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Archive for the ‘Quilting Friends’ Category

Shoot It Raw

Monday, June 4th, 2012

I love orange paired with purple!

I have been slowly cleaning, purging and reorganizing my studio. I have way too much stuff for working creatively. Some of it has to go. Just so you know. I am loving my cloth that covers my print and paint table.

Yesterday was the photography class with other SAQA members. Our instructor, Alan, was a most pleasant guy with lots of knowledge, particularly on lighting our work for photographing. He was not bad on the eyes, either!! You can see his work on his website, here. He was particularly surprised to see our work. He was expecting to see bed quilts. His very attractive girlfriend helped with setting up our quilts to photograph.

Here are Jean and Mary checking the settings on their cameras.

First of all, I will say that I was already doing a lot of what he suggested. Here are some recommendations. Set your camera  to Raw for Image quality. Set White Balance for the type of light you are using. I use daylight fluorescent. We used incandescent in the studio. Set the ISO sensitivity to the lowest setting. On my camera that is 100. Set the color space to Adobe RGB.

You need to use a lens that will zoom in an out. Set it for the highest zoom. On my lens that is 55 mm. Then, he warned us – there is only one place to go now and that is the dreaded manual setting. LOL! He showed us how to set up lights for different sized pieces. He used a light meter to make sure that the piece was evenly lighted. That will be the next addition to my studio, I think. They are a bit pricey. From the light meter reading, you can figure out the f stop setting for your camera and the shutter speed. For my Scooter and Mr C quilt, which I took in to photograph, the fstop was f9 and the shutter speed was 1/8. Then you have to make sure it is in focus. He, of course, said a tripod was mandatory and used sandbags to weight it down so that it would not move at all. I should also mention that we moved the tripod and camera (zooming by foot) to get the quilt in the frame properly. We did not change the zoom on the lens. It stayed at the maximum zoom.

So there you have it – the knowledge that I gained from the class, which I enjoyed very much. We were there from 10 in the morning until after 5 pm. The time seemed to fly by.

Here is today’s 3 X 3. A little relaxing hand stitching.

 

 

Home Again

Friday, May 18th, 2012

What  beautiful scenery and weather awaited us in the high desert of Oregon. I loved seeing the beautiful aspens, once again. This time of year, the leaves are small and green, but still rustle in the wind.

Shortly after we arrived on Wednesday, Terry got us started mixing up flour paste to spread on fabric. And then the mark making commenced.

Here is Suzy making marks on her fabrics with a skewer. And below, is Terry.

 

Reva brought a piece of fabric that had marks from a previous surface design project.

Here is one of my pieces.

Here is that piece after it dried and started crackling.

The next day, we painted the dried and crackled pieces.

I still have to remove the paste and extra paint from my pieces. I will report on that later.

Do you know why Sisters, Oregon is called Sisters? A trio of mountains is the reason – known as the Sisters.

There are only two in this photo. I am really tired. I’ll be back tomorrow. G’ Night.

Bye-bye Week-end

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

I had a busy and productive week-end. Yesterday was our spring critique for the group of Oregon fiberartists that I am part of. Marci Rai McDade, former Fiberarts editor and now Surface Design Journal editor, was our guest critic. She lives near me and when I asked her about a possible critic for us, she volunteered.

Every critic we have had has a different emphasis in their comments. Marci, as an editor, was most interested in the story that the art told. She also commented on visual impact and design elements. I had my Walking with Scooter and Mr C piece. She thought it was very successful, but was put off by my black screen prints of Scooter and Mr. C. I see her point and I wish that I had put the screen prints on the base fabrics so that they were not so prominent.

It is not as obvious in the photo as it is in person. I also had another piece that I am almost finished with. I will show that later.

Today, after church, I had a phone meeting with a consultant who is helping me conquer the Filemaker database for Artists Among Us. I have a load of inventory to enter in the system and we worked out details for upgrading it and making it more user friendly.

It was gorgeous weather this week-end. I think we will have one more beautiful day and then it will get rainy again.

I managed to get 6 more 3 x3s done. I am almost caught up.

Back to watching Mad Men.

Distracted

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

I keep thinking about the arrival of the grandbaby and our trip in April. I really should be kicking it up a notch to get every thing done that I need to do before we leave. I talked to Jayme and Mark tonight, and they have assured me that there will be a baby and soon!!

That is today’s 3 x 3 up there. And here is yesterday’s. which was 3.14!

I have been plugging away on the Tobermary piece. It is one of those things that I agreed to do and I am not doing what I want to do, but I think this will be nice when it is done.

Yesterday was Columbia Fiberarts Guild. We had a wearable art fashion show and some of the members had good stuff for sale. I bought some hand-dyed fabric and some curly roving. Here are some other goodies being offered.

Dye painted roving:

Dye painted yarn:

 

This is a jacket made by a member. I love how she does this stitching on a lot of her work.

Bonnie Bucknam was in Guatemala and brought back these beautifully embroidered tops to sell. She has them for sale, here.

 

Good Day Sunshine

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

I need to laugh, and when the sun is out
I’ve got something I can laugh about,
I feel good, in a special way.

It was a glorious, warm, full of sunshine day. As I was driving this afternoon, I saw Mt. Hood gleaming in front of me. It was Second Thursday at Somebody’s House (STASH) This time, we were at Suzy’s and she made us a fabulous lunch. I’m still thinking about the desert.

My 3 x 3 for today, is an homage to the orb in the sky.

Today, I finished stitching the facings on the Mr C and Scooter quilt. I threw it down on my office floor and took this photo. Tomorrow, I will get a better photo for submitting it to an exhibit.

And so that was my day. Tomorrow, I will clean up the studio and start working on my next deadline. There is always a deadline in my world. Keeps me going.