the 40s and low 50s. Crazy!  I much preferred admiring the pretty view while stitching indoors.

I took a Broderie Perse class taught by Cynthia Williford.  Cynthia is an outstanding teacher and shared a lot of great historical information on the fabrics and the technique. I have to admit that I still struggle a bit with the technique myself - it is hard for my OCD brain to cut into some images on the fabric when cutting out others and I absolutely have to follow along the line of the image to turn under the background. No smoothing edges or leaving the original background for me! It can make the process very tedious. Nonetheless, I played along and got this far with mine:

It's tough to tell from this photo, but the left side is mostly stitched (down to the pink bud and blue/pink flower near the center). Several of the little leaves added into the sewn part were not part of the original design. There was a lot of adjustments and patching as seam allowances were turned and little "uh oh" spaces appeared.

We had several beautiful quilts shared in a classroom show & tell session.  This one was particularly awesome - a Baltimore in my color palette! Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the person who made it but she is my hero.  It was gorgeous!

I borrowed this and the following couple of photos from Cynthia's Facebook posts.  Here is our class photo (I'm hiding in the back row as usual). All of the blocks turned out slightly different - it was interesting to see how people changed things up.

We had a lot of time to visit with and learn from the masters during the event. Marylou McDonald presented a lecture on Friday and shared some Baltmore Album history with us. Her quilts were beautiful and very inspiring.

Elly Sienkiewicz joined us for dinner a couple of nights and chatted with us about the book she is trying to work on and other things she would love to accomplish. She is always entertaining!

Above is another picture borrowed from Cynthia - taken after Marylou's program Friday. From left to right: Elly Sienkiewicz, Cynthia Williford and Marylou McDonald. Three icons in the industry!

It was a great week and has inspired a new project...  More to come on that later!

Not Much Getting Accomplished Here

It's a bit sad that I follow up a post about an incredibly productive retreat with one that sadly shows almost no progress on any projects, but I have a pretty perfect excuse.  Her name is Belle and she came to live with us exactly one month ago today.  She is the sweetest and most loving puppy!

This picture was actually taken a couple of weeks ago and I think she's grown an inch or two since then.  She's going to be a big girl!  She's an incredibly calm, well-behaved little girl. I find myself spending all of my time playing with her instead of getting anything done. Her big brother requires a little extra attention, too.  He's still trying to get used to having to share me. I'm hoping he comes around - he needs a playmate!

I attended the new Kathy Dunnigan Applique Academy a couple of weeks ago. It was a wonderful event and while there weren't all that many participants from TESAA it seemed like a very natural transition and felt like home. There was a very nice tribute to Elly Sienkiewicz that featured some gorgeous quilts.  The following picture of Elly was borrowed from Cynthia Collier's Facebook post since I was unable to get anything that didn't include a bunch of backs of heads...

My conference workshop was taught by Evelyn Crovo-Hall. We were working on a Baltimore-style beehive block that is supposed to look like this:

 

I managed to finish a couple of stems, a couple of leaves and part of the beehive during the class. Preparing the edges of the little pieces was extremely tedious and didn't really hold my attention. Add in a couple of work meetings I had to attend and I was the slowest kid in the class.  I made sure to stand at the back when we did the show and tell at the closing dinner.

I have been trying to get caught up with an online crazy quilting class I am participating in (trying to, anyway).  I finally pieced my block yesterday.

In retrospect I think I needed to switch fabrics 2 and 4 (the tan with scribbles and the light one that you can't see the print on).  I really don't have the time or desire to do it over again...I want to get started on the stitching.  I am hoping the instructor will let me move forward even though my contrast isn't all that great.  I will submit it today and see how it goes.

One other small thing I did manage to finish last week was the stitching on the first block of my Sunflower Gatherings BOW.  I also made progress on block two - I hope to finish it this week,

My goal is to have this top pieced before the new BOW starts at the end of May. Perhaps not realistic, but a girl can dream!