Lake and Mountain Quilt Guild

This past week, while my daughter and granddaughter were here, I took a 2 day break to teach in South Carolina - a lecture and workshop. As much as I hated leaving my gals, it was a nice break to stay in a Hampton Inn all by myself with my Kindle and a glass of wine. I also had the wonderful opportunity to have a mini reunion with a group I used to belong to - Focus group. Our dinner came to an end way too soon and so much more to be shared, but it was the best! On to the lecture which I gave on Ink Jet Printing on Fabric which is always fun as I love the technique and enjoy talking about it. The workshop the next day was filled with 20 wonderfully talented and enthusiastic women. We were doing Shaded Florals which involved using a pattern (their choice of 3 available), doing basic appliqué and shading it with Shiva paintsticks.  The shading and the different ways to use the paintsticks was the basis of the workshop.

 I managed to snap pics of a few pieces, many were busy at their machines and I couldn't get pictures.

 I really liked the wonderful background choices for their pieces - lots of interest without being overpowering.

 I didn't think to take a picture until the end of the day when many were leaving or already packed up but you can get an idea of the beautiful pieces these ladies were doing. I'm hoping they'll send me a picture of their finished piece which I promised to share on my blog.

 One of the gals - Pat Kerko, didn't want to use the Shiva paintsticks and brought along a product called Luminarte.  I had not heard of them and wanted to find out more to share. They have a website which is hard to use so I went to Amazon and had great luck. They are in a powdered form - beautiful colors and what looked to be mostly metallics.

 A teeny, tiny amount was mixed with an acrylic medium in a small paint tray. They were highly concentrated. By mixing them with a medium, this made them permanent. They were the consistency of the medium making them easy to use and control.

 Pat made herself a sampler of the colors which is always a good idea - no guessing that way, although the colors in powder form look the same when mixed with medium, which is not always the case.

 You can see where a small area has been done.- to the right of the yellow. The color is strong and concentrated so they could probably be thinned quite a bit.

 Pat uses a Fantastix stick, from Dharma Trading, which is good for blending.
Q - tips will also work well.

You can see the pretty effect of the Luminartes around the yellow "tongue" of the Iris. I am definitely going to look into these.