Hello
I am still feeling excited from two weeks at Quilting by the Lake. I enjoyed hanging the quilt show on the Friday before the opening. Sharon helped me with the Finger Lakes Fiber Artist part of the show .

This work is by Joan a part of that section of the show  and I’d say it’s a real beauty.

My Forest Fire quilt was well received too.
I did not really get to look closely at hanging time. I am glad I had two weeks to check all the great work out.

This work is by Barbara B.    She did a trunk show week two on Wed afternoon and showed lots of wonderful stuff.

I was in the Rock On class with Cynthia Corbin. She had to step in at the last min to replace Rosalie due to a visa problem at the boarder. I really learned a lot about myself in this class and sense I really love rocks it was a good fit for me.    The work on the left is by Liz and the work  on the right  is by Robin and I think they are both well done.

Show and Tell was fun on Monday. Susan, who I meant at QSDS was at QBL too and she shared this piece with everyone.

The Quilting by the Lake conference has been going on for 36 years. I have been attending for 35 of those years along with two other gals, Linda Salitrinski and Linda Hazelton. This year we were honored with aprons of our own.

Monday evening there was a lecture by Ellen Blalock, the artist in residence.    Her talk was powerful  and was a peek into the world of black life here in America .  This quilt  ( a close up) was about sexual abuse.

Week two I had class with Betty Busby. She is a real dynamo and had more to teach us then could fit into the week. There were one or two demos every day and four the first day.

Here she is demonstrating how to use oil sticks  to create volume.

We did work with natural plants objects one day and this is my piece using that technique.

She was very generous with her stencils and I took advantage of that as did most of the class.

I did enjoy learning how she used the cutting machine on interfacing. I designed these feathers to have cut out for me. She also cut three from her collection for me to use as well. They are the beginning of a new piece, of that I am sure.   The top two light blue feathers are mine design.

Betty  had a power point show every day after lunch and she shared her work and techniques with us then too. This is a shot of her diatoms quilt

  There was lots of activity  all the time in class.    Karen who was setting next to me did a lot of free paint work using circles.

Lynn who was setting behind me is working away in this shot and Gerry is next to her.   This shot is early in the week as that wall behind then filled with work  as the week went on. 

We all went home with arm loads of fabric that we had altered and lots of ideas for future  projects that hopefully will appear in the QBL quint show next year.

The last night both weeks there was show and tell. This is a shot of  Noel’s work from one of the other classes.

  There is also a raffle drawing for work folks can donate to raise money for the scholarship fund.  This is a quilt by Sally Davis donated for that purpose.

The was a apron auction both weeks too.  The aprons are created by the teachers and are  always a big success.

This is a shot of Amanda McCavour’s apron. I only have this great image because Noel purchased the apron and she showed it to me on Monday.  All the images on the apron are thread painted items that show off Amanda’s specialty.

Liz was in Micky Lauler’s class and when we got together on Monday all we really did it talk about all we learned. We both explored a bit more with the techniques we learned in class. This is Liz’s work showing one of the techniques she learned.

I  used one of the paint techniques I learned to paint these printed images.

Then today Liz and I went to Angela’s for a bit of Gelli play.  We were transferring  magazine images.  Angela was the most successful with that process, but we all had fun.

Progress Report: Three Stars and No Moon    This quilt I started in the Rock On class.   When I was nearing completion I realized it needed a focal point so I added  the petoglyphics .  Mari who was setting behind me asked if I was Native American. When I said “no”, she asked if I really wanted to hijack some other culture’s symbols.    I though about it  and decided to invent my own symbols and plan to do so from this point forward. 

These are my figures of a person  with three stars and a sun of my own designing.

Rock 2

This rock also was built in the Rock On class.  It too is a very nice background so I drew a fox to add on top of this surface.

I will enlarge the drawing to fit the base and paint a fox to integrate into this work.

Rock On 3    This is another project that I started in the class.   It is barely begun.

More Samples from Betty’s Class

I did these two drawings in Betty’s class to make with the pellon technique that was used with the feathers.   But they were now cut.  I will use them to make silk screens for use in my projects later.

Old and New- Purple and Blue  I keep working away on the hand outlining of the squares on this project.  I have 21 more squares to do.  It takes me about an hour to do four blocks so hopefully next week I will be done.

Knitting

I needed to do some different type of hand work so I started this circular scarf for winter.

Childhood Memories: Dress Up I spent may a happy day staying at Grandmother Ruth’s house. My Aunt Shirley was only 8 years older than I and the house was still set up for children’s enjoyment. Grandfather had built a grand play house for Aunt Marcaleen and Shirley when they were young.  Aunt Shirley kept it well stocked with lots of great old clothing from Grandmother’s and Great Aunt May’s cast offs. Cousin’s Kelly and Tracy and I had many a backyard teas and parades in the wonderful get-ups we put together there.

Hollyhock Dolls

One hot late summer afternoon Aunt Shirley showed Kelly, Tracy and myself how to make Hollyhock Dolls.   We used the old  Carrom Board as our dance floor and our imagined balls were quite grand with the many swirling colorful gals. Grandmothers flowers were never safe after that summer as we repeated the doll making many a time.

Hide and Seek Many times there were lots of grand kids at the Cocklin house.   I remember one time when we played “Hide and Seek”.   My brother Gene was it and I hid in the Paper Birch tree above the sand box  next to the hedge. He never thought to look up and finally had to call “ Ollie -ollie-oxen- all in free”.  Because the sandbox was in the backyard and base was in the front no one knew where I hid and  I never told anyone where I had hidden.   We were called into dinner shortly after that so my cousins never found out either.     Sometimes it was an advantage to be the oldest girl in that generation  who can keep a secret .

I continue to be excited by the information that I got in classes and I will keep working on the started items over the next few weeks and mounts.

Keep Creating

Carol