Let Me Entertain You

It's amazing how liberating it is to post your most personal art work.

I have posted paintings that I have done...

ones that I felt were FAR below The Mark.

Way below The Mark...

but you know what?

These paintings show that I am trying...

I am Doing The Work.

I am Practicing...

I am working towards My Goal.

Sooo...in that same vein, I thought

I'd really step out there

and share some more...

My sketch book.

Anyone who knows me (loves me...).

knows that there are a couple of things that I hardly ever travel without -

my sketch book and a small bag of knitting.

My theory is that

1. You never know when The Muse or Inspiration will hit - You HAVE to have your sketch book or some paper to catch a few frantic marks to decipher later.

2. You never know when you're going to get stuck in traffic(or the doctor office).

I HAVE to have Something to keep me busy.

(I often carry a couple of my fav magazines - Quilting Arts or Cloth, Paper, and Scissors.

You don't subscribe to them?! No WAY!

You HAVE to!

If you're reading my blog,

and you like the kinds of things that I do then

you MUST SUBSCRIBE

to both of these magazines!

GO NOW, SUBSCRIBE.

Back to The Post.

So, I decided that if I felt so much better after posting these paintings,

imagine how awesome I would feel

after posting a few pages from my beloved Sketch Book.

So I decided to give it a try.

Here are a few random pages...different subjects...

they range from bunnies to tassels to rubber stamp houses to faces...

and a little in between.

This tree was copied from "The Decorated Page" by Gwen Diehn.

This book is wonderful!

I have checked it out from the local library

at least 5 times...

I need to buy it actually...

perhaps I'll tell Santa about it.

I was practicing my name

after looking in "Modern Mark Making" by Lisa Engelbrecht.

Another Must Have book.

And I do Have that one!

This is a design for a purse tassel that I sketched up.

I have a similar one on my Origami Purse.

I am teaching that class at My Quilt Shoppe

in Hendersonville NC on Dec. 13 of this year.

Click on the above link for info about it.

It's a great class that is from 10:00 am -3:00pm. Based on your sewing skills, you could leave with a purse on your arm!

I'll be sharing quick and easy quilting tips and I promise we will be having FUN!

This is a great gift idea for Christmas too!

Or a quick, really nice gift for your self!

Call the shop at 828/692-8870 to register and

get your supply list.

Do it TODAY!

This is Bunny...a tale for another day.


I saw a rubber stamp with a house similar to this...can't remember the designer though. If you know, let me know and I'll post the name.

A quick sketch of a face.

Practice, practice, practice!

Hey, it's those Bunnies again...same Bunny, same story...
Another day, another tale.

This is a double spread from sketches I made...

either from memory or some book on cartooning from the Local Library.

I really have to jot down book titles and authors.

I try to give credit at every chance I can

but this is once that I failed to write down all the pertinant info.

Sorry!

Another double page spread.

Same story, some I made up, some I copied from books.

I tend to do much better when I have something to look at.

My son (who is an awesome cartoon artist) does better drawing from his imagination.

We envy each other...

but respect the others talent more than envy.

This last page is from a book that was about character development in animation.

I'll try to get names and titles..

I REALLY am sorry not to have them.

Ok...that's enough "sharing" for me for one night.

Hope that you enjoy my humble offerings as much as I enjoyed sketching them.

Now,

Go

and

Draw.

Quilted Tote Bag

I am going to be teaching a few classes at My Quilt Shoppe soon. I have posted pictures of the Victorian Applique Series I am doing in an earlier blog.

The other class is a Quilted Tote Bag from Jo-Lydia's Attic. It is really nice and roomy, measuring 15"high and 18"wide. It has 8 pockets, an attached change purse (which I use for sewing/painting notions) and a swivel hook for keys (or scissors). There are pockets inside on all four sides. There are also pockets outside on every side, one large enough to carry a cutting mat to class! It would make a great class tote, with all those pockets you can keep everything organized. I also placed a separating zipper on the top panel. You can unzip it completely so that the panel drops down inside the tote when you want easy access to your things. There is an eyeglass case pattern included with the pattern. Oh, and there is also a total of three tote sizes in the pattern.

It is called "The Quilted Carryalls".

I made one for myself out of pre-quilted batiks but needed to show one made from "quilt your own fabric"...so I picked something from the new fabric at MQS.

