San Francisco EGA, An OpEd Piece about the Seminar

I am newly home from San Francisco where I taught classes for 6 days EGA's National Seminar. I had a great time, but isn't it always true that the best part of a trip is coming home again.

This year I tried something novel: I taught Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler at the seminar while I also taught Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case online. Simultaneously. Each morning before I went to my face-to-face class at seminar, I posted a lesson for my online students. Each I posted photos both on my website and in my secret classroom for my online group with the hopes of givinf my online students a taste of what it was like to attend a seminar.

On the last day of my four-day face-to-face class at seminar, I snapped a photo of each of my students and the progress she had made in four days of class and I posted the photos for my online group. It made me realize, class at seminar is over, but my online class continues.


As I said goodbye to my seminar students, I thought: there is much to be gained by teacher and students meeting face to face, but I also began to recognize that online students have advantages also.

Face to face at seminars, teachers and students have the obvious advantage of meeting and spending time together.
In online classes we do miss the face to face friendships and explanations, but we do gain something too. That something is time.

In an online class we have the luxury of extended time. Running the two classes simultaneously, I realize how compact my face to face seminar class was. Instead of posting my online lessons each day to match my face-to-face class, I normally would have posted my online lessons once a week.

Now, as I said, my face to face seminar class is over, but my online class stretches on. It continues for the rest of September. Then it will go on hiatus for two months so that people have a chance to complete the stitching. In early December, my online class will resume and we will cover the finishing.

When considering face-to-face classes vs online classes, it seems we swap the great advantage of seeing each other in person for the luxury of extended class time.

Gay Ann

EGA Seminar in San Francisco is Just around the Corner

I realized midway through today that I leave for EGA's San Francisco Seminar a week from tomorrow. I am going a day early so that I can go to the Impressionist exhibition from the Musee d'Orsay, in fact several of us are going.

Friday I will have time to look around and get my sealegs and classes for me start on Saturday. I am teaching Saturday/Sunday, then Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday.

I am greatly looking forward to this seminar and am toting MacSoph (my computer), my camera and my video cam to see if I can take and post photos of the seminar on my website during the week I am there.

Am I ready to go? Nooo, but hopefully I will be by next Thursday. Important things like kits for my class are already there, even a couple of extra kits. All I have to do is find my models, both for the things I am teaching at the seminar and my models of Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case and my little Townhouse Sewing Case.

I have high hopes that I will see many Echoes and Townhouses in progress and even finished; high hopes because people have been writing to me saying they are bringing their pieces. It is always such fun to see what people do with my designs. I love it when they use my patterns as a starting point and adapt the design to suit themselves. Needlework is such a personal hobby and it should reflect the stitcher, her colors and stitches, and her tastes and her environment.

With this in mind, I am packing so much thread, overdyed thread in particular from Thread Gatherer, Gloriana and Dinky Dyes, colors that would look good on my big Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler. I am also taking all sorts of beads to coordinate with the threads, so I should have a good time trying to convince people to try something a wee bit different. You never know.

And all along the way I plan to have MacSoph and cameras recording the experiences of the in-seminar student as she grapples with the techniques and with design and color choices. Fun times ahead as we approach autumn. I realize that I have been teaching at autumn seminars so often that it seems like a ritual now. I have taught at one or two autumn national seminars for more than 25 years now and this is my final one.

So if you come to the seminar, do come by 'Meet the Teachers' on Sunday afternoon or 'Teachers' Showcase' on Thursday evening to say hello. Not going to the seminar? Then stay tuned and I will see you online. Online, my home from now on.

Gay Ann

Colors for Echoes of Elizabeth

For a long time now I have believed that a needlework class, even one for a 'fixed design' like Echoes of Elizabeth should always have a design and color component as a reminder that a piece of needlework is more than the sum total of a bunch of stitches.

Earlier this month I offered Echoes of Elizabeth Sewing Case on my website in three different color combinations. One color combination, with red accents, is straight from Echoes of Elizabeth Sampler, one a taupe variation, one a green variation. I borrowed the colors from these variations and played with my overdyed threads to make some new combinations.

In the next few days, leading up to seminar, I will post a new color combination for Echoes Sampler each morning on my website. I am hoping my students will take the opportunity to visit my website and check them out. I will then take the silks to class and give people a chance to swap the threads and beads in their 'fixed' kits for one of the variations, or even a combination of the variations and the original.

