Thursday, April 30, 2015

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Fine Line Piecing Workshop with Kathy Loomis in Germany

Hard to believe that it’s been two weeks already since I returned from the Prague Patchwork Meeting. Kathy and I came back by train 

One of the few Czech works I haven't forgotten -
all the others I can still read and pronounce, but all
my little former knowledge has given up...


– no additional changes required this time – on Monday afternoon, and in the evening we started setting up the room for her workshop. Which began Tuesday morning, and went on for three days.
We had an international lot of attendees – Edith from Switzerland, Hildegard from Germany (the only local one in the group), Mieke from the Netherlands ... a total of eight participants, and a lively group.
Kathy gave us not only the secrets of her fine lines, but several intensive lessons in adequate ironing methods to make things work.



And then she walked us through several different exercises of her fine line technique, which will probably keep us busy trying different things for a little while.

Marking...

... matching...

...cutting...

Straight fine lines (beginning stage - this is by far not enough!)

Diagonal fine lines (too many colors - but not bad for an exercise piece)

Will several different color approaches go together eventually?
We shall see...

Final discussion round with some student's results


The idea to organize this workshop had happened rather haphazardly, as I have written about before. After this particular workshop filled up so quickly I was amazed. My husband, who is a well-connected public person in town came up with the idea of going more regular and/or getting more professional about such an event. He got me in touch with the manager of a local motel where conference rooms are available (including pinning boards, which we had to do without this time in our make shift arrangements). And for a little while I thought I might begin to organize workshops with international teachers on a more regular basis. But after calculating it all through, I decided that it was not a sensible idea to do so, because of the costs that would come with renting the conference rooms. These costs would add so much to the overall charge for the workshop that I believe people would not come any more – so the current state is that we might do it again, but stay in the same room we had this time, which was on the lower end of the buget scale in terms of rent. It can accomodate up to 10 participants, which makes for a wonderful class size. And when Kathy is up to coming back to Europe again for an event like this, she might be teaching another workshop here in Vilsbiburg.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Prague Patchwork Meeting 2015

Kathy Loomis and I went to Prague together, on the train, taking our group-exhibition in two suitcases:

Two big suitcases - one exhibition!

Kathy following up on our progress on the train on the map

In fact, I have already posted about our putting up the exhibition, and how it looked in its entirety, on the group's blog International Threads Blogspot, so you can take a look at the pictures there.

Barbara Lange, also a member of the group, had already arrived before us, as she was also responsible for the Radiation-exhibition helped us putting it all up.


We had a SAQA meet and greet


and many chances to talk with people from all over the world.


I taught a three-hour-workshop (I was told mine was the only workshop fully booked - that made me feel good!)



The Czeck women were very quick in finishing their pieces, very accurate in their sewing - I was really impressed with their sewing skills and expertise! I also gave a demonstration at the Bernina stand of my working method which has developed as I am progressing in my series text messages, but no pictures were taken on my camera, so I can't show anything about that here (or yet?).

I will show a few more photos from the other exhibitions in Prague tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Reflections from Prague

Before I will report a bit about the days in Prague, let me share with you a few reflection pictures I took on our nightly boat trip on the river Moldau: