Heat or no heat - it was Monday, it was guild night - and here they came.
Teresa has found a wonderful way to transport her blocks, I think she said that it was a lining she bought for drawers and this left over piece she uses to roll up everything neat and safe. Even carried her blank fabric for more pattern tracing.
Lola arrived and got to see what all of our embroidery ladies were up to with their tatting.
Tables were filling up fast with all kinds of projects in the works.
Frances B. brought in the opportunity quilt to hand over to the next participant in line - Jeanette K. will be putting on the binding.
**********************
At 7:00 pm promptly, Deb M. introduced our speaker Lola Jenkins and the show was on.
And what a show! Lola's story was a rags to riches to rags - a story that you have to hear from her own lips to understand this accountants journey to the well know quilt artist she now is.
Lola found out how important relationships are in your life - mother died, father died, she became ill and ended up in a comma, 2 1/2 months later wakes up and is told she will never walk and then lots of therapy, and then her husband dies - all in less than five years. Lola described it as being at the bottom.
Her turn around came when she listened to God when he told her to quit complaining and yes, buy that $15 sewing machine that she could not afford and had NO idea of how to use - oops - you need the foot pedal plugged in to get it all going. From there the her story started to change. And there is something to be said for not knowing anything about anything.
From old shirts picked up at the thrift store at all you can jab into one bag for a dollar days - Lola envisioned a book shelf quilt. Something that she invented herself and did her way.
And then she was running...............picking up all the information she could absorb.
Here is her "Going in Circles" that has now been renamed as "Falling Apart". What a thrill in 2006 to find out that there was such things as quilt shops.
And all the things she could learn from the ladies that dropped in there. By the way - incase you did not pick up on it - Lola is a Drama Queen and not only talks with her hands - but puts her whole body into the story. What a challenge to capture her essence when she never stands still.
"Destiny's Daughters" had lots of sparkly bling on it and when asked what helped her decide where and how much to put on - Lola stated that when you run out - stop.
Sometimes you get so wrapped up in her presentation that I missed what some of her quilts were called.
But no one missed out on Lola's intro to the Miss Bubble Busters of the world or how there are no quilt police, only Inspector Generals.
Or on how Lola was told that she would never win any top prizes or the coveted Best of Show - course she turned around and entered everything she had - 13 quilts and then took home one 2nd place, 11 1st places and one BEST OF SHOW. Don't tell Lola NO.
I will try to give you names for the quilts coming up - forgive me - can't read my own writing and so much going on.
Easy here - Baseball Boy and Golf Boy
Think the one on the left is called 'Musicians" and the "metallic" thread on it gave Lola no problem - yep in her creative way she painted on the metallic. Then BB King on right
King, Speak to the Mountain
Purple People on left
Left used novelty prints, right sharpies and colored pencils
Art Deco ladies took her 6 whole hours to do
Top left was a work in trapunto and then surgery - quilt needed a breast reduction.
Michelle Obama
and Lola's two minute binding = ric rac
Coming out of the Mountain
Princess Di
Great story here and a Judge's Choice Award
Bless the Children
Thomas Kinkaid type - need a shadow = white out and colored pencils
Sailing Away
Golden Corral - wanted to see if she could do a panel type look
Grandmothers Kitchen
Lola has a lot of sea creature prints - here she put them to good use.
Wow, love her quilt here.
This will be a class some time in the future.
Olivia
Then two fabrics with John Lennon, Michael Jackson with blocks
portrait in negative spaces
Folk Art
Faces
Whew! So many wonderful quilts, so many interesting ways of getting to the same end with less expensive tools. Passion!?! Yep, we would all have to agree that Lola has passion - in her presenting as well as in her work.
Lola stated that quilting has made her a better person and helped her recover from those dark days. It has helped her to grow up, to be a giver and to know that God answers your prayers for help.
Thank you Lola for an outstanding program and for sharing your life and your humor.
