Friends at the Barn

Joyce Martelli, who is from Rochester and also in our local groups, worked on creating a large strip set for a "wild" piece she has planned.








Leslie Bixel is from California, and she did lots of recutting and resizing of her blocks.











Liz Cocuzzi is also from our home area and she was at the next work station beside me. You can see the exaggerated version of her motif in the piece to the far left, along with some of the work she did during the week.








And these are friends Petra, who I met at my first class at the Barn, and Leslie Riley, who I have been in several classes with.

Motifs

Our assignments for our Sets and Variables class are based on working with motifs. I started with a T shape and decided to make the top bar of the T be half of the square.






We made small compositions from our motifs using high contrast fabrics.





I tried changing the proportions of the shapes in my T and tried making the compositions with warm and cold colors in both bold and muted values.


Then it was time to try a different motif, and I practiced with making different sizes of it.

At the Barn in Ohio

Nancy's husband, John, always creates wonderful fresh flower arrangements from the flowers and shrubs on the farm. This is the entrance to the dining area, and you can see our chef, Margaret Wolf, sitting in the background. The printed menu you see for Tuesday is typical of the wonderful food Margaret prepares for us.






I caught Barb intently sewing a binding onto one of her quilts during one of our free times to work in the Barn.
Barb and I are enjoying staying with her cousins in Granville, which is a lovely town about 25 minutes from the Barn. Harry, the LabraDoodle, is always happy to have someone to help him play with his favorite stuffed duck.










Barb's cousin, Mike, is getting ready to grill some fresh fish and veggies out on the grill -- It was very, very tasty!

Crow Timberframe Barn

Barb and I drove to the Columbus, OH, area on Easter Sunday to participate in Nancy Crow's class on Sets and Variables. This is the timberframe barn which holds the quilting classes upstairs and the fabric dyeing classes downstairs.

The grounds are always lovely, but especially pretty with all the spring blooms.



This is the view from the barn towards the house. There are lots of daffodils and other spring flowers blossoming.





This is the "other" barn, used to store the farm implements.










And this is Greta, who has been on the farm for many years. She's usually nearby the barn to keep track of all the people coming and going.

There are lots of opportunities to walk around the farm which has more than 100 acres. This pond is a lovely relaxing spot just a short walk from the classrooms.

The fish in the pond are quick to come to see any visitors, as they are used to being fed by the many students who walk out to the pond.

Packing for Nancy Crow's

Tomorrow Barb Seils and I are driving to Nancy Crow's Timberframe Barn near Columbus, OH, for two weeks of classes. The goal of packing is to take all the fabric you might need, but not so much that it won't fit into your vehicle!

The first two boxes are commercial cottons.





And the second two boxes have the hand-dyed cottons.











And one more box for black, white, and prints that might be used for creating texture.

Of course, we also pack irons, ironing boards, sewing machines, mats, a step stool, quilts for Show & Tell, and various sewing supplies.








I think Barb will be happy to see that even with all my "stuff" loaded in the Yukon, we still have almost half of the space left for her "stuff"!!

Visiting Priscilla

Our friend, Priscilla, just returned from her trip to Guatemala and showed us some of the treasures she found. This is a baby blanket with wonderful woven and appliqued animals.








These are beaded belts that will most likely end up as embellishments on some jackets.











Priscilla showed us some piecing that she had started quite awhile ago, but is finishing now and will be used in a new quilt.









And before her trip, this busy lady attended a quilt retreat at Casawasco and created these great wonky squares from leftover fabrics. I can't wait to see the completed quilt!

Ohio Jelly

Marcia is headed to the Nancy Crow Timberframe Barn for two weeks of classes in mid-April. Some fresh raspberry jelly will go along as gifts for old friends.













We processed whole purple raspberries and froze the juice last summer for our base today. The cooking phase ends with a rolling boil of the product, a combination of juice, pectin, and sugar. A dab of butter is added to control the foaming.








Marcia fills the jars, and the sealing lids are warming in the smaller pan.
Placing the lids on the filled jars and screwing on the rings (unskilled labor) is left up to Bill.









The completed product cools and stands ready to bring smiles to the recipients and furnish a sweet touch for many future snacks!
(We also left some for Bill to wisk away the sadness of a two-week bachelor existence!)

More Dyeing

I wanted to add some lighter colors to my stash of hand-dyed fabrics and specifically was looking for some light olive green. I did a gradation using tangerine with just a little navy blue.








The fabrics are actually more green than what this picture shows.









I also did a 5-step gradation using Golden Yellow and another one using Tangerine.








The results of the two colors are similar, but have subtle differences. The left side is the Tangerine, and the right side is the Golden Yellow.

Spring flowers

We had a very mild month of March with lots of sunny days and even the indoor plants prospered. Here the "cactus corner" sits in the late afternoon sunlight, and the large speciman on the left already shows new growth.




The orchids are about half emerged and will bloom for a couple of months. They enjoy the sun from the large southern-facing window and appreciate regular watering and misting.









Some African violets are coming along in another southern window. They also enjoy the warmth from a gas stove featuring an old-fashioned always-lit pilot light.











A Christmas cactus blooms a little out of season. On the other hand, Easter blossoms should be equally appropriate!

Confident Color for Textile Artists

We gathered at the Weaver's Guild facility in Rochester for a class with Pat Pauly to explore color usage and how we can improve the use of color in our work.

Here we have Charmaine, Nancy, and Trish standing near some of the color strips we painted to examine color mixing.





Pat is talking about some of the color lines we made where we looked at how the view of color can change based on what other colors surround it.













Pat is checking out some of our attempts at replicating colors that we found in magazines.






And Nancy is arranging fabrics in order from light to dark value -- not an easy task!

There were several other exercises, and we also enjoyed Pat's presentation on color and color usage in quilting.

We all had a great day!