Saturday, July 26, 2008

International Quilt Festival, Long Beach.....A Report

I had a terrific time with my blogging buddies in Long Beach, California!
The picture below is dark, sorry....but there are Barbara, me, Debra, and Rian, about to be served our lunch after a long morning at the show for them, and in class for me. We cleaned our plates, let me assure you....

Our time together was everything I knew it would be...so full of easy and stimulating friendship, lots of stitching talk, and late night storytelling in our pajamas, all of us sharing one big hotel room. What a great gift, for us bloggers to get to spend time together...

I only had one class with Paula Scaffidi, a mere three hours, but it would have been worth the entire trip to Long Beach just for that.
Entitled "Luscious Fruit", the workshop taught how to create three-dimensionally shaded felted fruits, for applique or needlefelting onto textile projects (could be wearables, too, as these items were constructed to be washable).
I am an ethical blogger, so will not post step by step pictures of how I made my fruit...Paula worked hard to put together a class that was just aces....and she deserves to be paid for her great information.
Visit her website to see pictures of the incredible work she does.

I will say that one of the reasons her presentation was so strong was that she made optimal use of her PowerPoint capabilities. As we went through the steps of creating our fruits, she would tell her helper, "Lights down!" and present clear sequential pictures on a big screen of the technique she wanted us to learn next. She even had videos embedded in the Powerpoint that showed her doing what we were supposed to do...again, these were perfectly in sequence so that the class just flowed.
I truly think the efficiency this gave us all allowed her to present much more content than a normal 3 hour class.

Here is a sample screen shot I took from my seat. This shows how to lay out our roving to make a more rounded looking shape.

When a question came up, she had her flipboard all ready to illustrate her answers.

And here is my class project, after 3 hours....

The piece of inner brocade background is 9" X 12", to give you an idea of the scale and size. My little cherries don't have their stems yet, and I need some more velvet leaves.....
I can't wait to finish this!
Paula says she has a book coming out next year, and she intends to include a DVD with it that will illustrate her techniques the way she used videos in class. This is so innovative, don't you think? Her book will set the standard for needlefelting, of this I have no doubt.
Thank you, Paula!


Speaking of standard-setting books, on the flights down and then back home, I had the enjoyment of reading Cindy Brick's new one, Crazy Quilts: History, Techniques, Embroidery Motifs. (It is available on Amazon, but the first printing is almost sold out. A second printing is due to ship by mid-August. You can order it from her website, of course, which is actually better because I think she gets more profit that way!)
I found it to be a very classy production. It is informative, written in an engaging style, and with lots of pictures of wonderful quilts. The printing and production of the book itself is of very high quality. Cindy includes some new techniques to try when making your own crazy quilt, as well as the tried and true traditional methods.
There will be more about this book in an upcoming review in CQMagOnline.

From my reading I felt much more informed about what I was looking at when Debra, Rian and I happened upon a very fine pile of crazy quilts from the 1880's at a vendor's booth. I was allowed to take some pictures of my favorite CQ element...fans!

I love how narrow these fan blades are. These are the exact same colors I used for the fans in my "H" quilt....I was going for this look, as you can see:

Pretty cool that I actually got that right!
Here are some more of the fans from that quilt in the booth....

So nice....

And here is a detail shot....

I include this because it shows how the stitcher very cleverly solved a big problem with these narrow-bladed fans. The seam treatments get really smashed into each other in the little round corner, because of course the seams are so close together there.
Look what this lady did: she provides stitching detail on the seams, but it is not continuous. The eye reads it as such, but really there are just dots and singly spaced Turkey Track stitches that suggest lines of stitching.
I'm going to remember that one...

But what of the quilts hanging in the show?
Alas, what was there was pretty much a retread of what won in Chicago and Houston, with a TON of journal quilt pages on display. The same art quilt exhibit from Studio Art Quilt Associates, the same Tactile Architecture quilts, the same almost everything. Not that there wasn't some outstanding work there, but overall I found this rehash quite disappointing.

But between hanging with my good buddies, studying with Paula, reading Cindy's book and also getting some quality time with my father-in-law while staying with him in Manhattan Beach last night....it was a terrific trip.
Always good to be home, though!
Let's hope they do better next year and include a competition.

10 comments :

Vicki W said...

I'm pea green with envy!

Kay said...

I second Vicki's comment. What a fun time you must have had, and your felt fruit is beautiful. I also enjoyed the discussion of the fans, although I'm not a crazy quilter. I'm not surprised at the "rehash" comment about the show though. i thought that about the spring Chicago show; not so much the same quilts as the same themes, etc.

Susan Elliott said...

What a jam packed post! First of all, Debra's looking skinny! Secondly that peach and those cherries are GREAT and I know we'll see this technique popping up in your work in the future. Very cool...

Rian said...

Whatta blast! Miss you!

Barbara C said...

Wasn't that FUN! I'm glad to be home, but next time I'll stick around longer.

Karen South said...

Thanks for the trip notes! It's always fun to read about the shows and retreats in other parts of the country(or should I say world). Makes me want to pack my bags and head out for my next adventure!

Cathy said...

Great post! I loved seeing the vintage quilts (and Uncle Hal's again, too!). But your fruit.... yum! looks good enough to eat! We're getting ready to start our Tooty Frooty RR in the CQI group, so I'll have to whip out my Embellisher and experiment! Thanks for all your great eye candy. Hugs, Cathy

Debra Dixon said...

The hanging with buddies part just didn't last long enough!

zetor said...

Sounds as though you had a great time. Those fans are wonderful!

Julie said...

Allie: You are always so busy making beautiful things! Your flowers are always a delight to see. Thanks for checking in with me on my blog - I hope to be back fairly regularly. I haven't been using my babylock as much as I should - I have taken from Paula Scaffidi as well and she is so passionate about creating with texture - she makes it contagious doesn't she? Looks like the Quilt Show was a lot of fun. I am starting to get excited about going back to Houston - after I get all this "soccer stuff" finished. This is my last year to do soccer so I will have more time to stitch I hope!
Always enjoy my visits to your blog and I always learn something too!
Thanks!