Applique Weekend - Long Point Nude Sewing Club

Background - Eve, Kathy and I were up at Rick and Eve's cottage for a "Girls Weekend" (in the days when there were children at home) and we used the Sea-Doos, bombing around the lake, having lots of fun. It was hot and we joked that we could have gone topless as we were wearing life jackets. Of course we told our husbands that we did and got t-shirts with MLNSDC on them for Morrison Lake Nude Sea Dooing Club. Well this weekend, "Applique weekend", was also warm and with the prevailing hot flashes as well, we went from sewing in pants and sweaters to shorts and t-shirts. Not nude though.

Brit came to teach Eve, Nicola and I, hand and machine applique. They arrived on Friday evening which was spent sitting on the deck with wine, catching up and having pasta dinner. Nicola has a difficult time finding quilting courses on the weekend and Eve is just starting quilting so having Brit (a master quilter and teacher) as a friend is a real bonus.

Brit came with tons of samples/examples, gadgets and threads and boundless tips and creativity.

Eve is planning a dog quilt

but for this weekend was planning to make a pillow of her pet Havanese, Bentley.

Bentley on the beach.

I had grabbed an old burlap pattern and was going to draw something on the back just so I could practice some of the techniques. Brit suggested I work with the pattern already on it; Glass Peaches.

Nicola planned to work on a pattern I had given to her for Christmas of 3 Muskoka chairs sitting on the sand. The morning started slowly with mistakes being made and a lot of reverse sewing (ripping out) but there was still lots of opportunity for learning and sharing of tips and equipment. I started with attaching a stone to one of the peaches using a blanket stitch.

By Saturday afternoon Nicola had  the background sewn and one of the chairs machine appliqued (blanket stitch).

I had a couple of stones attached, leather appliqued and hooked, wool appliqued with 2 different stitches and a couple of other embroidery stitches on the wool. It was exciting to be taking sewing techniques and applying them to rug hooking.

Eve had purchased a basic, used machine to see if she liked quilting and tried out Nicola's machine in the evening. She loooved it and it is now nicknamed the Orgasmatron.

Salmon dinner and then out on the deck in the evening where we were treated to a beautiful sunset ( photo by Brit)

Sunday morning Eve had finished Bentley's portrait and was ready to make it into a cushion so she worked some more on Nicola's machine.

Nicola moved onto hand applique, learned a few techniques and completed this PERFECT circle with invisible stitching.

Brit attached three beach stones to the bottom of her hooked piece.

They are much neater than mine.

The weekend was a great success; learning, laughing, eating, drinking, walking on the beach, sitting on the deck and way to many ways that quilting terminology became sexual innuendoes. It could become a regular event.

J.J. Ruggers 2019 Apps Retreat - Sheep Tricks

Jennifer and I left Ripley a day early and, after an overnight in a hotel, drove straight to the J.J.Ruggers retreat, just outside Paris, Ontario. Jennifer to sit and hook on the couches in the FiFi (Find it and Finish it) section and me to teach "Sheep Tricks".
I was able to set up on the Friday night and help a couple of people put patterns on to their backing.

My examples and samples went on a table in the centre of the room. The rug in the foreground is the one that started it all as everyone fell in love with the button sheep.

At the front of the room was a table of handouts so that people could take just the ones they were interested in (save some trees), resources and materials that were free (quilt batting donated by Brit, odd balls of yarn and precut noodle scraps)

This was a "stash buster" class and I had encouraged the participants to bring materials from their own stashes and they did, coming in with bags and boxes. I did however also have a selection of wool, buttons, yarn, pantyhose, velvet, denim and faux suede for sale in case they needed to top up what they had bought with them.

Everyone was doing a different pattern, some purchased and some self designed. Although about a third of the class did do the button sheep, everyone was using different materials. This gave lots of opportunities for teaching moments and for inspiration from what others were doing.

Margaret used a free pattern from Needle Pulling Thread. I loved her "Highland sheep" with roving pulled through the hooking. He looked like he was ready to be sheared.

Gay is a beginner and used an assortment of precut noodles in a variety of cuts. By the end of the class she had decided which cut she preferred to hook in and loved hooking on the linen rather than burlap.

Cheryl took the same free pattern as Margaret but put it together differently.

I had suggested that they make a template of the sheep out of polar fleece or bamboo quilt batting and sew the buttons onto that first. Then attach the template to the rug backing. Cheryl found that sewing on the buttons puckered the backing and "shrunk" her sheep, so she hooked around it to get its shape back. I will have to remember that if I teach this class again.

Leslie designed her own and is thinking of putting "Ewe be Ewe" across the top of the mat. She found that hooking the curly design in wool material and then filling in between them with the yarn was easier, and more effective, than the other way round. Another hint for me to file away.

Anne's was definitely the black sheep of the flock. Actually black, purple, pink, turquoise ........

Lori and her sister were doing the same pattern. They plan to make them into cushions with material snugging right up to the hooked sheep, 3 dimensional ears sewn on and 3 dimensional butterflies or crow on the nose. Lori is using reverse hooking for the face (not yet completed in this picture). She may embroider the mouth, have a button for the eye ... - creativity is fluid, constantly changing course.

Elaine's pattern by Teresa Kogut, had an American flag on it originally but this is what it looked like by Saturday evening. Nearly finished!

