Collage luncheon

Last January I posted about a collage luncheon that I hosted with my friend, Sarah. She and I had offered it as an auction item at a fundraiser gala we support every year. Since we were both collage artists, it seemed fun to put it out there to make a day of it... People could buy tickets, have a fancy luncheon, get a short intro to collage and have studio time. It was such a hit that we decided to do it again in 2013.
This year, I hosted it at my new house. 8 people attended, we had an amazing presentation given by a third (actually really successful gallery artist who is also a mutual friend of ours) ... And we let the attendees go to town... They did a great job! You can see their work all assembled on my dining room table below.
I used the opportunity to make three small pieces for my Pay It Forward promise to send handmade surprises to friends....
The luncheon was a blast. The company was great and the art - well, art is great... Isn't it, always?
I'm all fired up now to make some new collages... ...and I just signed on to host another collage workshop as a fundraiser for our school (Saturday, July 27, no experience necessary, wanna come? Let me know...)

Madrona Road challenge

Sometimes the Modern Quilt Guild issues challenges to its guild members. We are sponsored by a particular fabric distributor - and a specific line of fabrics is given to us and issued as a challenge to work with.
I've participated in the RK solids challenge and the Jay McCarroll "Habitat" - challenge. I've grown each time I have participated, so I try to make each challenge a chance for me to grow...
Given Violet Craft's "Madrona Road" fabric recently, I used it as an opportunity to try a bunch of new skills...
1- working smaller than I normally do - I made table runners (three)
2- working on all three styles of quilting - free-motion, straight line and hand quilting
3- trying a new technique that my buddy Alissa and I made up that we call "fake binding" - it works. I'll show you how in a different post, soon. It's too easy to be called a tutorial, but it is fantastic.
All in all, I used this challenge to work on my skills... Which made it very valuable a lesson indeed.