I choose three fabrics. One for the main side panels, a contrasting fabric for outside pockets and one for the inside of the bag (inside pockets). This is my progress so far.

This is all the things that I needed gathered together. If I were keeping the bag, I would have quilted batiks probably. But this fabric is nice as well.

I just quilted them with a simple grid pattern but it looked very nice after it was done. I just loved spending time with fabric, thread and my sewing machine!

And a close up of the quilted fabric. The pattern suggests that you cut the fabric and batting before quilting it as it goes much quicker than quilting the entire piece then cutting the pieces out. And it went very fast for me. I used a bone crease tool to mark my grid with. No markings to remove!

Hope you enjoyed this little blog about part of what I did yesterday.

This morning I took the last batch of Rust Fabric out of the bin! It looks beautiful! I also added quite a few different items to see how they would rust. Results later...

This afternoon I'm going to pick my niece, Kara, up and I'm going to teach her how to sew! I'm excited about this! I love teaching the next generation this craft. She has awesome taste in colors and design and I'm sure that she will choose beautiful fabric. We're going to make a tote bag. Not the one from above, I think that a true beginner needs one a little less involved. But I will show her how to mark it for the grid quilting...maybe I'll ignite the quilting fire in her! Here's to Kara!

My Quilt Shoppe Classes

I spoke with Darlene at My Quilt Shoppe yesterday. Lanna (the owner) is back from vacation and looked at the pieces that I had left at the shop. They loved my work (yay!) and want me to teach classes on every one of them. Wow, I am really excited about that. I'm going to get with Gen Grundy about planning the classes as I never taught an "organized" quilting class before.

I'll be doing the Katie Lane Victorian Stained Glass series (in a previous blog). I have to complete the third one. It's pieced but not quilted as yet. The other class is a quilted tote bag. It's a fairly large bag, big enough to carry a medium size cutting mat in the side pocket...perfect for class!

I'll really have to review the tote directions...as I tend to scan directions, look at the pictures and then make it my way! I guess I'll just wing it in class.

Anyway, that's the biggest news for Friday.

Late Night Blog

Well, it's about 3:30am and I can't sleep...too wired up from an awesome day in NC. I went to My Quilt Shoppe in Hendersonville to meet Patsy Thompson and see some of her awesome quilts and stitching designs. Wow! That is one talented (and nice) lady! She has several DVDs available at her web site (http://www.patsythompsondesigns.com/) along with free downloads.

Her work is absolutely phenomenal , the different threads and designs that she uses are awesome. And she is a great teacher , so easy to understand and follow. I got an autographed DVD , the beginner one (Fast and Free Vol.1) . I can't wait to watch it and get started in a whole new direction in my stitching adventures!

I had taken a few of the things that I had made to show to the girls there at MQS , to decide on some classes this summer and/or fall. In the bag were two of the Victorian Applique wall hangings (from a series of three) that I had completed (available at http://www.katielane.com/) . I wanted to see what Patsy would recommend for the quilting motif even though they were smaller designs than she usually worked with. I asked her if she minded having a look and she agreed.

I was blown away by everyone's reaction to my work! They loved all the things that I had brought. It is so gratifying to have fellow fiber artist really like your work. And they also reinforced what my husband and friends have been telling me all along...I am wayyyy to hard on myself...way to critical of my work. Is there anyone else out there that is that way? I don't know if it's that I feel I should be doing better or if it's just plain ol' doubt in my abilities...but I'm getting better about that.

I also met the most awesome lady there today. Her name is Gen Grundy. She is from NC and taught at MQS for a long time. She taught most of the "artsy" classes there and said that she is not teaching right now as she wants to do some things that she wants to do. You go girl! She seems like such an awesome woman and I look forward to getting to know her better. She was very encouraging about my work and my leaning towards the more "artsy" side of quilting. She (and Patsy both) invited me to the Fiber Arts Alliance in Asheville. I'm going to try and make the monthly meeting this month. Sounds like a ton of fun and a great way to meet other fiber artists.

So , today was a good day...filled with meeting a lot of wonderful fiber fiends, learning about different stitching techniques, getting a little more self confident as I put my work out there in front of advanced quilters and fiber artists !

It's day like this one that make you fall in love with fabric, color, thread, sewing, and all those other things that make up the awesome world of fiber arts all over again!

I'll add pictures of the Victorian Applique if I find them.