Stepping out of my comfort zone

This week I had an opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and try something a little bit different...a painting party.  I have found, that if given step by step instruction, I am capable of producing a picture that actually looks like something.  So to Bill and his wife, Amanda, the owners of The Starving Artist in Clarksburg and Buckhannon, WV...you are geniuses.

Since my friend Lori's birthday was coming up, her mom invited me and some of her other family members to a painting party to celebrate.  Every time I do one, I get nervous.  Actually, while I'm participating I get frustrated.  I always want to over think the process.  With quilting, for the most part, you have lines and angles that match up.  Of course there are always exceptions.  But with painting it's free flowing, creating shadows and blending colors. AHHHHH

When I walked into the studio I had no idea what the project for the evening was.  An easel at the front of the room revealed the cutest little chickadee.

Painted by Bill at The Starving Artist

I love it, it's amazing!  But I have to recreate it???  He did take it a bit easy on us and had the bird's body marked on the canvas in pencil instead of making us draw it ourselves.  

After some instruction from our fearless leader, we were ready to begin the step by step process.  

 I'm always amazed when we add things like bright pink paint.  I look at that and then the finished one and think, what??  But I just trust and keep on going.  I also have  to keep reminding myself to not grip the brush and to let it glide across the canvas.  Forcing your strokes is bad.

Always remember to paint the sides

When we start layering paints on top of each other and I start to get overwhelmed.  I have to just walk away.  The stick started out as basically all red, then we added a mustard yellow highlights to the right and black shadowing to the left.  If I don't stop myself I will keep adding strokes until none of the red shows through.  Take a deep breath, drop the brush and walk away.

Not too long after this point, I have a headache and a completed picture.  I'm usually not sure if I've had a good time or not.  I can see every mistake I've made compared to the original painting.  Yikes.  Though, Bill tells you from the start, artists do not make mistakes.  Then, Bill sends us away and the most amazing thing happens. 

Mine is the second from the left on the bottom

You come back into the room and hanging on the wall are all of the paintings.  Suddenly, from a distance, you realized that, hey, I painted a chickadee!  And it does look like a chickadee!  

Again, why do I always looked stoned???

If you haven't had a chance to try one of these classes you should.  After I get home and hang my picture, I feel refreshed.  The act of creating anything and learning something new can just be good for the soul.  With each class I attend I get a little better.

This was the first class I attended several years ago.

This was a paint your pet class I did this time last year.  Don't be too impressed...it's probably 30% me and 70% Bill.  I was thankful for all of his help.

I even talked hubby into a couples paint.

One of my favorites that I've done.  I was able to recreate another one at home on my own.

So on that note, I would also like to wish my friend Lori a Happy Birthday today!

Knowing us, we will paint something again very soon.  It's always a good time.  Especially when we bring wine...wink, wink.

Mini Barn Quilts

If you have been to my blog before, I don't think that it's a mystery that I love things that are miniature (except candy bars, those should always be supersized).  At barely 5 ft tall, I'm practically miniature myself.   So when Terri Ann over at Childlike Fascination announced her brain child Mini Barn Quilts, I knew that I had to have some.  I have a few people on my Christmas list that I thought would appreciate these tiny creations, so I ordered four to assemble during my week off from work.

The first items of business was to acquire Mod Podge, brushes and wood glue, then sort through my fat quarters (and of course purchase a few more) for smaller print fabrics.  Scale is very important for this project.  Once I decided on fabrics, I could begin using the Mod Podge to adhere the fabric to the wooden pieces so that they could dry overnight.  The next morning, I used an x-acto knife to cut out my pieces.

Before I glued the pieces to the base, I arranged them to make sure everything fit together they way I wanted them too.

Now for a step that I almost missed...or rather almost forgot.  When you take the small wooden pieces out of the bag and begin adhering your fabric, pay attention.  One side is the wooden surface and the other has a paper covering.  You glue your fabric to the wooden side and then peel the wooden paper off the other side before you glue it to the base.  I was so excited to start gluing to the base I almost forgot.

In no time at all I had my four mini barn quilts finished, two Missouri Star kits and two Flocks of Swallows.

So, if you are just looking for a change of pace project or need an idea for a loved one, head over to Mini Barn Quilts and give them a try.

My last thought before I leave...I wonder if I can con someone into building me a miniature barn for my barn quilt?

Come join the party!  Today I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts, Richard and Tanya Quilts and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

2016 The Quilter's Planner

**As an update to this post:  Watermelon Taffy didn't actually make it into the 2015 The Quilter's Planner as planned, but the tutorial can still be found on my Tutorial page.  The Quilter's Planner is a wonderful tool and contains the works of many talented bloggers that I am happy to call friends and I hope you will check it out.**

Stephanie from Late Night Quilter completely made my day 100% happier when she sent an email Tuesday to let me know that my pattern for the Watermelon Taffy Block would be included as one of the 52 free blocks in her upcoming 2016 The Quilter's Planner.

I read the email twice and did a happy dance.  Ten months ago when I started my quilt blogging adventure I would have never dreamed that I would write a pattern for a block, let alone be included in an amazing project such as this one.  So a huge thank you to Stephanie for all of her hard work on this project and also allowing me to contribute!