Even if people end up with my original color combination, I hope they will take the opportunity to consider the others and therefore stretch a bit beyond 'up at one, down at two'.

To follow the color combinations in the next week, visit my website starting tomorrow morning bright and early:
www.GayAnnRogers.com

Gay Ann

Jennifer's Photo of Flora and My Cameos

As a tribute to Jennifer, I wanted to post the composite photo she did of Flora and my cameos at Callaway. This is my favorite photo of my work and the one I use in my classroom at Shining Needle Society. Makes me sad and happy all rolled into one when I look at this. I still love the photo and probably always will.
Gay Ann

Jennifer Taylor

This past week marked a sad week in my life and a sad occasion for needlework as well: we lost Jennifer Taylor.

Jennifer was a small finely-drawn person who loomed so large in needlework. She had dual loves, embroidery and the computer, and she excelled at both. I met Jennifer at Callaway where for many years she assisted Shay Pendray in teaching Japanese Embroidery. It was the heyday of Japanese Embroidery and classes in those days were full to overflowing with students eager to take on the rigors and discipline of that embroidery form. In later years, after Shay Pendray retired, Jennifer took over teaching Shay's classes at Callaway and she in turn had a new assistant.

I knew Jennifer from our days together at Callaway and I always enjoyed her company. Like me, she was a very early morning person and every year we were there together, we shared a number of very early morning breakfasts, then off Jennifer would go to the rigors of her Japanese Embroidery classes.

For many years before I learned to do it myself, Jennifer took the photographs of my work. In fact, she took my favorite photo ever of my work, the composite of Flora and my cameo pieces now on my classroom homepage for Shining Needle Society.

It was in 2004 and 2005 that I worked closely with Jennifer on EGA's booklet of Audrey Francini's work. Audrey had asked me to write about her for Needle Arts (EGA's magazine) and it grew into a whole event to celebrate Audrey: an article, a book and a one-woman show of Audrey's work at EGA headquarters in the autumn of 2005. Jennifer took all the photographs of Audrey's work, no small task in itself, then she did the layout of the book and saw it through to publication. In addition she composed a totally memorable power-point presentation of Audrey's work which ran consistently through Audrey's show and has been on view many times at embroidery functions over the years.

Of the years I knew Jennifer my favorite time with her the night she showed the power point presentation of Audrey's work at the final banquet at Callaway. She had asked me if I would do a 2-minute introduction. I remember, when the time came, I stood up from the banquet table where I was sitting beside Dorothy Lesher. As I stood up to walk to the podium, Dorothy said to me, 'if you make this too long it will be off with your head!'

I said my 2 minutes worth, then sat beside Jennifer as she showed Audrey's work. A hush fell over the room as moment after moment came up of Audrey's beautiful embroidery enhanced by Jennifer's unrivaled skill with a camera. I don't think there was even a cough in the room. At one moment I looked across at Dorothy Lesher who was totally captivated.

When it was over, Dorothy, long forgetting her threat to behead me, said she could have watched the presentation over and over again hour upon hour. And so could we all.

Good bye, Jennifer, we shall greatly miss you!

Gay Ann


Photograph I took of Jennifer Taylor and a piece of her Japanese Embroidery at Callaway in 2008.

My New World: a Work in Progress

MacSoph is my computer, a little Apple MacBook Pro. MacSoph is a genius and the kids at the Apple Store help me learn how to communicate with her.

For some time how I have had a long term vision of where I want to go and what I want to do with my website and my general classroom at Shining Needle Society. It has to do with creativity in needlework and it will take me a long while to learn, but I am plugging away at it each week. It is all a bit like learning to do a difficult stitch: in the beginning it is a wobbly experience, then gradually it gets easier, or at least one always hopes so.

This morning a wee piece of the puzzle arrived on my website doorstep in the form of a Surprise.
For quick reference:
www.GayAnnRogers.com
Click on 'Surprise' at the top of my homepage.

A small step in a long journey.

Gay Ann

Goop Be Gone, coming in the spring

When I found myself in a day-long conversation about Goop a few days ago, I wanted sooo badly to pursue the concept and what to do about it right now but Reality reared her ugly head. My work load is maxed out.

