I attended 3 workshops in total with Jamie Wallen. I have certainly got better at drawing as a result.
One of the best workshops I attended by a local tutor was by Emma from Bell Photography and Design. She has this wonderful resource available from her website www.bellphotographydesign.com.au it gives you all the information you require for taking, editing good photos of your quilts. Of course the basic photography lesson can be used for other photos as well. I have since purchased a stand which I think just might become a temporary design wall as well.
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The most challenging class was Tablet Design for Quilters with Carla Barrett, but Oh so worth it. She runs an online class for this topic and we have since been enrolled in that also. It teaches you how to use Photoshop Elements and a tablet to draw quilts, quilting designs. I am still progressing slowly through the online classes which is helping to reinforce what we did in a packed 4 hours on a Sunday in Day 1 of Daylight Saving. I sure did miss that extra hour of sleep on Saturday night, especially as Queensland does not impose daylight saving on us.
On the Friday night the AMQA quilt show opened, it is run alongside the Festival. I was relieved to see both my quilts hanging and both were hanging straight, amazing after being folded up for postage.
I did a workshop with Cathy Wiggins on quilting styles etc, and we had a preview of the show for that class. She stopped at my quilt and went " WOW, look at all those points" as she never matches points at all as she paints most of her quilts. I did not receive a judged prize but the winners were amazing to view. Best of Show went to a wholecloth quilt whose owner was also in Cathy's class.
I helped on the last day to take quilts down and pack them up and that is when somebody informed me that my quilt had won Viewer's Choice. Apparently I was still in a class when they announced it.
My prize is supposed to be a roll of Batting to arrive in the mail from a supplier. I was a bit amazed but happy to have received it for my first time entry in a show of that size.
Back home, my feet had to hit the ground running. It was mustering time and an earlier weaning due to the drought conditions. We now have to find some room for these. We culled a truck load of old cows last week. This should have been done regularly over the last 6 years but due to the spiteful actions of certain older family members we were prevented from doing that until recently. Thank goodness we are now allowed to run this place as we wish to, without any further interference from them. Just hope that the weather improves so that we can keep improving the herd and the paddocks.
When the mustering was finished, a local cabinet maker decided he could now fit in a job for me. Our side veranda office has a few shelves along one wall. I want to replace this with drawers and cupboards. You guessed it, back to the necessary painting. The wall is 11 foot high on one side of the room and about 8 foot on the window side. I have washed, sanded, filled, re sanded where necessary and painted. First above and to the sides where the cupboards will go. The colour is Dulux Half Hogs Bristle ( that is the current ceiling colour) so how trendy is this old house? That seems to be a very popular modern colour. The walls Dulux White on White. In this photo the ceiling is finished. I have had to purchase more filling stuff so hope to have that job completed next week. I have decided to complete the whole room. The cabinet maker I think won't be back for at least 4 weeks.
I have also been back outside working on the laundry building. It is getting a bit warm outside so I spend the first few hours each day working on it. In this photo I have 6 bottom boards to the right of the windows to sand. I broke the louvre in the shower window but removed the bottom one so I did not do that again. Now I have to fix the louvre. Stocked up on more undercoat, so there should be no delays in painting when it is ready.
