Thursday, October 27, 2011

Coming together

Things are moving along rather quickly today. I was beginning to feel like I wouldn't have much of anything done to take home and show off but everything just pulled together today and I am really pleased with how my piece is coming along. I finished fusing the sky diamond tiled sunset background section then moved on to creating the foreground section with painted rock formations, hand dyed fabrics for the water and sand. After fusing everything down where it needed to be then I began to add shadows and reflections in the water. I even got to the point of spray basting the quilt top onto the backing and batting using a technique that one of the women shared. This is the tip of the year. When you are ready to spray baste your quilt together lay out your batting and spray it with the adhesive, take your backing piece of fabric and roll it onto a paper tube slightly longer than your backing right side in. Take that to your batting lie it down and slowly roll it out smoothing gently as you unroll your backing. Now flip your backing/batting piece over, spray the top of the batting, roll your quilt top up on the paper tube with the right side in on the tube. Unroll your top onto your backing. This made the basting process so quick and easy. I will be using this process for just about every quilt that I don't plan on quilting on the longarm. Poor Lola, my longarm, she hasn't been used for nearly 2 weeks now. I then started to machine quilt my piece too. I got a fair amount of my sky quilted. Tina got her piece basted together and started quilting too. She has such a realistic scene. We had a wonderful sweet potato soup for dinner, followed by a Jamacian lamb stew with chocolate ice cream for dessert. After dinner we had a presentation of next years classes here at Greenville Arms Inn, followed by a slide presentation by Gloria. This week has been a lot of hard work but we have learned so much and have enjoyed the company of all the women in the class. This has been a great experience. I certainly will consider doing something like this again.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Today I am going to blog about the food that we have had here at the Greenville Inn. First of all it has been fantastic. You can tell from the first meal that Mark, the chef, loves what he does. He is also very accommodating if you have any special food allergies or dietary restrictions. Breakfast always has a special that changes everyday but you also have a small menu of choices that you can choose from. I tried the French toast the first morning which was very good, only topped by the special one day of French toast made with raisin bread. Wonderful. Lunch is on our own but you can order a lunch of a salad or sandwich if you don't want to leave the inn and go somewhere. Tina and I brought sandwich fixings, chips, salsa, and grapes so we were set for lunch. We have a small fridge in the room which makes that possible. Supper is always a 3 course meal, soup or salad, main course and dessert. Wonderful. This salad was topped with a wonderful raspberry vinegrette dressing.
Here was the chefs special jamacian chicken. Wonderful. The vegetables every night were prepared to perfection.
Dessert was always the grand finale of the meal. Sometimes homemade ice cream, carrot cake, or bread pudding. Oh and I forgot the cookie break at 2:30 every afternoon of fresh baked, warm out of the oven cookies the size of your face. Melt in your mouth delicious. If you are hungry around here it is your own fault. Many of the women have been here before and attest to the delicousness of the meals from year to year.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Today started very early, at least for Tina and me. I woke up at 1:45 AM and tossed and turned for 45 minutes beforeTina woke up also and we decided to go to the studio and work on our projects. We had the studio all to ourselves. I decided that I needed to paint another piece of fabric to use for my sky work. While it was drying I started to put together a small piece with diamond tiles. I have the background piece done and waiting to learn how to add a tree to the piece. The pieces that I trimmed away from that I used to start another pieced background. When all is said and done I should have 4 to 5 pieces pretty well completed by the end of the week.
By 6:00 AM I was ready to take a short nap so that I could be ready when class officially started again. Slept till 7:30, got up for breakfast, had a wonderful poached eggs on english muffins with and artichoke cheese sauce. So good. Class, work, lunch, work, afternoon nap, supper and now blogging. Will go back to the studio tonight to work a short while longer before heading to bed. I will also get some pictures of my works in progress. A post without pictures is pretty boring.
Tina is heading to bed now but she worked straight through without any nap so I will cut her some slack. She is working on a beautiful and very realistic piece and is doing quite well also.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Quilting at Greenville Arms 1889 Inn

Today started our class with Gloria Loughman at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops held at the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn. We are having a wonderful time getting immersed in learning how to create a landscape quilt. So far we have had a lesson in achieving a painted fabric to enhance our designs. We also have had a color theory lesson. Very informative. We have been busy creating our backgrounds today. Here is a shot of the studio with us busily at work.
This is just before dinner so some of us were beginning to get a little weary and took a break. We have a great space to spread out and work in and everyone is so generous with their help and encouragement.
Here is a quick shot of what I have gotten done today. I am cutting out my background diamonds for my sky background. I have approximately 50 cut out or so but have about 500 to go. It will take some time to get them all cut out and placed onto my background but I am hoping that it will be stunning when it is all done. I am working on a sunset over Tobacco Bay in Bermuda from my own idea of what the sunset would look like there so it may not be exactly true to a real sunset there but since I am the artist I can create what I want, right?!? I will try to post something everyday to document all the great fun that we are having here. By the way the food has been absolutely fabulous so far and from the reports that others who have been here before we will not lack for good food. Chef Mark LaPolla has amazed us with his Tilapia Almondine, chocolate creations, wonderful pancakes with cranberries for breakfast, and fresh baked still warm out of the oven chocolate chip cookies for an afternoon snack. Everything is so wonderful.