Last month I got to spend two and half days with members of the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild when I conducted my class, Design Your Own Nature Quilt. Because this group includes many non-quilters there was quite a mix of skill levels in the class. About half had never made an art quilt and several had never made a quilt of any sort! But, they all bravely dove in and they achieved EXCELLENT results.
In this class, each student brings their own inspiration photo, which means we’ve got 15 DIFFERENT projects going all the time. It keeps me on my toes, but I love it. They learn so much in this class!
I wish I had thought to photograph their inspiration photos, rather than just their resulting quilts. (These photos were showing on my computer when photographed. The quality is sometimes low, but you’ll get the idea.)
Gretchen was inspired by a photo of water lilies. She changed the nearly black water to a dark plum, which worked beautifully. She’ll use fusible web to add the skinny little grasses, and she’ll stiffen some of the leaves to make them 3D. It will be great!
Ronna also worked with water lilies, and also switched to purple water. This complementary color really adds drama and contrast. And check out how effective those black shadows are. Nice!
Val’s lily pads are coming along nicely. She’ll add some shadows to add dimension. Check out her water grasses and their reflection near the top. She spent a lot of time on them and I think they’re very effective.
This photo doesn’t do Barbara’s work justice. Her photo had three delicate flowers against a complex shadow. She had to work at providing contrast with value. Her later progress showed that she was moving in the right direction.
Nancy cut loose in a really wonderful way. She started working with solids, but needed some dappled light. As we searched her print fabrics she realized that she had quite a big selection of them, so she switched gears. This brought a lot of energy to her scene. She’ll add some thread-painted grasses in the foreground.
These are the words a delighted customer used after installing her purchase in her home. Take a look. Doesn’t it look like it was made to go there? Her beautiful kitchen has recently been remodeled and I think Vine Ripened looks great in this environment! One of the things that convinced her to make this…
If you live near Melbourne, FL, you can get in on a really great deal on my new Floral Improv class. The cost is only $15 because participants will be asked to give me feedback to help me fine tune the class. Here are the details, along with sample images. Floral Improv Want to enhance…
The ladies from Palm Beach County Quilters’ Guild made excellent progress on their apple projects during a recent Double Reverse Applique class. Linda was all smiles about her results. At the end of the day Barbara’s was complete, except for the stem. Lorna was the first to finish. We all thought her bottom fabric did a nice job of implying…
This was originally posted May 19, 2015. I thought you’d enjoy seeing it again. Standing on the bridge, with sunlit tropical foliage all around, the wind kicks up and the flags overhead begin to flutter wildly. It’s at once both exciting and serene. A joyful moment! This was my experience as I took in an installation of…
Now, THIS is exciting stuff! After doing deconstructed screen printing with randomly created screens, I decided to draw on my last screen, with a syringe. This is a technique I learned in a DSP class with Kerr Grabowski. That’s my screen above. I drew on it with very thick black dye. In fact, it was…
After altering the background of my quilt, so it didn’t completely copy the sketch, I took a different approach as I added the various elements. I decided to copy them fairly closely, but to give myself PLENTY of latitude when altering them. This is the sketch. And this is the background. I added the two…
