Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Trunk Show and Thread Program

This week I had my first trunk show for a small group of quilters (about 35) in the nearby city of Missoula, Montana. I showed just over 30 of my early and current art quilts and talked a little bit about the techniques and development of them. My mother graciously assisted me by holding up the quilts and walking them around the semi-circle so everyone could see the quilting and embellishment on them. It appeared that they really enjoyed them and they had some great questions for me. I felt very good about the experience and would look forward to doing it for other groups in the future.

Tonight I will be half of the program for our local quilt group talking to them about using threads and other fibers to enhance and embellish quilts. I'm certainly no thread expert, but I have tried many things and experimented so hopefully I have some hints and tips that might be useful to other quilters. The other half of the program is a woman who does a lot of beading. I have only recently started beading on my quilts so don't feel qualified yet to give advice in that area, but I'm looking forward to seeing what she has to say and show! I'm planning to show a few of my quilts that illustrate how I have used various threads and other ways of using fibers such as couching, thread painting, hand embroidery, and sashiko stitching.

With these two activities so close together I haven't been very creative in my studio this past week. I get very distracted by having to be prepared for something and just seem to get blocked creatively. I'm hoping once tonight is a thing of the past I will be able to return to my brown tree quilt and maybe even get it layered and start quilting. I'm still thinking some cutouts might be in the plan…

My husband came home last night from hunting out of town with two mule deer does and a buck in the truck so today we are cutting and wrapping venison for the freezer. I have a short break here while he trims and cuts some steaks for me to wrap, but I'm sure he'll be calling me at any moment to get back to work!

4 comments:

In Good Company said...

Heidi - Thank you for sending your blog address. I think you are off to a great start with blogging. The site looks good. Your quilts look good. Keep it up! Jamie

Roberta Ranney said...

Hi Heidi - I enjoyed the opportunity to visit your blog - your sense of color is delightful. Thanks for sharing your blog on Quiltart.

frazzledsugarplummum said...

I was so caught up in commenting that I forgot to Congratulate you on your new Blog. I like it and look forward to seeing anything you have to show or tell.

Heidi Zielinski said...

Thank you all for the nice comments. It is great to get some feedback since I'm new at this. Just figured out that I could comment back---and then hope that you come back to my blog and actually see it! I appreciate any advice or reactions to my work. Can't say I'll use them necessarily since I'm rather independent in developing my work, but you never know when someone will have a great idea that you hadn't thought of. And I'm always trying to improve my work so critiques are welcome. Thanks!

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