Saturday was my first time exhibiting in costume! When I was invited to be the guest artist at the Columbia River Piecemakers Quilt Guild Show, I was told most of the guild members would be in costume. Why? Because St. Helens is the site where Disney filmed Halloweentown, which the town celebrates during the month […]
Northwest Quilters’ October Quilt Guild Meeting
Monday night we had an interesting mix of speakers. The new owner of Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego came to our meeting to talk about their latest shop, which formerly was The Pine Needle. Generally, Montavilla’s stores sell machines and offer classes associated with their machines. This store is adding fabric to their line […]
Poppies and Periwinkle Progress
In between judging and what feels like a myriad number of other commitments, I’ve been working on my latest wall hanging, “P is For Poppy and Periwinkle”. I’ve finished the embroidery on the flowers and leaves. Here’s where I’m at. Next up is couching on my hand-twisted cords for stems. Below is a photo of […]
Sunbonnet Sue As You’ve Never Seen Her!
Without a doubt, the most creative quilt at the Northwest Quilting Expo was made by Flora Joy of Johnson City, Tennessee. She wrote, “Twelve separate, freestanding curvy blocks have been sewn at their top borders to a separate base quilt. Viewers can lift each Dutch doll/Sunbonnet Sue to read the block’s unusual but true story […]
Quilt Show Extravaganza!
The last two weeks of September were filled with judging three quilt shows in succession with wonderful quilts in each. The first show I judged was in La Conner, Washington located on a channel of the Swinomish River. I was lucky enough to have a room at the Channel Lodge with a beautiful view of […]
Stitchin’ in Halloweentown
I am delighted to be the guest artist at the Columbia River Piecemakers Quilt Guild upcoming show. It is held in conjunction with Halloweentown, a celebration sponsored in St. Helens, which recognizes the filming of the movie of the same name. Hope to see you there. Can’t wait to see how the guild members dress […]
My “Final” Final
We had a “final exam” for Part 2, just as we had for Part I of the Pixeladies Photoshop Elements Course. Our goal was to combine a number of the tools we had learned and put them to use in a single image. I interpreted the term postcard loosely. For mine, I opened one of […]
Special Effects in Photoshop Elements
There are several special effects you can achieve, such a filters, drop shadows, and bevels. Here is a photo of a begonia from a basket on my front porch. I selected the flower from the photo, moving it to a new blank file. Then I used a pattern in filters called Angled Spectrum for the […]
Gradient Play
We worked with gradients today in our Photoshop Elements lesson. There are an infinite number of gradients you can create given the number of colors available and the variety of gradients within PSE. Colors and patterns can be gradated vertically, horizontally, in squares, or bullseyes, which is the gradient in commercial ombré fabric. You can […]
More Ways to Fix Photos
We covered more ways to correct problem photos. This involves using the adjustment layers. Some filters within this tool correct the entire photo. For example, if your photo has a blue cast, you can use a warming filter, with three to choose from. There are also three cooling filters. I don’t have any photos with […]
Fix Your Photos
Today’s lesson was how to repair photos which are less than perfect due to scratches, power lines, unwanted elements, or you simply didn’t take a good photo in the first place. I didn’t have a photo fitting this description so I used the sample provided. You can see hands in either corner, a face at […]
Filter Effects
Our final lesson for this week, we have one week to go, was filters. You can skew and changes colors in your photos by using filters on them. What makes filters most effective is stacking one on top of another. I have up to six filters on some of these photos. What I learned after […]
Photoshop Progress
I had a two week break after completing part one of Photoshop Elements (PSE) lessons with the Pixeladies. Part two started last week. In the first seven lessons, we’ve learned to do all sorts editing, using tools in a more complex series of actions. I am starting to put together how I will use what […]
North to Alaska–Juneau
This past weekend I had the pleasure of giving a quilt judging presentation to Capital City Quilters in Juneau. They had their first quilt show in 2017. In 2019 they will have their first judged quilt show and wanted to learn more about the process. Twenty five of the fifty members attended my three hour […]
Sheila Sinclair Snyder–Oregon Quilters
Our presenter at this month’s Northwest Quilters’ Guild meeting was Eugene quilter Sheila Sinclair Snyder. She talked about her journey in the quilt world. Specifically, she was a longarm quilter for hire for ten years. Her greatest wish during that time was for her clients to deliver quilts to her that were square and whose […]
Visions Art Museum
I’m a member of the Visions Art Museum. As an artist and particularly someone who works with fiber and mixed media, it’s important to me to support this museum where fiber is the focus. As luck would have it, my son lives in San Diego where Visions is located, so when I visit him, I […]
Wall hanging in Progress–finally!
I’ve been working on an 18″ x 40″ wall hanging. I’m calling it “P is For Poppies and Periwinkle”. Obviously, the main flowers are poppies, while the flowers on the tall stems are called false indigo. I saw the combination of red and orange poppies with the periwinkle-colored false indigo in a neighbor’s garden last […]
Frame Your Photos
We learned how to “add canvas” to a photo, which allows you to manipulate your image for certain adjustments. A nifty use for this additional canvas is to create a frame around a photo in your desired color. Here’s a photo I took of a hillside village during a trip to France a couple years […]
Big Winners at Oregon Coastal Quilters Show
After two days of judging in Newport, the winners have been selected. With the show opening, I can announce who these talented quilters are. I love guilds like this one that have two “best ofs” with one for wall hanging and one for bed-size. It’s challenging for small quilts to compete against large given the […]
A Final Exam! Really?
Our final lesson in Pixeladies Photoshop Elements on-line course was to select a photo we hadn’t worked with before and make at least five adjustments. I picked a photo I had taken of a wall hanging by my friend Mary Telford during our Oregon Garden exhibition. Here’s the original: As you can see I did […]
Printing Your Own Fabric Designs
A lot of quilters and fiber artists are printing their own designs on fabric for use in their own work. Our final lesson covered why and how to prepare images for test prints from print-on-demand companies, such as Spoonflower. I selected a photo of a stamped swatch I had created and a photo of a […]
