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Art Quilt Tahoe Day 5

I am a little late posting, but my roomie needed to get some early shut eye for a flight home to Virginia, where she is employed as a rocket scientist. In fact, Hollis Chatelaine had two rocket scientists in her class!!

We had such sad news yesterday. Elizabeth Barton was taken to the hospital early this week with what they thought was asthma brought on by dehydration due to the altitude. Next day they said they were doing more tests. Then we heard that she had a heart attack. Yesterday came word that she has blocked arteries and needs by-pass surgery. She lives in Athens, GA, where here husband is recuperating from surgery so her daughters are trying to get here to be with her. She had been to the doctor in GA and they said she was just tired from taking care of her husband. This is a classic case of the medical community ignoring the signs of heart disease in women. She is skinny and would not appear to be a candidate. They had to punt here at AQT with fill-in teachers.

I had a great dinner with Kristin and her mom. It was nice to have a more intimate setting after several days of dining with all the quilt divas.

OK, you want to see what I have done. Not much!! I had a melt down on Wednesday and totally diverted from my intended design. Here is my design wall. The piece on the right was in my head and needed to be done. I diverted from my trapezoid shape and went with what I feel comfortable doing. Collaging squares. I painted a piece of organza in several colors and cut it up and made the collage on the right. The premise of the class was to pick a shape – come up with several designs, pick one and do some studies and then work the shape in to a larger piece. No one else in the class was doing this. I felt quite out on a limb.

Aqt06finalpieces

Here is a close up of the collage which will get lots of Perle cotton and machine stitching before it is finished. I call this spring sunshine.

Aqt06sunshine

So, Jeannette was disappointed with my diversion and being the goody two shoes student that I am, I pulled out the trapezoids and auditioned new backgrounds for it. I worked up a new design and have cropped it with paper to show the final layout. I am playing with those sticks of fabric. I am not sure what I will use in the final piece. This will be titled Pathway or something similar.

Aqt06pathway

I am glad that I went back to it. The discipline of working through this was very good for me.

Liz Berg has started a new series that involve doors. She has dyed lots of cheesecloth and has used it for these collages. I think they are just wonderful.

Aqt06lizbergwork

Here is the sunset I saw walking back to my room yesterday;

Aqt06sunset

And here is a beautiful reflection of a pine tree in the windows of the hotel.

Aqt06treereflection

I have my supplies moved to my new classroom with Charlotte Yde – can’t wait! I’m spending the day processing the last few days and working on Miles’ sweater. Maybe I’ll work on those sticks on the Pathway. I will soon have a new roomie, and I am excited to see some Santa Rosa friends here for this next session.

4 Responses to “Art Quilt Tahoe Day 5”

  1. Judy says:

    Love BOTH of your pieces. Amazing colors!
    That is so sad (and scary) about Elizabeth Barton. Thanks for the link to her site. She lives only 45 minutes from me, but I’ve never heard of her! I need to take some classes from her when she is well!
    Glad you got to be with Kristin for dinner. Sometimes it’s just good to get away from the “campus” for a while, even if the desserts are to die for!
    TaTa!

  2. Diane D. says:

    I love Spring Sunshine! It has a lovely painterly quality to it.

  3. Deborah says:

    The first thing I thought after reading this post: adore spring sunshine! I’m completely entranced by the transparency and layers. Second thing I thought: where is the dessert of the day? (Then I remembered you had dinner with Kristin.) I’m glad you went back to the trapezoid. It’s looking great too.

  4. Debra Roby says:

    Gerrie,

    I think we decided last year that everyone had atleast one day where they melted down.

    One of the instructors said “if it’s not hard, you’re not working hard enough!” Glad that you got the square piece out of your system, went back to the workshop design and worked on it.