**************************
Show 'n Tell was not an easy follow up. Especially after hearing Lola's story on how some people don't really want to hear the TELL. hahaha
Carol B. has been receiving batiks through the mail for quite some time and decided that she had enough to design this beautiful faceted look. Color and the play of it was what Carol was after.
Frances B sure knows how to put color and interest into her quilts.
And not just on the front - love to see how she does her backs.
Dixie is working on three quilts and has finished two of them.
Jeans, shirts and memories. This one has a slight boo boo, but Dixie decided to leave "Dale" hanging upside down.
Jane C. pointed out the block and the SASHING that made this quilt look so complicated.
Oh oh! Teresa was not happy with this butterfly. She was going for one look and now all she sees is KU. Duh!? We all see differently - whatever, it is smashing in the execution.
Would you believe this runner is made from left over's from another quilt that Teresa is working on?
Guest Marsha H.'s son brought in this "sheet" that her son had received from 14 ladies in Bangladesh. They do not have air conditioned work rooms with tables and such - so they weave banana leaves and clear a spot in the greenery to work. Everyone agreed that this was too gorgeous to use as a sheet, so they are making it into a quilt.
Wow what work those ladies do.
Can you imagine?
Jenell H. decided she would try a mini - egads woman, that is a mini and scrumptious.
Jenell also brought in a picture of the Fibonacci quilt she made and has already given away.
September 2015, we had David & Teresa Duwe here from Wichita, and their workshop was on this technique.
Jan took her cue from Lesley Latham's program and tried something modern. Great job Jan.
Jeanette always has such a welcoming smile and with this quilt - she has something to smile about.
Okay Deb - you tire us out woman! Look at all the projects she has finished, and many of them were starts from Iowana.
Including this lovely BOM from the Abilene quilt shop - Material Girls.
Susie has added another win to her Rescue quilts. This one had a big stain on it, so Susie draped it over a fence and started in on the antiquing spray. Hid it well and made this quilt stand out. Course Susie's quilting helped a lot with that also.
Erlene braved the odds and had a TELL - only 36 more yo-yo's to go in her project. Yeah!!!!
Was great to see Marilyn and no cast. She finally was able to finish her "Butterflies and Flowers" quilt from last years BOM. Not easy when your wrist is all incapacitated.
Jane C. brought in her BOM and had it on display. These ladies are really going to town on their twilling.
************************
From a fun filled night to a totally awesome chance to take a workshop with Lola the next day.
The heat was a little tense, but the ladies weren't.
Think there were 22 in the workshop and we only blew the breakers once. hahaha so many irons.
Lola is a great teacher and has the steps down pat for all of us newbies.
I promised I would try real hard not to include any pictures of screwed up faces, intent on working the process. And as you can see - everyone was into their project.
Good one on one pointers..
along with laughter here and there.
As you can see, we had ladies from Belleville and Abilene join us.
Cindy was back in time to make it to the workshop.
Look carefully at the pictures - we all had the same start - but with different fabrics, different ways of seeing, cutting and pressing - each picture had its own look.
The ladies from Belleville that had taken Lola's Collage class, brought in some of their finished works for her to see.
Remember the quilt that Lola kept back Monday night and said that the workshop group would get to see? Well here it is......Shirley Chisolm, in 1968 she was the first Africian American woman to be elected to the United States Congress.
Lola gave us a 2:30 pm goal to have fabrics #1, #2 and #3 done - and we were ahead of schedule.
Got just the one picture of some of the ladies finished with this first step.
Others were not far behind.
Lola told us to pay attention to distinct features, quilt as much or as little as we wanted - MAKE IT OURS - NOT HERS.
Looking forward to seeing how everyone finishes their portrait. Make sure you send pictures or for our members - BRING THEM IN to Show 'n Tell.
*******************
After Lola and her crew left, one of the ladies showed the project that she has been working on for
a bit. I'd say she is doing a great job and glad that she found so many useful hints from the workshop to continue delving into her goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment