I’m thinking about turning my “Notes for a Friend” concept into a class. To try out the idea I did an informal class with two friends and it was a huge success!
Cindy had never worked abstractly before, but she jumped in and finished her note in no time flat. Didn’t she do a great job?
Although she planned on adding hand embroidery later, she decided to skip that so she could work on a second one. She got all the way through completing the composition during our time together. She left plenty of calm areas which will look great when she adds some hand stitching.
Notice that Cindy has a cardboard frame around her piece, above. This helps her visualize the final project without seams allowances, etc. Very helpful.
Jo-Ann was enamored with many hand-dyed scraps and their busy patterns. Using so many patterns can be quite challenging, so she took she took her time and came up with a great composition. She faced it once she got home and doesn’t it look wonderful?
She decided that it didn’t need any hand stitching due to the busy patterns already in the piece and I agreed.
It was great fun for me to work with these two and I’m excited about the idea of developing this into a class. Of course, I know it will be quite different working with 15-20 people. I’ll have to think about some streamlining techniques.
What do you think? Would you like a class making one of these tiny quilts (5 x 7?) I anticipate that most students will completely finish theirs, including facing, in class. I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts on such a class, positive or negative.
Ellen Lindner