Quilling Conference - NAQG, Day Two

Meeting Jane Jenkins!

It's past time to wrap up my visit way back in May to the NAQG conference in Nashville!  My first post on day one can be found here.

Weaving - Harder than It Looks.

Day two opened with a weaving class.  I've not done much but the most elementary weaving in the past, so this was very interesting for me.  I enjoyed the class, especially meeting Quilling illuminary Jane Jenkins!  Still, I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of weaving in the future - not because I don't like it - but because I don't like pins!  So many pins!  I really don't enjoy keeping track of all those sharp bits of metal around my craft area.  Seriously, that's just one of my issues.  Every single line has two pins to hold it down.  If I'm going to be weaving, I need to find a new way to secure strips for the process.

My gifted quilled elephant!

Cards and gift tags I made in free time.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon in free quilling.  Just sitting around with other quillers and having fun.  I quilled some cards, name tags, and more, while new friends quilled other marvels.  One of which was a wonderful quilled elephant with dragonflies!  I loved it immediately, and was thrilled and humbled when the artist presented it to me to have, for my very own!  We also saw a few people from the general public come in, and they stopped by our table very briefly.  But we were no match for the draw that Jane and her husband Paul were making at a nearby table, quilling 'fluffy' teddy bears.

Buddha under Bodhi Tree

I spent some time wandering through the competition/display room.  This is a room where both competition and general display items were available for attendees to check out.  Any registrants for the conference could ask to have some portion of a table set aside to display some of their work.  And of course various competition categories also had work on display (although without names.)  This made it a little difficult to figure out who did what piece of work.  My favorite, a Buddha, was done by an artist whose name I still don't know!  That was one of the points of the competition that was a little frustrating - since winners were announced at the last minute at the banquet, one never really got a chance to find out who did what piece of art.

The evening entertainment was live music and a banquet.  We had a wonderful time together, listening to local music and enjoying the raffle.  I really enjoyed watching my table-mates root for one another as various pieces in the raffle came up.  Many classic pieces of quilling were donated for the raffle, and were given as gifts for each one of us!  These quillers were very generous.

Examples of pieces under judging -
my Halloween Sampler is on the right!

And then it was time to go home.  I really had hoped there would be more time after the banquet to peruse the art in the display room and figure out who had done what!  But the art was removed quickly ... I was not ready to go!  But the conference was over, and planning for next year has begun!

All in all, it was a great event, and I'm trying to see how I can fit another May trip (this time to Tampa) in my travel schedule for May 2017.

Image credits - All pictures taken by me at the NAGQ 2106 conference.

Preparing for a Quilling Conference

I'm soon off to attend my first quilling conference!  This is the North American Quilling Guild's 2016 Con, this year in Nashville, TN.  I thought I wasn't going to be able to attend, but as it is, I'm on work travel not too far away just before the conference.  So I have the opportunity to pop on over and spend the weekend steeped in quilling.  I really hope it's as fun as it sounds, and that I get to spend time meeting new people who enjoy quilling as much as I do!

Still, it was difficult for me to figure out what I had to do to prepare for this conference, and even now I think I might not really be ready.  Not everything one needs to know as a first timer is in one place.  So many people are repeat attendees they probably assume everyone knows how long the con is, when you can register, if there are group events, if there are public events or demos, etc.  Now that the agenda is out, that information is all available, but I didn't know a lot of it when I was making my travel plans many months ago.

I realized rather late in the game that I needed to make my own thematic name tag.  I eventually managed to find a bit of time this afternoon to put one together, a little banjo with some musical notes.  It's pretty basic, but it will do.  The next time I can go to this conference I hope to be able to spend more time on the name tag.  It is a fun idea, and will make a nice keepsake. 

I registered for the contest, but was unable to complete the piece I'd hoped to bring.  So I'm bringing another one.  My fault entirely, I have no idea if I can change pieces at this late date.  But I'll bring a project and see.  Annnnnd then I realized I did not have new business cards for the blog, here!  My cards still have the old blog name.  So I quickly mocked up some cards and printed them at home on card stock.  Not as nice and spiffy as they could be, but hopefully they will serve the purpose.

I didn't even know I had to sign up for classes until it was almost too late to do so.  I blithely assumed I'd just show up and go to whatever classes floated my boat.  But it makes a lot of sense to assign people a priori.  That way there is a good balance, no one instructor is left alone or overwhelmed, and people can plan for how much and what materials to bring with them.  Oh yeah, the materials.  That's another interesting situation for me, since I never check bags when I fly.  But I'm going to have to check for this flight, what with all the quilling tools, scissors, pliers, and other odd devices I'm bringing with me.  Technically, they are all small enough to get through security, but I don't feel like trying to deal with that if someone is weirded out by my odd little paper craft.

