Monday, July 11, 2005

Yesterday I Was in Africa

Well, at least I was in the company of South African quilter and teacher, Rosalie Dace. What a delightful day! The class was African Animals: Aardvark to Zebra (she informed us they pronouce zebra with a short "e" as in rhyming with Deborah).

The project was a small wall quilt inspired by some drawings of African animals. She gave us three patterns to choose from. Then there were also several pages of other inspiration. Including these.



I went off on my own a bit and sketched this guy. He is suppsed to be from the antelope family, but he seems to have some rabbit tendencies.



Luckily, I ascertained from the supply list that we would be doing applique, so I brought some Wonder Under with me. Some other students did reverse applique by both hand and machine or regular applique. Not me. And I was even able to share a few scraps with other fusing friends.

Then we started on the hand embroidery embellishments. I was totally blown away by this little sampler done by Rosalie. Just two inch images using running stitch.



I embellished my animal a bit and then decided to add a sun. I was going to copy the sun on the above stitch work -- I love those irregular swirls. Rosalie gently guided me to try something new. Something I hadn't done before. We flipped through the sketch book I had with me and she liked my freemotion flame practice pages. That was good to hear. I needed that. Thank you, Rosalie. Try something new? Brilliant!

After lunch we talked about borders and she showed us a neat trick to make skinny lines (pieced). I added a grass inspired border. You can see my piece along with the rest of the student work below. And there's Rosalie too! Animated, friendly, soooo likable, smart, funny, focused, helpful, encouraging, gentle, wise, worldly, creative, clever!!!



Yes, I made my sun green. And yes, my antelabbit is drinking at a red river.

Oh and when any of us had to go to the bathroom...



Yes, an outhouse with posters of kittys on the walls. Apparently, someone spent the money to add electricity to the one-room school house/converted quilting classroom, but didn't have enough cash left over to spring for plumbing.

7 comments:

Karoda said...

Deborah, I was sooo with you until the outhouse! Ms Dace would have had to be outstanding in order to balance the use of the toilet. :)

Sonji Hunt said...

I like your antelobbit? Antelabbit? Rabilope? It's fun. And yippee for you and your technicolor sun and river. It sounds like a lot of fun, even with the outhouse. You gotta have something crazy in the mix. It makes for a good story.

Melody Johnson said...

Love love love Rosalie Dace. How lucky for you to take a workshop with her. I hope you got to see her neat-o keen work, too.
I think you have the knack with your antelope. and I am nutso about the stitch sample. woowoo.

Deb R said...

Love our antelabbit! (Is that related to a jackelope?)

The day sounds great except for the outhouse thing. :-)

Gerrie said...

And why can't we have a close-up of the antlabbit. I love it! Those hand stitches are great. I have a problem with numbness in my right arm and wixh I could do hand stitching. This has inspired me to try.

Logan said...

I have a feeling you are going to be bugged by your fans until a completed antelabbit appears on your site - cause we love it! Not only is it great fun with antelope rabbit-y goodness and green sun / red river funness, it is also a unique by you design. Good on ya.

Elle said...

What fun! I love African-inspired work. Those handstitches have me all twitchy with inspiration...