Archive | September, 2020

Double Reverse Appliqué “in” Ann Arbor

By Ellen Lindner on September 30, 2020 in Uncategorized

I did a second fun Zoom class with the Ann Arbor gals. This time it was Double Reverse Appliqué.

They made great progress. Just look.
Jennifer chose muted colors and they worked beautifully. (BTW, the focus on Zoom is great. It’s reduced here because the image has been copied and manipulated so many times.)

Colleen finished in just a few hours. Can you tell she’s pleased with her results?

Susan used a fabric which featured a subway map of New York City. So, you can guess the name of her piece: “The Big Apple.” I love it!

Claudia took both classes and had great results both times.

June had taken the class before and had already made an apple. So, she jumped ahead and made a pear.

Later, she sent me a photo of the finished project. Great, right? Don’t you love the way the value changes make the pear (or apple) look 3D?

June was pretty taken with this technique and designed another pear of her own. She had fun mixing up the colors and I think the results are fantastic.

Susan also sent me photos of her finished projects. Here’s her “Big Apple.”

And her pear. Nice!

All of these ladies did a great job! We had no trouble communicating via Zoom and it was a lot of fun.

If you want to try this technique, you can learn via my eBook, or my on-demand class. (Or, of course, tell your guild program chair to “bring” me to your guild.) There are so many great ways to learn these days!

I hope you’ve had some fun learning opportunities during this pandemic time.

Ellen Lindner

Floral Improv “in” Ann Arbor

By Ellen Lindner on September 26, 2020 in Uncategorized

It sure is great to be able to interact with students and teach, via Zoom, to people across the country. I recently taught “Floral Improv” to a group of students in the Ann Arbor, MI area. They all did an excellent job and these late-in-the-day screen shots are proof.

Woah, Grace got a LOT of flowers and foliage cut and placed, didn’t she? She’ll add black stitching to the flowers to add interest.

Working alongside her was her young friend, Emma. She’s only been sewing a few months, but she had no problems with a new technique.

Claudia’s colors were actually much more vibrant that this, but this gives you an idea. (Claudia, I cropped you out because your eyes were closed.)

Laura settled on her flower colors pretty quickly, but was still auditioning foliage fabrics late in the day. (The down side of having access to ALL your fabric when taking a class at home?)

Mary wanted her flowers to be the stars so she opted for very low contrast foliage. Can you see that she’s added black stitching to some of her poppies, already?

Lynne’s vibrant background fabric added another level of energy to her composition.

Showing me their work can be tricky, but Mary Beth had it figured out. She took a photograph with her phone and held it up to the web camera. Where there’s a will there’s a way!

Amy’s composition included a bird and a butterfly on her background fabric. They went well with her acid greens.

Jean is already outlining her palest flowers to add contrast. Can you see where she’s done it already? It really makes a difference.

Don’t you love how Wanda brought in a few flowers arcing down from the top right?

Nico got especially creative. She clustered her flowers and made a vase for them. A very nice option!

I had a fabulous day with these ladies and I think they’d say the same. It was SO wonderful to interact in this way after so many months of near isolation!

I strongly encourage your guild to get on the “Zoom wagon,” with me, or with some other teacher. It’s just way too much fun. If a workshop seems scary, start with just a lecture.

Information about my presentations.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. In this class students learn how to make two different types of flowers with no patterns. Then, they learn about composition and arrange their flowers. Leaves and stems are added last, and quilting begins. Students have already learned how to stitch their poppies with black thread in order to make them look more dimensional. Before you know it, it’s completely done.

Fresh Fish

By Ellen Lindner on September 14, 2020 in Uncategorized

What to do when the call for art requests ocean animals smaller than 12″? This is my result: two fish for SAQA’s “Fresh Fish” project.

These are made from scraps, most of them hand dyed.

I had fun adding a little hand stitching.

It turns out that this shape is VERY hard to turn right side out. The narrow spot between the body of the fish and the tail is a problem. But, I’m happy with the result.