Sue Benner

I'm back from North Country Studio Workshops and my class with Sue Benner. What fun!! We worked our fingers to the bone but learned so much. Sue is such a great teacher. I would love to be able to take one of her other classes sometime.

This was the first time I've taken a class that was longer than 1 day. What a difference that makes!! You can cover so much more and really work on your projects. I still didn't finish any since we made 3 different quilts. This was her Composition Trilogy: Three Techniques for Fused Quilts. This was also different for me in that there weren't just quilters there and the other classes were other art forms (pottery, book making, encaustics, photography, etc)

Onto what we did in Sue's class:

This is the first quilt we worked on. We cut rectangles of different fabrics, kept some of them whole and cut the others into "frames" and then moved the pieces around. I decided to cut my frames with wavy edges. Since mine are so busy, I decided to add sashing between the blocks so it would be a little less confusing. I started trying out just one type of fabric (the one here is blue). I tried a couple different colors but nothing seemed right. I had it sitting up in the design wall and kept looking at it but nothing hit me as being right until the third day when I picked out the red fabric with the square spirals. I cut the squares out in a strip. I liked that and looked through my fabric and found the black fabric with white circles. There is a blue fabric with brown squares but it doesn't really show up. I will use the circles between the square and the squares around the outside of the quilt.


On the second day we worked with curvilinear shapes. We started out with an inspiration photo. That day my photo just wasn't really inspiring me so after staring at it for quite a while, I just tossed it aside. Found the black and white fabric in the pile of shared fabrics and decided to make a vase out of it and just have fun playing with a nonrealistic flower arrangement. I freehand cut and placed things and had fun.

The third day we worked on landscapes. I didn't find an inspiration photo to bring with me. Instead, I took a picture from the parking lot where we parked at the art building. I drew a rough little sketch that night, taking out the building and adding in the mountains that were all around us. I'll put up some more of those photos tomorrow.

This was a fun landscape to make. We used some of the scraps of the edges we cut off and then fused more fabrics to cut into strips to use. During the critique, Sue suggested adding little slivers of lighter brown to the edges of the trees to highlight them and make them stand out a little more. I also decided not to add all the trees from the photo.

Now to finish these up. Need to quilt the flowers and landscape and put the sashing in for the squares and then quilt that.

I took today off of work to give myself a chance to come back to reality and work on the quilts while I was still energized from the workshop. Tomorrow it is back to work and reality.

Off to Bennington

Marilyn and I are off to North Country Studio Workshops in Bennington, VT tomorrow. I'm really excited. Can't wait to start the class with Sue Benner. I had a hard time paring down my fabric to take. I wanted to make sure I had enough selection to work with for the 5 day workshop. This is the first time I've taken a class that is longer than 1 day.

This is a piece I started working on. It is a lot darker than it really is and a lot more red. The actual color is sort of a dusty pink and brown. I want to try adding something to the pieced background before quilting it with the cheesecloth over it. Here, I've cut out some leaf shapes and put them under the cheesecloth. What I actually do will have to wait until I get back from Bennington.

I do have a new finished piece but I can't show it since it is a present for my sister. Hint, Hint, Debbie!!!

Happy New Years!!!

Happy New Years!!!

I don't make resolutions for the new year but I try to set goals. I haven't really had a chance to sit down and think about my goals for 2012 yet. I do know that one of them will be to continue working on my quilts, trying to do at least a little each day, even if it is only 15 minutes.

Here are a couple of new quilts I've finished up. This first one is a little quilt mounted on a quilted background. I've been trying to figure out a way to display small quilts and I like the way the small quilts look on a larger quilted piece.

Here is a closeup. Once again, I've used painted cheesecloth over a strip pieced background. I think it gives it sort of a painted look.

This is one of the circle pieces I started a while ago. I experimented with using the decorative stitches on my sewing machine.

Three Trees

Here's my latest project. I just finished it up tonight. Wanted to post it tonight before I go to bed or I don't know when I'd get a chance to.

Now I've got to get to work on a piece for the silent auction at the North Country Studio Workshops in January. I'm really looking forward to my class with Sue Benner.

In the Works

Just a little teaser of a new project I'm working on. Have to get ready for work so can't say much about it yet.


