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This is Sandra Sider, SAQA Board president, who is staying with me for a few days. She is critiquing work by SAQA members in sessions today and tomorrow. We are having a great time. Laura Jazkowski and Georgia French, our state reps are here in town, too, and doing a lot of the driving and coordinating. Sandra arrived yesterday, after a delay in Minneapolis and a change of flights. She got in at 6 pm instead of 1:30 in the afternoon. I cooked a delicious meal for everyone last night. We had a good time getting to know each other.
I stayed home and worked on my sunset quilt this morning and joined in the afternoon critique. That is my Prairie Fields getting critiqued and it was quite good.
I thought you might like to see the other work. There were some spectacular quilts like this one by Jean Wells. The iPhone camera does not do it justice. This is a gorgeous quilt, with many of Jean’s signature design elements. This was the first critique and she set the bar very high.
Next was Mary Goodson who is my art quilt group. She paints whole cloth quilts and stitches them exquisitely.
Another Sister’s area member showed this quilt with mega pieces of fused fabric and divine quilting. The work on this is mind blowing.
This was when I popped up and asked if they would like to see something minimalist!!
Carol Heist, who is also in HFD, showed this piece which is about Blue’s Music. She said she started it with blue fabric and it was not working for her. The music is laminated sheet music.
I always admire people who bring quilts because they need help. This member is from Corvallis and she had made this large gingko leaf on a beautiful blue background. She said her photographer said it looked like a broom.
Sandra turned it upside down and you can see that it looks so much better.
Laura also brought a quilt which she felt needed help.
Sandra suggested she introduce some of the light color to the lower left area.
This is another member from Eugene with a piece she made by abstracting a photo of an old building. Her problem was the pink object over on the right which was making the eye go off the edge. Sandra suggested covering it with organza or smudging or stitching it to tone it down.
This is a lovely wet felted piece that needed something more. Some good suggestions were made for making a couple of the flower bits more of a focal and to only do machine stitching in the green background.
So, that is what I have been up to for the last couple of days. I have been sneaking in time to get two quilts ready to turn in for out next High Fiber Diet jurying. The theme is North West Vibe. I don’t really like the theme, but the committee says it can be anything that makes the NW a unique place.
What a tremendous opportunity to have Sandra Sider to critique quilts! It is always a learning experience to see one’s quilts in a different light. Thanks for sharing the process, Gerrie. Have a great time.
Recently saw an article showing Jean Wells latest quilts and was so excited by her work. I’ve enjoyed her older work for it’s beauty and even bought a book by her years ago. This new work is really exciting though. I wondered if her daughters work had influenced her since it’s somewhat similar and her change in styles seems to have begun when her daughter began working with her and designing her own pieces. I liked the quilts so much I bought her book too. In any case, thanks for the show. It must have been interesting and informative to see all these pieces and fun to see what small changes can do for the work.
What a wonderful collection of quilts! I was amazed at the difference in the ginko quilt, something so simple as rotating it. I am always amused at Jean Wells. I took classes from her 30 years ago when she was doing applique. What a difference from those quilts! Have a wonderful week, Gerrie and thanks for sharing this.