In the spring!

In the spring I will do it and I can't wait! A class called 'Goop be Gone'. I want to tackle the subject of painted canvases, how to buy them, plan for them and what to do with them.

Here's what Goop be Gone won't be: I won't write a stitch guide for someone. What would be the point? I want to show people how to look at a painted canvas, understand its structure and what it asks for. I want people to explore what kinds of stitchers they are and learn to choose appropriate canvases for themselves. I want to take a close look at how and why one chooses threads and stitches.

I would like people to understand the idea that stitches and threads don't live in isolation; they live in a community and you have to consider the whole community before you add a new member. Choosing threads and stitches is not arbitrary; there has to be a reason and each has to serve the purpose of advancing the design.

So in the spring Goop be Gone will arrive and I will see if I can make a bit of a difference.

Gay Ann

Goop and My Techniques Column

My goodness, but I inspired a flurry of notes to me about 'Goop', my term for needlepoint that is all gooped up with too many stitches and threads. As I pointed out, this usually happens on painted canvases.

After I received a flurry of notes and some guilty consciences, I decided I should pursue the avoidance of Goop further.
So Tuesday morning, I will post another Techniques Column about painted canvases. Tuesday morning, bright and early.

Gay Ann

Pretty Scissors

I love scissors! In fact, I have a passion for them and own far too many pairs. Some of them are wonderful because they are so good at my needlework chores: I have a favorite pair of Dovos with blades so slender that they make the chore of ripping easier; I have traditional Ginghers for cutting meshes when I do Ruskin. And I have all sorts of others poised for snipping threads at all kinds of destinations around my house, in short wherever I might light with a canvas in my hand.

In addition I have collected scissors for, well, forever.

In the last few years I have been making sewing cases and using some of my scissors in them. Now I have started making scissors fobs. Stitched ones, beaded ones. They're fun to do and decorative too.

When my students started asking about scissors for sewing cases, I also started surfing on eBay for pretty scissors and posting the listings on my website. A way of chasing scissors without having to own them all myself. My website followers have reported that they have bought many of the pairs I have found on eBay and it is always exciting to hear that a sweet pair has found a nice home.

So I surf. Often when I should be doing other needlework chores, like more kits, more packets of beads, corrections to my instructions masters, and of course Mail Jail (which is forever, even when I am not having a sale).

On my website I post the listings, sometimes with a bit of editorializing, sometimes with the progress of the auction, always with the auction results. Lately I have found some wonderful pairs! In fact there are a couple of memorable pairs on my eBay page right now.

Ahhh, temptation!

Enough about scissors for the morning; back to work on chores. Faint panic sets in this morning as I watch the dawn of the final day of June. Half the year is over.
Gay Ann

A Technique Called Goop

This morning I posted a new Techniques Column.
Essentially it is on what I call 'Goop' and my column suggests one way we might all avoid the concept.
For quick reference:

www.GayAnnRogers.com.
Click on 'Techniques' then scroll down and click on Techniques 11.

Gay Ann

Tomorrow: A New Techniques Column on My Website

One time I was having breakfast with a number of needlework friends at our very favorite breakfast haunt (best Eggs Benedict in all its variations around, but that's another story).

Much of the discussion was about painted canvases for needlepoint, and one friend turned to me and made a comment that I didn't do painted canvases, therefore was rather left out of the discussion. I realized then something I hadn't thought about before: my friend sees a dichotomy.

I don't see the dichotomy. Painted canvas or counted canvas, it is basically all the same to me.

I suppose that's from my designer point of view. I suppose the difference comes in that the stitcher has more obvious latitude on a painted canvas to choose stitches and threads, and it is precisely that latitude that is the subject of my Techniques 11 column.

Tomorrow morning: www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on Techniques, then on Techniques 11.

Gay Ann

A New Techniques Column on My Website

It has been nearly half a year since I have written a Techniques Column on my website. I think it has been so long because I have been mired down in writing instructions booklets and didn't feel like writing any more than I had to. But this morning I woke up in the mood to catch up on Techniques.

My new Techniques Column is on the weight of thread. As I look at needlework past and present, I think much of technical success depends on the weight of the thread the stitcher chooses. We all recognize when thread is too thin, but too often we miss noticing when thread is too heavy. My column this morning is on assessing thread weight and constant testing. Like most of life, there isn't any magic answer, just toil and practice.

