Quilting Arts TV in Cleveland

Happy Belated Valentine’s to everyone.

I was on a plane on my way to Cleveland that morning, where I spent a day taping three segments for Quilting Arts TV Season 800 to be aired in PBS (KSPS Channel 14 here in Calgary and surrounding areas) at the end of June.

My friend Marcela, from Houston, traveled to Cleveland to meet me and keep me company.  It was great to see her again, as we talk often but don’t see each other as much as I would like. We met at the Cleveland airport as her plane arrived before mine, and mine was late.  Here’s what I flew from Toronto to Cleveland.  I had to laugh because I had seat 8A and I thought to myself “Great! I’m at the front of the plane!”  Well … guess what?  Row 8 is one before last!  See what I mean?

We picked up the car and started to drive to the hotel, only to find that the instructions I had Googled were from the airport and not from the car rental company.  Good thing that Marcela thought to bring her GPS!  We got to the hotel in time to have a lovely dinner at the Hyde Park Restaurant, crème brulee included.  Got back to the room and prepared everything for the next day.  It was a good time that we allowed ourselves enough time to get to the studio the following morning as we found the car covered in a layer of frost.  We arrived at the studio around 7:45 a.m., and I went into the set to take photos before it got too busy and crazy.

Everyone was there:  Katherine Lamancusa, assistant to Kathie Stull, the producer; Helen Gregory, Managing Editor for Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines; Lindsey Murray, Assistant Editor, Special Projects, Quilts and Paper Products for Interweave; Jeanne Cook-Delpit from Bernina.

Katherine told me that I was next in line for make-up, right after Pokey Bolton (host of QA TV) got hers done.  In the meantime, I started to get things ready for the shoot, setting up in bakers’ trays, to make sure that I would have everything I needed when the time came.  Then it was make up time!

Pokey, in the meantime, was getting ready to tape all of her “openings” for which she changed clothes a number of times.

She keeps track of what she needs to wear when using photos of her outfits labeled with the number of the segments, as they are shot out of sequence.

Katherine Lamancusa does incredible work behind the scenes to keep everybody organized, offer support, answer questions and keep everybody on track while Pokey and Kathie go between the green room and the set.  When not taping, Pokey can be found in the green room glued to the computer, taking care of the daily business.  Here’s Katherine helping me set up for the first shoot.

The cameraman told me the do’s and don’ts before we started taping.  Don’t look at the camera, don’t stop talking, do as you talk, and if you make a mistake, correct yourself and keep going.  I guess they edit afterwards.  If you stop, they need to re-shoot.  I am happy to say that I did all my shoots without having to re-shoot any!  Yeah!  Amazingly enough, I didn’t feel nervous.  Once we started, it was second nature.  I guess I had gone over everything in my mind so many times, that I didn’t have to think about what to say.  And Pokey was great, asking questions and  cueing me in to what I needed to do next.

A while later, Faith Cleary from Houston arrived.  She does thread painted animal portraits, and was there to tape a segment and a workshop DVD.  Her pet portraits are incredible.

And this is one of Faith’s pet portraits.  More below:

They brought lunch for everyone and set up on the third floor, which is a winter garden, all glassed in, full of plants and greenery.  We had subs, potato salad, chips and bite-size brownies.

After I taped my first segment, it was time for Faith to tape hers.

This is Pokey’s dog.  Faith made a Christmas stocking with his image.

I had to include a photo of the dog carrier, which I thought was very cute.

While each artist is taping, everybody else gathers in the green room and can watch on the big screen TV what is going on in the set.   This is a photo taken during the taping of the second segment, where I am demonstrating making a canvas with tight quilting.  The magazine was on the table, but the name was covered; as it is shown in PBS, you can’t name any brand names.

This gentleman was in charge of hooking us up with the mike, once the mike was on, everybody could hear what you said.  He spent half the day chasing us on and off the set to recover his microphones!  But he was very nice about it.

This is the last segment I taped, where I demonstrated fabric painting.  It all went very very fast.  It’ll be interesting to see what it actually looks like in tape!  I think at some point I scratched my nose!  And I remember thinking to myself that I had done that on TV!

After all my segments were shot, I was invited to go to the control room to see the other “side” of the taping.  Here’s a photo of the control room.  Didn’t want to use the flash in case I did something to startle the guy at the controls and they would have to reshoot!  So it is a bit dark, but it gives you an idea of what’s going on.

By then I could relax on a very comfortable leather sofa with Marcela and Lindsey Murray, while we watched Helen Gregory do her segment.  The first time they went very fast, so they stop the shoot and Kathie talked to Pokey over the headsets and gave her suggestions on how to stretch the segment to four minutes.  Very interesting!

We left around 5:30 p.m. after watching Jeanne from Bernina demonstrate the new attachment to do cut work.  Impressive!  Marcela tried the stitch regulator on the Activa 440.  I believe I’ll receive a phone call soon telling me she got one!

Here’s Jeanne listening to a Webinar.

Pokey, Helen and Lindsey in the set.

Pokey and I did a brief interview in the green room where we talked about some of the samples we didn’t have time to cover during the taping.

Just as we were leaving, Lisa Kerpoe arrived; she was taping the following day.  I was looking at her stuff as she was unpacking.  She explained that she uses potato flakes, oatmeal, and other interesting objects to create textures.  You’ll have to watch her segments to learn more.  Below is one of her samples.

I’ll blog this weekend about our visit to Chagrin Falls, not too far from the studio.

Hope you have enjoyed a brief view into what goes on at these tapings.  Visit Quilting Arts Magazine website and Facebook for more.

Thanks for reading.  Send me a comment or two.  I’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, keep quilting.

Ana