Makers and Shakers

I LOVE learning. I love challenges and I love how the world opens up as it happens. Our first creative assignment in Make it in Design's Winter School was...

WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING TO BRING YOU THIS VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

Holy Smokes! I opened my UPPERCASE newsletter last weekend and saw my "Say Anything" quilt featured!!! AND my "Hardcore Mixed Cassette Tape" quilt AND as an added bonus there was a link to my "Control Freak" quilt too!!! Eep! 

AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.

 ... to create your own font using lino cuts! Yes, please, again! I headed over to Opus Art Supplies to pick up some more lino and wouldn't you know it, they had ALL the neon ink colours. You know they had to come home with me right?

As I was working on this project the Women's March on Washington (and all over the world) was happening. Did you go? Did you make a pussy hat? Didn't you feel so proud. A sea of Makers and Shakers!

"The Future IS Female"

The first time I saw that slogan was on a T-shirt in Modcloth's online shop. After I posted the slogan in my font on Instagram someone told me you can buy the same shirts (for cheaper) over at Otherwild AND 20% of their proceeds go to Planned Parenthood. Gotta love that!

VMQG Repeat Block Printing Workshop

I woke up at 2am.

Wide awake.

I felt nervous. Wait... no. Excited. Was that butterflies in my stomach? I realized I hadn't felt this way since I was a kid waiting for Christmas day to arrive. 

This all had fallen into my lap. Months before, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "Gee, I'd like to get back into teaching again." This past June, Vancouver's Modern Quilt Guild's workshop coordinator, Amy popped by my booth at Maker Faire. She asked if I'd be interested in teaching a surface design class. Weird how stuff like that sometimes just lines up, hey? We chatted back and forth and landed on a Repeat Block Printing class.

Jump forward... so there we were, October 2nd in Vancouver at the Croatian Cultural Center. I was tickled when I found out it had sold out! We had the ink, the lino blocks, the carving tools, the brayers (rollers) and the time. The students jumped right in with both feet. They embraced each step as we moved along through the day. 

Then repeats. Gah! Repeats get me every time. I showed them how to create and carved a true repeat. It was our last project of the day and the students didn't disappoint. I was taken by their prints; their motifs, the colours they used, some people even blended their inks! I have even more photo's posted on my Instagram feed. These guys really stepped up to the plate.

There's nothing better then to see someone's face light up to, "Oh I get it!" and resolve to that mutual look, "Okay, I'm hooked."

I know I was there to teach but I think it's me who needs to say thank you to everyone for being so keen, so open and just going for it. Thanks for quenching my thirst to teach again!