WIP Wednesday - Maker Faire, Improv Patchwork and Queer Art

hello blogland!

can you believe that it's JULY already? i totally can't believe it. if it weren't for the fact that we're finally, finally, getting some summer-like weather, i'd be convinced that it was only march or april.

but i know it's not march or april, because march and april weren't nearly as busy as june and july have turned out to be.

i last posted the night of the VMQG 2nd anniversary party, but the busyness didn't end there. the weekend directly after our anniversary, the VMQG had a booth at Vancouver's Mini Maker Faire. it was awesome!

in my oh-so-humble opinion, we totally had the best booth there. it was much bigger than last year, so we had two areas, one on the left for our hands-on project, and one on the right for demonstrations. in the centre we had a rack with quilts in varying stages of completion, and hung our oh-so-awesome banner above it. (Arita fixed the banner, and ohmygoodness it looks so much better now!)








i talked to SO MANY people! it was wonderful. i talked to folks about quilting, about the MQG movement, my opinions on things like the Go! Baby, different sewing machine feet, rotary cutters, where to buy fabric and where to get your machine serviced, all sorts of things. i also taught lots of people, including lots of little kids, how to embroider, and demonstrated churndash blocks on both days. i had the chance to chat with guild members during the slow times, and just overall had a pretty fabulous weekend.



after Maker Faire, i was basically a zombie for a few weeks. i was just DONE, you know? i puttered around, went to things that i had to go to, but really just went through the motions. i went to a class on free-motion quilting a few weeks ago, which Lysa blogged about, and then last weekend i went to a wonderful workshop by Barb Mortell about improv patchwork.

it was a fairly large class, so there were so many different projects being made! it was really neat to see people's personalities come out in their fabric and design choices.


by Carol

by Kat

by Sherri

by Vera

(i don't remember whose this was, but i love it so much!)

i didn't get a decent pic of Cynthia's project, but she's blogged about the class, including her WIP, so you should go see!


this is my project. i LOVE the fabrics that i'm using, i picked them up a few days before the class because i didn't have the energy to dig through my stash and find stuff to take. i'd bought the blue cotton earlier in the week for a different project, and i'd really loved the visual texture of it, so i took it back with me and found fabrics to match. i ignored the fabric weights, and just concentrated on the colours i wanted and choosing natural fibres that could be pressed at the same temp, so i ended up with a bit of a variety. the medium weight blue cotton, a lightweight grey cotton twill, a quilting weight pink cotton, and a garment weight green linen.



this is as far as i got, and i pinned the pieces onto the design wall and folded it all up to bring home.

i'm DYING to work on this project! i think it's going to be amazing when it's finished, and i might even do some hand quilting on it.



but i'm being a responsible grown up, and sticking with the project that's been occupying my brain and sewing time for the past few weeks, my large piece for this year's Queer Arts Festival Curated Art Exhibition. last year's piece is HERE, and my 2010 pieces are linked HERE (2010 pieces are totally NSFW!) (also, check out the page about me on the QAF website!

i think my projects are getting more and more complex as time goes on. last year's was definitely more complex than 2010, and this year's piece is completely ridiculous. every single person that i've explained this project to has basically said "wtf amy, you're out of your mind"

but it's going to be AWESOME! i'm so excited about it.



i have about 2 weeks left to get it finished. cross your fingers for me!



in other news.... in addition to regular fibro stuff, i occasionally get pain in a specific joint due to an injury when i was a kid. it usually only happens with very cold weather, but oddly, i've been feeling it a lot lately. and one day i randomly found myself saying to someone, "oh, it's just from a snowmobile accident when i was a kid". seriously, a snowmobile accident? i am so bloody canadian!



i'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at The Needle And Thread Network, but not Freshly Pieced, cause i missed the deadline. whoops!