Tuesday was the Fiber Divas Christmas party. Lots of fun, food and friends. I was so inspired after getting together that I spent the whole evening down in my work area. I also spent most of yesterday down there too. Now back to reality for a little while. Work and Christmas stuff to do. Gary set up our old tv and a dvd player for me downstairs so now I can play movies while I sew. I'm one of those people who works better with something to watch or listen to. Sometimes music is ok but other times I want something more especially when I'm downstairs for a long time.

Better get moving. More later.

Work Space

We have the town sand pile at the end of our road. The other morning when I took Alex to catch the bus, he noticed this face in the sand. Thought it was funny so made sure to take my camera the next time I went out.

This is what we woke up to this morning. SNOW!!! I'm not ready for it! Although the trees did look pretty outlined in white.

This is my sewing area. I decided I might as well take pictures of it now because it will never be really picked up since I'm always working on something. I'm still figuring out how to arrange it best for me. On the right behind my chair are a couple of small bookcases. Someday I will have better lighting but we only have 2 outlets in the basement, so I have an extension cord running from halfway across the basement for my sewing achine and iron. Because it is a Habitat house the basement had to be unfinished, so we only have an outlet for our washer and dryer and and outlet for the cold air exchanger. Gary is planning on putting more outlets in as we get money and he gets time. Someday we will also have finished walls but hey, the blue styrofoam insulation panels work great for a design wall! Or should I say walls since I could use the whole basement as 1 big design wall if I wanted!

This is the sewing table my sister-in-law gave me. It is great! Lots of shelves underneath to store stuff on. I used clear plastic shoe boxes to put yarns and other embellishment stuff in. I sorted them by color and even have them labeled. There still is a pile of stuff to the left of the picture that I need to figure out where to put.

And the other side. A nice place to put my Matchbox Car storage containers which hold my thread. On the other side of the chair, I have some baskets to put things in.
What a difference this is from having all my stuff in the living room like I did at my parents or sharing the loft with Kara when she was home from college. The loft was really tiny and putting all my sewing stuff and all her furniture and stuff in there, it was cramped!! Now I can leave my projects out and can just start where I left off when I come back.

I keep forgetting, my exciting news..... I'm taking a 5 day class with Sue Benner this January. Its the North Country Studio Workshops in Bennington, VT. I've never been but Susan and Marilyn from the Fiber Divas go just about every year. I received a scholarship which made it possible for me to go. I'm so excited! I don't think the end of January can get here fast enough! I have really admired Sue's work for years and never thought I would have the chance to take a class with her.

Work in Progress

I'm still here. Just been working on a couple of things but don't have anything finished. After pulling out that piece from my scrap bag (see here). I decided to pull out this piece that inspired it. I started this one in a class called Still Life with Bottles. I can't remember who the teacher was but she taught a lot of hand applique. These bottles were hand appliqued on. I took the class a long time ago, before I started blogging, and never finished the piece. I always like the colors and the look, I just didn't know how to finish it since it needs something like plants, flowers or branches in one of the bottles. The 2 small squares on there are just stuck on to test some colors for borders. I didn't remember to take them off! I do have borders added to it now. I thought whatever I put into the bottles, I might like going off into the borders. Just need to figure out what is next. I'm now thinking maybe I should have shortened the top a little before adding the borders! Oh, well, guess I can always rip out and resew if that's really what I want to do.

At the last Fiber Divas meeting, Susan was getting rid of some of her fabric and we all went through it. I decided I wanted to use some of the oranges I picked up from her. Once again, I decided to use colors I don't usually use and picked purple and green. I just needed something I could sew without really thinking about it so I decided on circles. Because I wasn't thinking I made this project a lot harder than it had to be. I wanted each piece different so instead of sewing circles together then cutting them in quarters, I cut circles out then cut them into quarters before sewing them together. I was going to fuse this together but was so into getting it started, I started cutting out before I put the fusible web on. I tried sewing one together with raw edges and didn't like it, so I'm now turning the edge under then machine appliqueing it. Oh, well.

Well, I'd better go. Have to take Alex to the Tilton Outlet stores to look for some casual dressy shoes that he needs for Tuesday. Of course he didn't tell us this until Friday night!! If I had known Thursday, we could have stopped at the outlets in North Conway when we went to his ortho appointment.