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.
Creative Whimsy, a website about artists and their endeavors has just done a spotlight on me. How nice! They sent me a ton of questions and I answered most of them. (I mean, you didn’t want to read PAGES about me, right?) I was glad they asked about my process. I explained how I make…
Teaching classes is so much fun! Add to that the satisfaction students get from mastering something new and it’s one big Adrenalin surge for all of us. This was the case when I recently taught “Double Reverse Applique” in Palm Harbor, FL. With Double Reverse Applique (DRA) the pattern is stitched from the back and…
I’m kinda proud of myself. I’ve just started selling my Color eBook on a USB/thumb drive. The tricky part was trying to figure out how to package them. I thought they should have good labeling and be large enough so that I could keep track of them. This is my solution. Each thumb drive has…
Want to make a great quilt like this class sample? (Floral Improv) Or this one? (Double Reverse Applique) Or this one, made in a shorter class? (Love It and Leaf It) I’ll be teaching each of these classes online, as part of Road@Home, the online version of Road to California. It runs January 20-23, 2021….
My latest quilt has been coming together nicely, even though the fabrics are a little bit diverse. The colors, patterns, and values of the fabrics have dictated what looks good where and the fabric sizes have determined what will actually fit where. Things evolved on the design wall as I folded and auditioned fabrics in…
After over dyeing fabrics from previous sessions, my ordered fabric arrived and I jumped at the opportunity to make some “new fabric.” That is, starting with plain white fabric. I had plans and was excited to implement them! This one was meant to go with a favorite fabric. Therefore, I repeated the pattern and some of…
