It had to Happen!

Well, finally Covid has caught up with us...after 2 years, we finally managed to catch it. What a bugger. We were not blessed with a mild sniffle, in fact I was out of action for the whole of last week eventually accepting that I could only sit on the sofa and not move much at all. Find that incredibly difficult at the best of times, but being literally confined to do nothing was really quite torturous.

Well, used my time to look into the Procreate program on the Ipad as I had seen that Bethanne Nemesh had offered a Procreate for Quilters mini course. Initially went with the general videos that Procreate offers for free and must say, was totally bamboozled with the possibilities. Had no idea how powerful that program was. So far I had only used it for doodling the odd design and to make a little booklet for my Freemotionquilting class. 

Did some amazing learning through sitting there for hours on end and managed some spectacular drawings but lacked some insight into the use of layers and moving things around in a less haphazard manner.

Love this little sketch. Traced the original design off a drawing and then multiplied it somehow. Reminded me of a Christmas bauble. Might look good on a Xmas table runner stitched out in gold.

I did end up taking Bethanne's online class as I was interested in the possibilities for quilting and designing. Went through most of it today (2hrs) and must say it is very good. Everything you need to know as a beginner from gestures to brushes, colour fills, selection tools and more... and it did answer some of my questions about the use of layers in a drawing program. So this is what I drew today following along Bethanne's example. Basically created a piece of fabric with that single heart design.

Obviously I am not going to make my own fabric but this was good learning in terms of repeating your design in order to get multiples of the same thing. Very handy for wholecloth work in terms of laying down your ideas and playing around with orientation and settings. The class did clarify a few points where I was utterly confused with all the different gestures and possibilities. Bethanne does have the knack to stay focussed on the essentials which is where I am sometimes lacking. Not gone through the whole class but I am a bit excited about the possibilities.

If you have an Ipad and want to learn how to utilize this more effectively for your quilts, I can highly recommend Bethanne's Procreate for Quilters class.

Karin