Unfortunately I didn't get around to taking pictures of everyone's projects. I wish I had, there was such variety. Buttons were popular as was yarn, wool material and roving. There was even some pantyhose sheep. I thoroughly enjoyed the teaching. Because I had had to be organized and packed a week and a half prior, I wasn't really nervous (I usually am) and was able to talk about the various materials and how to use them, give some hints and suggestions and spend the day walking around the classroom seeing so many different ideas and techniques. Great fun.

I was so glad to get home and sleep in my own bed! And start on to my hooking after a day of watching others hook.

In the pile of materials from her stash that Elaine was selling was a very bright pair of plaid pants. Heather and I shared this find, one leg each

and I am hooking it into the Ladies Doing Coffee pattern. It is not nearly as bright when hooked but still gives the plaid effect when the strips are hooked in order.

Finally
Aimee sent me pictures of Avery and Maya on horseback. A friend of hers had invited them to have a ride on her horse, Finn.

They got to groom him, pick out his feet and feed him apples.

Then they got to ride. He looks very relaxed, I think he's a natural.

Only Maya would go riding in a tutu. Is it just me or do they have the same haircut (a forelock and a pony tail)?

Ripley, WV - Southern McGown Teacher Training, Day 4

It's been an intense week with 2 days of fine cut (Oriental and Crewel) broken up by the funny Ladies from Carolyn Stich. The organizers are smart, as we are starting to be tired, overloaded, calluses on our hooking fingers, so for the last day they gave us a wide cut winter theme.

I was in Sarah Guiliani's class for Bundle Up.

Sarah had a lovely relaxed approach to the class and hooking in general. She based the colour plan for the piece on a multicolour texture sold by Dorr (Ombre)

The piece is quite simple, a perfect piece for beginners and while hooking we discussed the various challenges of teaching beginners - kit or not, types of hooks, colour planning, demonstrating techniques. In the piece Sarah used chain stitch,

proddy,

french knots and fringe.

Jennifer and I needed to leave class early in order to settle up our bills and collect our rugs, before leaving in order to get to Apps for the J.J.'s weekend retreat. In all of that I forgot to take a picture of what I completed in the class - about a third of the scarf.
Surprise, surprise, I was assigned a teaching role for next year. So I have a #3 cut pictorial to complete by July1, 2020 with written report and I must teach it on the Monday of next years Teacher Training.

Ripley, WV _ McGown Teacher Training 2019, Day 3

We start each day at the Assembly Hall where we hear an inspirational saying, get a presentation from someone who has been assigned a rug for Show and Tell (they have the year to hook it, and then do a presentation on it). We bid on the privilege to get first choice of the classes offered that day (called Queen for the Day) and then the 3 classes are described by their teachers. Today was all about Crewel. Then we line up to choose which of the 3 classes we want to take. We each have a coloured dot on our nametag and each day a different colour goes first.

First in line today (which means tomorrow my colour will be last) I got my first choice. Tina Cole is a Canadian teacher and greeted us with the Canadian flag.

She had strips of

crewel fabrics hanging around the classroom.

She had asked Charlotte Price to hook her interpretation of the pattern

and Tina had hooked one herself as well as

one to show the difference a dark vs light background makes

If you are not careful you lose the darkest values of the swatch against the dark background

and the lightest values of the swatch against the light background.

We talked and played with colours and dark and light backgrounds for a while as Tina's approach was not only to teach the hooking of the piece but she also did a lot of work with  us on how to teach students, help them colour plan, work with their colour choices.

Tina's piece had 3 colours (a primary, secondary and tertiary) and a green and a brown, but I already have a traditional crewel on my bedroom floor that I hooked years ago, so wanted to do something different. I was drawn to this piece of fabric

which had just 3 colours; blue, gold and green

against a dark brown background. That would be more of a challenge.

Obviously Tina's swatches are different from the fabric but I have  green, gold/brown and blue swatches. The green is my primary, blue my secondary and gold/brown my tertiary.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable class but a "thinking class" and a "thinking" piece of rug hooking so after a quick dinner of pizza Jennifer and I both returned to hooking on our Ladies from the previous day.

Ripley, WV - McGown Teacher Training 2019, Day 2

All the patterns today were from the Carolyn Stich Collection; whimsical and colourful.

I was in the class, taught by Pamela Landon, and the pattern was The Girls Doing Coffee.

She had hooked it mostly in a 6cut and had used a variety of embellishments.

Lots of colourful wools to choose from. Pam likes to get her colour planning inspiration from fabric samples which here she had mounted on canvases.

Most of us started with the chairs. They are closest to the viewer. Jennifer Curran hooked the chair in a 3 cut and then rewarded herself by starting on a dress.

A few started with the dresses or hats, wanting to dive right into the colour. One student spent the morning with colour pencils in hand, colour planning.

I hooked the chairs in pale green. They reminded me of ice cream parlor chairs. I also wanted to get all the straight lines hooked in straight before I started distorting the backing with those round ladies. I also added some wine bottles and a wine glass as, in my version, the Ladies are doing Wine and Coffee (for the designated driver). We decided that the lady in the middle (whose beverage you can't see) has a scotch in one hand and an espresso in the other.

The class next door was doing the Ladies going swimming. This is Claudia Lampley's.

The teacher from next door came over and described how she dyes wool using silk scarves that she has bought at thrift stores. She had some beautiful examples.

Although I wasn't, at first, interested in doing a Carolyn Stich, I have to admit that once you get into it they are great fun and quite a challenge with the amount of colour and opportunity to use different materials.

They lend themselves well to hooking and I love this one.