Another last minute item that worked in my favor was that they were still looking for volunteers for Saturday afternoon to do demos and take-aways with the general public.  I love stuff like that, and am looking forward showing a few folks how great quilling is, and maybe making someone a quiller-for-life!

Image credit:  All my own stuff, and all my own pictures of that stuff.

Contests or Collaborations in Quilling

The NAQG Winter
Newsletter with Quilling
covered tree!

I found the winter edition of Quill America (the newsletter of the North American Quilling Guild) in my mailbox yesterday.  I was happy to see that the highlighted project on the front cover was "Festival of Trees:  Quilling Around the World."  This was the project that I had contributed to in October last year.  On the cover you can see the fully decorated tree, decked out with quilling.  And you can see close-ups of the tree-topper, a lacy angel in white.  I'm very proud to have contributed to such a beautiful tree.

And more fun was to be had upon opening up the newsletter.  Turns out the organizer took the time to photograph and catalog everyone's contributions!  I was surprised to find my own quilling right there in the newsletter :)  Warm fuzzies!  I felt my work was very appreciated.  I hope the tree raised a nice sum for the charity.  This was a very fun project, and I certainly enjoyed being a part of a larger creation like this, and for a good cause.

There are my ornaments in the circle!
It was so nice that the organizer took this
time to highlight all of our contributions!

This makes me think a great deal about contests versus collaborations.  None of us has infinite time to spend on quilling and so has to strategize what they will do with that time, and what they won't.  I much, much prefer to get involved with collaborative projects like this one.  I enjoy the feeling of all working together to a common cause, and the sense of community that engenders. 

Now, I have certainly entered quilling contests, and will no doubt do so again in the future.  But I do it mostly because that seems to be the go-to way for us to share our quilling with one another.  But I don't prefer it - quilling is already such a solo endeavor, it seems to be more enjoyable to me when more people are involved.  I also think it makes for a stronger sense of community.  I like seeing other people's quilling, but it does not have to be a contest for me to want to do that.

I'd really love to see more emphasis placed on community/collaborative work, and less on contests.  I'd like to see us move towards a model where we focus on these group projects and build strong community connections.  Winning a contest can be fun, no doubt.  But it just seems like there is too much importance placed on the contests.  What do you think?

Image Credits:  My pix of my own NAQG Newsletter

Work in Progress - Dragon, Update Three, Final!

My dragon is finished (as of August 27th)!  I was able to get him matted and framed under glass.  It took a decent shadow-box style frame, (10"x10" with an inch of clearance) since the dragon is about 3/4" of an inch thick.

Dragon has been entered in a CONTEST!  Please VOTE for him!  He is project #14 on facebook at Little Circles at https://www.facebook.com/LittleCirclesEverywhere  All you need to do to vote is to 'like' the dragon.  Voting only goes on for a few days, September 2-4, 2015 so please skip on over there soon!  Check out the competition, it's pretty fierce.  Some beautiful pieces of quilling!  If dragon gets enough votes to get into the top ten, he goes on to the next round of judging!

Gorgeous dragon face!

So, since the last update, I finished up the three missing legs, and then started on what I knew was going to be the hardest part - the face.  I spent a lot of time planning out exactly how I was going to make each quill for the eyes, nose, teeth, and then the embellishments like the crown of 'fire' and the whiskers.

It was in the face and crown that I strayed the furthest from my colored line art.  The crown is formed from layered curls instead of wisps of colored paper.  I liked this look better - it was lacy and seemed more substantial than what the line art might have called for.  Also the eye and the area around it should have had some blue and green, but I chose to keep the color scheme consistent with orange, so it would grade nicely into the 'fire.'

Side shot of dragon, showing his dimensional nature
The body, face, and tail are all on different levels
and so dragon is almost 3/4 of an inch thick.

I made about two dozen teeth trying to get the exact shapes and sizes that I wanted to fit nicely into the mouth.  The whiskers took an hour on their own, as I searched for just the perfect shade color, and experimented with different techniques for the shapes.  I made several eyes of different shapes, as well.  Some made my dragon look like he'd had too much coffee!  The final choice has him looking forward, and he seems much less startled :)

Then, with all the pieces in hand, I finished them up with spray and proceeded to glue them together.  This step also took a long time, since this dragon is very dimensional.  It is assembled in four different levels.  I had to place pegs onto the back of some of the levels to support them, with a few pegs doubled up to give them enough height.  Then I glued the lower half of the body to the top, and he was finished!

And now he is to be shipped off to his forever home!  It is always bitter-sweet to say goodbye to a project, since I get so attached to them.  But as usual, when I have in mind to give a project away, it never feels right until that person has received the gift.  Then ... well ... next project!

Image Credit:  My pix of my dragon!