Now let's talk a bit more about this planner.  I think quilters fall into two distinct categories; extremely detailed and organized or hot-mess chaos.  I can admit that I fall into the later category.  If you love details and making sure everything in your life is organized this book will allow you to do that in one great convenient place.  This is the book for you.  If you are a hot-mess of chaos, like me, this book will provide an opportunity to get your thoughts down in a organized fashion and keep track of all the things you forget to do.  This book IS for you.

Let's talk about all the great things that she's included in this planner:

Monthly and Weekly Calendars

Prompts for goal setting (a study shows people who wright down their goals accomplish more)

Project planning pages

Graph paper, space to practice free motion quilting and savings swatches

A reference section for quilting calculations and common piecing techniques 

52 original quilt block designs (from various bloggers like me) and 8 full quilt patterns from Cheryl Brickey (Meadow Mist Designs), Yvonne Fuchs (Quilting Jetgirl), Amy Garro (13 Spools), Lee Heinrich (Freshly Pieced), Mandy Leins (Mandalei Quilts), Pat Sloan (Pat Sloan), Kitty Wilkin (Night Quilter) and of course Stephanie (Late Night Quilter) herself. 

And art work pull-outs by Kelsey Boes (Lovely and Enough)

The Quilter's Planner 2016 became available for pre-order on October 22 on Indiegogo and should ship out sometime in December (early January at the latest).  I know I already have mine pre-ordered and am looking forward to a more organized and productive 2016,  thanks to all of Stephanie's hard work.

P.S.  Don't forget to check out the Dog Gone Cute Blog hop going on every Tuesday and Thursday this month.  I day on the hop has come and gone but you can check it out here.

I'm A Quilter--Not a Photographer

Before I started blogging I usually put 0% thought into taking pictures of my finished projects.  I would just snap a picture and post it on Facebook to share with my friends and famil.  After I started blogging and reading blogs I realized that these finished projects really are huge accomplishments since time is something that is precious.  We only get a finite number of days to live and how we choose to spend them is important.  When I can squeak the time to create something, I should savor the moments creating it.  And when you give a quilt away, you never know what type of life it will lead.  I read a great blog post on the BadAdd Quilter Society's page called You Can Have Sex On My Quilt.  It's a great read and so true.

I decided that I would like to add a gallery page to my blog (still under construction) so anyone who is interested can check out the quilts that I have made.  But I quickly realized most of my pictures...well...honestly are awful.  So I decided to put the brakes on and try my hand at photographing them.  And lets just state for the record I am not a photographer and I have no idea what I'm doing.

Since I have no idea what I'm doing I turned to Craftsy, that seemed logical.  I have downloaded several quilting classes and thought maybe, just maybe there would be a class to help with this.  What I found was a class called Shoot It! A Product Photography Primer by Caro Sheridan.  This class is specifically about trying to obtain that perfect product shot.  Maybe for a pattern cover or just to sell a product, like a finished scarf.  She gives tips about lighting, working with models and playing around with photo editing.  There is even an extra bonus on taking self portraits.

So after taking some notes and commandeering my brother's Nikon camera, I waited for a day with decent lighting (and no rain) and tried my hand at photographing inanimate objects.

**Note: Please do not be horrified by the quality of the before pictures.  I'm a little embarrassed that I'm sharing them.  Growth through pain.

This is a before picture of my pink and green sampler.

 Isn't my husband's little piggies just the cutest? I'm rolling my eyes over here.  And the pile of yard sale junk...what was I thinking?  Hopefully, the new pictures will redeem me.

Yes, I actually forced my brother and his wife to snuggle under the quilt...he he he.

Next, is a before picture of a mini quilt called Don't Break Bread Into Your Soup.

Not really the best lighting and I just laid it across the chair to grab a quick picture.

Hopefully the scenery in these two pictures make it more interesting and help the colors to pop.

Next up is another mini quilt called Decoy and it is probably one of my favorite things that I've quilted.

Lovely mauve carpet background and kind of blurry.  The detail of my quilting is visible, but I wouldn't say great.  Now for the newer and hopefully improved pictures.

The first picture is crisper and shows the detail in the quilting better.  The second one could still be improved, but I think it's kind of fun and shows the colors of the whole quilt.

And lastly, is a quilt that we keep in our living room.  I made it so long ago I forget what the pattern was called.

Yup, another very blurry picture and don't you just love the blanket under it??  If anyone would like to borrow it to show case a project on just let me know.  I will let you borrow it for free :)  And now the newer improved picture.

This has to be better than the first one, right?

I am glad that I took the leap and purchased the class.  I still have things I need to work on, but it gave me a starting place for sure.  Do you have a process or tip for taking pictures of your quilts?  Do you maybe keep and album of the projects you have completed?  Does anyone still do that?

Today I created a page with pictures of the Aurifil mini quilts I have finished to date.  You can check them out by clicking the tab at the top of the page or you can click here.  Hopefully, I will have my gallery page up soon and you will stop back over to check it out.  I may still have some pictures that are kind of, ehhh, but that is because those quilts have moved on to new homes.  And to those that have some of those quilts, you may have sex on my quilt, I hope you make many memories with them however you choose to.

I'm linking up with:

Pet Project Show @ Pink Doxies

Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She