Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Stash Report and other things

Home from MQX and time to tally the damage. I think I did great! I only bought 8.5 yards. Aside from the convention I also went to 2 quilt shops; one in Massachusetts and Keepsake Quilting. I made it out of Keepsake with NOTHING!

We will not talk about the thread though. I bought lots and lots of thread but you can't beat getting Superior threads at wholesale. I don't have a wholesale license so these shows are the only times that I buy thread. They keep coming out with fantastic colors.

Judy recently set a specific stash reduction goal for the year. I laughed at her until she talked me into doing the same. I suppose she needs someone to be there with her on December 31 when the goal isn't met! Her goal is to have a net reduction of 150 yards. Ha! Not a chance that I'll set such a lofty goal. I'm going to set mine at 100 yards. Remember I'm just doing this for moral support. It will be a miracle if I actually do it.

• This week IN: 8.5
• This week OUT: 0
• YTD IN: 53.5 yards
• YTD out: 68.5 yards
• NET OUT: 15 yards (Goal 100 yards)

I don't have any fiber photos so I'll share a couple of photos that I took out in the yard last week. I was hoping to have updates from the bird boxes today but it's raining. If we get a break in the rain we will do a quick photo inventory.

In other news.....it's great to be home! I love going to quilt shows but I always really love coming home to my own environmental bubble and my bed. While I was away this week I used some of my time to re-think some of the things I am working on. As I work on preparing my list each week and always have more to do than time to do it in. I needed to reprioritize. 

I decided that I have 3 primary goals:

1. Make more advanced quilts that I can enter into shows and that will develop my quilting and design skills
2. Spend more time developing classes for my LQS and possibly develop more articles for publication
3. Make more community service quilts, especially QOV quilts

I also want to have time for:

• Making gifts
• Quilting for my Mom, Anne and Kim
• Learning more about color theory and dyeing - which could play into primary goal #2

What have I been spending my time on lately? I have been doing some community service quilting but I haven't worked on any of my quilts for a few months. I have been working on 2 classes for the LQS and an article for F&S but they took a lot longer to develop than they should because I didn't have time to devote to them. I still haven't quilted my Mom's Stack and Whack (which would feed into primary goal #1) and I haven't worked on my color theory posts since October.

What else? I spent a lot of hours on the MQResource triptych challenge in January and February, I took the Monoprinting class in March and didn't have time to get through all of the lessons and I've been spending about 20 hours or more each month on the Take It Further Challenge. I also an signed up for 3 days of classes with Laura Cater-Woods at the end of this month.

Some things are going to have to give. Going forward, if I take any classes I will only take those that will support one of my goals or that will focus on technique/skill development rather than just starting yet another project. Aside from the 2 postcard swaps that I belong to, I am not going to participate in any more exchanges or challenges and I am going to drop the Take It Further Challenge. I enjoy the challenge and developing ideas for the challenge but I am spending way too much of my time on those projects.

I really hate to give up on things but you can't do everything and I don't need to get frustrated over a hobby! With that, here's my current list:

• Load and quilt the Guild baby quilt
• Work on samples for the MQS machine quilting class
• Get my materials together for the LC-W classes that start Saturday
• Paint more of the black feathers from the MQX class.

What are your tips for setting and managing your priorities?

Take it Further - April assignment and March update

April

Sharon has posted the Take It Further Challenge for April. The topic is "How do you see change?" and the color palette is

I don't know how I would create something that portrayed my reaction to "change". In some ways I don't like change. I have to control my environment because of my allergies. So I don't like change from that perspective. However, in general I really thrive on change. I like that my job changes every day with new projects. I like moving although that will not happen since Chris hates moving. I like watching the changing seasons. Change is good!

I'm going to work with the color palette and I've been pondering exactly what to do for a few days. I finally decided that I needed to change my quilt design process. I usually design in my head. I want to design more using software. So in April I will use this color palette to select a set of fabrics in Electric Quilt and design some virtual quilts to improve my EQ skills and develop better design habits.

March

For the March challenge (paying attention to details) I decided to go back to my February piece and fix it. I've been pondering just how to do that and finally decided to use foil to better define the light source and reflection. I'm going to be working on it a little at a time and will post it when it's done.

March Take It Further Challenge

I just realized that I had not commented on my response to the March challenge.

The them this month is to pay attention to the tiny details and the color palette is

I love the color palette but I decided that the message to pay attention to the details was a sign to go back to my February piece and take the time to make it right. I can add some more fibers, beads and other details to fix my horizon line and the light. I like that piece and want to make it more right. So at the end of March you will see a re-run.

February Take It Further

I can't believe it, I finished my February Take It Further challenge one day early!

Sharon's challenges have 2 components. The theme component for February is "what are you old enough to remember?". I posted some thoughts on that here. The color palette is this group of blues and taupes.

As I looked at the colors it reminded me of going to the beach as a child. That was a time when people generally took one week of vacation - a pack-up-the-car-and-go-somewhere-else vacation. We went to Long Beach, NC for our vacations. At that time (late '60's/early '70's) that beach was desolate! As a child I hated it. The kids wanted to go to Myrtle Beach, SC where every kid in the Southeast went on vacation. Of course today I would only go to the deserted beach so I can only imagine what kind of nightmare Myrtle beach with 4 kids would have been for my parents! So I did my TIF piece about the beach using something close to the assigned color scheme.

For my technique I went back to the cavern interpretation that I did for one of my triptych challenges in January.  This is made from batting, yarn and MistyFuse and that's about it! I made the base with fused layers of yarns. The base is cut into the diamond shapes and reassembled. I tried to get a light effect in the center going but my sand layer just didn't cooperate.

My in-house critic and I agree that this isn't one of my big winners but I don't think I am done trying to make this technique work. It's too much fun to do! You are welcome to leave some honest critical feedback. I would really appreciate some honest opinions.

Now I get one day rest before I have to start thinking about the March challenge!

February Take-It-Further

More progress

hmmmmm...I'll rearrange some more tomorrow night.