I have found over the years that very little is set in needlework. I know any number of needlework teachers who think up formulae and pronounce on their perfection, but the best of the needlework teachers I know say the opposite: most of good needlework is a matter of trial and error and a lot of tinkering, and so it is with thread weight. A couple of my experiences with thread weight and why I find it very important is the subject of my new Techniques Column this morning.

For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com, click on 'Techniques', then scroll down to 'Techniques 10'.

Gay Ann

Townhouses on View

I am newly home from EGA's South Central Region Seminar in Dallas. I had a super time there and one of the best treats for me: I saw some FINISHED Townhouses from my recent class at Shining Needle Society. The townhouses and their stitchers are on my website's home page; on 'Townhouses' I have just posted more photos of the insides and backs of the Townhouses too.

I enjoyed seeing the Townhouses in particular because of the color changes. I suspect the changes were inspired by my colorizations of doors and windows, a little added bonus to the class.

It has been a bit of a journey, learning PhotoShop. I have been working at it for just about a year and a half now and the learning curve has been a bit steep but very worthwhile. What I love best about the potential of PhotoShop for me: I can now colorize my designs in a way I could only dream of in the past. I hoped if I colorized my designs, that my students will see all the potential for creative use of color and be brave and inspired to try the changes.

And now, with the Townhouses in Dallas, I saw the fruits of my labors. It was all so rewarding!

Now I have some new colorizations coming shortly to my website: I colorized Echoes of Elizabeth and soon will post the colorizations along with the original. I like the colorizations so well that I am going to buy more thread, take it to class with me and see if I can talk a student or two into trying the changes. I will let them swap threads and enjoy watching the results.

So here's to PhotoShop, many more lessons and more and more uses for this great program!

And new for me? Illustrator has arrived in my life. Illustrator is leg 2 of my dreams for my website, and along the way, guess what: 25 years of hand-written instructions have come to an end. I've produced my first set of instructions on MacSoph, my computer. Illustrator rocks in the life of this aging designer.

Always goes to show you: new tricks for old dogs are possible.

Gay Ann

Some of my proudest moments in Stitching Elizabeth 1

For a couple of weeks I have been writing about my experiences stitching a portrait of Elizabeth 1 (currently on my website's home page).

Tomorrow morning I plan to continue my series on stitching Elizabeth 1 by writing about my proudest stitching moments.

So often my proudest stitching moments happen not when I use a difficult stitch but when I manage to convey a certain effect by choosing a stitch well. Sometimes this happens with the simplest stitches I know, and such is the case with one of my favorite parts of Elizabeth 1.

I have long said, it isn't the number of stitches or the level of difficulty that sets apart a piece of needlework; it is the skill in using the stitches to achieve certain effects. I wish I could say it is all skill, but it is usually the result of a lot of experimentation and a measure of good luck. Actually more than a measure of good luck.

For my series, visit www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on Elizabeth 1.

Gay Ann

Looking Ahead and Dreaming

The Queen is in place on my website homepage now, and the small story of my surprise is in News&Views.

I am looking forward to our class at Callaway where Carole Lake and I are teaching the Queen. I hope we have a rousing good class for it is my final 'travel and teach' job at a seminar. Yes, after Callaway in January I am retiring from 'face to face' classes and turning to the internet.

I am a great believer that fantasy is the first component of creativity, and in the last couple of years I have found in the computer all sorts of fantastic opportunities for fantasy. I want to pursue them! I look forward to staying home with DH and MacSoph (my computer); I look forward to lots more classes at the Apple store and lots more ideas for my website.

Yes, I will miss seeing people face to face, but the computer has some great advantages. Face-to-face classes last 2 or 3 or 4 days; cyber-classes last for months. The months allow time to try a technique, think about a color, ask a question, solve a problem. Maybe, on down the line, there will be a way to combine the two. Who knows.

So here's to time to dream and see what I can do, both with needle and with computer, and hopefully a combination of the two.
Here's to more PhotoShop, some Illustrator and maybe some Flash. Here's to a magic gate, a poem, a castle and an alternative world.

I can't wait!

