Gabrielle Swain Class

I'm just back from a 2-day class with Gabrielle Swain at Road to California. She is a great teacher and I came away re-dedicated and inspired. The first day we spent mostly working our design. I chose a Bird Of Paradise leaf. I'll post a picture tomorrow. The second day some people started construction and others continued working their design. Gabrielle was extremely encouraging and her suggestions were forthright without being pushy.

I came away with three things firmly entrenched in my brain. This first pearl of wisdom she imparted is that the more colors you use, the easier it is to lose value. Later she made a comment that on one quilt she restorted to using black. As someone with value problems, I really hope to remember these points.

The second was that no amount of quilting, color or surface design will fix a bad design. I've been known to continue past a problem figuring I'll fix it later, but now I'm going to focus a bit more on the design before I proceed to construction.

The last was about making time for the work. I'm going to have to do something to make time for working on designs. During the week I pick up Megan, help her with her homework while making dinner, give her a bath, try to clean up a bit, read her stories, get her to bed, and only then do I get any time to do something. Night time, especially in the winter is not my best time to do something creative. I'd prefer to work on something mindless, read, or even just veg. Weekends tend to be pretty busy with events, activities, etc. I really don't want to give up any of my Meg time, so I'm thinking that maybe waking up before everyone on the weekends would be a good time. That means getting out of a warm, toasty bed, though...