Six Quilts with Pamela Allen

First of all, all the "pre-class work" was useless. We winged it. Pamela would give us a subject and color story and set us to work. Quilt in an hour. Usually less. Critque was valuable. Everyone got personal time--helpful artistic time --with Pamela. This is my second piece. Two colors across the color wheel from each other and a fish somewhere in the piece. My fish is velour. I have a styro lemon that I am wanting to stitch onto this SO BAD.

Our first project--and to start I had to rip the three background pieces off the a pre-made background and then dump all my black and white off cuts out and get going- fast. So this is a big bowl and white tomato. I did some additional stitching on the fish quilt and this one this afternoon.

Third piece. After lunch. We were given a chunk of weird fabric and asked to expand and continue the design. As little trimming of the original chunk as possible. My chunk had a branch to the right and then a wide brown space and that little "candle flame" leaf upper left and a partial leaf center bottom. Everything else you see-- I "made". I have since added some flowers to the "candle".

Fourth and running out of gas. Boy was I tired by the time we got to this one at 3 in the afternoon. Since I am in the "portrait" class tomorrow I got to choose a garden or landscape instead of the portrait the others worked on. They did GREAT! And Pamela and I think this was my best attempt of the day. I had fun making it.

I used some of my "Sonji style" painted fabrics in the fish and garden pieces and they are the personal part of the work. Pamela wants us to get personal with the work. She advocates hand sewing because each of us have "signature" ways of stitching--like handwriting.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to have taken classes with Pamela all three days. I needed today to rest and re group. And think. And sort my supplies. Tomorrow a self portrait. And the space and time to work on it for the entire day.

Pamela is doing a 5 day workshop in the Hudson Valley and she says it's better. The work gets done and the light bulb in the creative mind goes on and stays on.

But I do have to say our Friday class was minus all those things that make classes so frustrating. The teacher hog. The whiner. The know it all. The person who refuses to do the assignment. We all just did the work, learned from the critque, and kept going. And we all made 4 little quilts and one little postcard "quiz". Or "quick fire" as I named it. 15 minute time limit. Talk about stressful! Seacoast with clouds.

I hope Sunday's class is just as wonderful.

Oh, and the one hour in the car each way, on the highway, through a toll booth, past an 18 wheeler on fire, getting passed by every single car (who cares?) was SO hard. I was so tired when I got home. I could barely get to the couch and lay down.