Gay Ann

If you would like information about Callaway Needle Arts School, here are some links.

To see all of Callaway’s offerings for January, click on the link below:
http://www.callawaygardens.com/needlearts

Or contact Pat Callihan at pccalli@callawaygardens.com

A Big Surprise indeed for me -- tomorrow morning

A short while ago I had a terrific surprise and I will post the story of my surprise on my website tomorrow morning.
It has to do with a piece I stitched last year.

More about it in a couple of days.
Gay Ann

Taking a Class from Betty Chen Louis

Today is the last day to enroll in Betty Chen Louis’ first online class.

For some time I have been urging people to take Betty’s online class, in fact I have been strongly urging them to do so. The project is small and therefore stitch-able, and the lessons are so important.

So important for in Betty’s lessons lies a shift of emphasis, a way of reorienting how her students see needlework. While stitch and thread are important parts of a successful piece of embroidery, they are not the only parts. They aren’t an end in themselves, they are the tools. It isn’t about the stitches and threads; it’s what you do with the stitches and threads that matters. And nobody currently working in my needlework world is more aware of it nor more able to access it than Betty Chen Louis.

That’s why I have been beating the drums and urging people to take a class from her.

And once again:
I should have said in the beginning: I have no financial interest in Betty’s projects; I just think they are extraordinary.

Gay Ann
(posted also on my website today).

More of Betty Chen Louis on my Website

This morning I added another page of needlework designs from Betty.
For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'elegant embroidery' on the yellow navigation bar.

Here is another opportunity to see more work by the person I think is the best designer/teacher now working in my world of needlework, so don't miss the opportunity to study her sense of line and color.

As you look at her work please take a few minutes to notice the following: the transitions of line and color in her work, the flow of the design elements, the relationships of the elements one to another and her unequaled sense of the interaction of positive-negative space. All of these are things that help make her work so elegant and graceful. Put another way: the elements of Betty's designs live so comfortably in their space.

Please take some time and visit and revisit, learn and study her work. Most of all, enjoy.

Gay Ann

Betty Chen Louis on my website

Late last night I posted some of Betty Chen Louis' needlework including the Cityscapes she will teach of the Embroiderers' Guild (EGA) at their national seminar in San Francisco in September.

Seeing the collection of Betty's Cityscapes is a must, as IMHO they are some of the best contemporary embroidery. She is the mistress of line and color in our needlework world and if you look at her work you will instantly understand why.

Betty has taught at almost every national seminar for the past gazillion years and now for the first time, she is offering a class online through Shining Needle Society. Her classes aren't like the majority of needlework classes where we show people how to recreate our projects stitch by stitch. Betty's classes always go a step further by incorporating work on design even when students are recreating what she has made.

I am excited to see the opportunity come to Shining Needle Society and our online needlework community.

Gay Ann

Op Ed: The Power of a Photograph

In the past couple of weeks I have posted photos of work by three people who are teaching at EGA's seminar in San Francisco this September. The idea began because a friend of mine pointed out that some of the photographs in the seminar issue of Needle Arts were unclear to say the least. The problem is, many people planning to attend the seminar choose their classes by the photographs of the projects, and how likely would a person opt for a class that looked like a yellow glob instead of a delicate piece of whitework?

I chose three teachers whose projects looked less than sparkling in EGA's online and printed seminar brochures; I asked if they would like to send me photographs, let me try to fix a few and then post them on my website. I was hoping to help a bit.

To correct the color cast of one of the worst photos, that is take away the yellow cast of the photo, I literally clicked on three buttons -- it took less than a minute. Such is the power of a digital camera and a computer with photographs these days.

So why aren't the seminar photographs aren't better quality? I haven't a clue. I just know that after untold amounts of work on the part of a teacher who designs and stitches a project in the best faith her work will be presented well, a photograph can do real harm to a seminar class.

I hope you who read this column will go and have a look at Jane Ellen's, Carolyn's and Sara's work on my website. Their work is wonderful and deserves nothing less than a sparkling presentation. My renditions of the photographs are far from perfect, but they do get the point across that the work is beautiful and delicate, and after all, that's what the photographs need to convey.

To see the photographs go to www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Jane Ellen' and 'Carolyn'. Sara's beadwork is on my homepage.

Gay Ann