10 Techniques with Acrylic Inks
We had a great time with the acrylic inks class, this was the first official time through it so there is always so much to learn, for all of us. I’m glad it was a small class, I can see where timing will have to be adjusted for a big class, as well as needing [...]
Embossing Metal at Shake Rag Alley
It was so nice to teach a few small classes for a change, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the energy and excitement of large classes (25 students) at festival, but day after day on your feet circling the room on those carpet covered concrete convention floors can get tiring. At Shake Rag things were [...]
Day 3 Heavy Metal Play Day
The saturday metal class was fantastic! Walnut Hollow recently changed the size of their metal squares from 4″ x 4″ to 5″x 5 3/4″, and this larger size really opened up the creative potential for embossing. My students had so much fun, creating fantastic designs, check out all their beautiful work (click on the photos [...]
Day 2- Color Theory
I believe the best way to learn about color is to mix and create colors by watching the physical interaction of one hue upon another using paint. Reading about color or looking at swatches of fabric can give you a sense about how colors relate but there’s nothing like experiential learning to fully grasp the [...]
Exploring Tea & Ephemera in Cincinnati
The first day of festival I taught Tea & Ephemera which is a class focused on learning a variety of mixed media techniques: drawing on tea bags and adhering them to fabric working with printed tea bags collaging a variety of art papers, napkins, book pages and foreign language newspapers additional color is applied with paint [...]
New Acrylic Inks class!!!
I’m excited to tell you about a new class I’m teaching 10 Textile Techniques using acrylic inks! I’ll be teaching it at Shake Rag Alley School of Arts & Crafts in Mineral Point Wisconsin April 22. This is going to be one of those classes filled with experimenting and learning multiple ways to apply ink to fabric. [...]
Fun Metal Workshop and a Rough Drive Home
On thursday, I drove 85 miles to Rockford, IL to give two lectures and teach Heavy Metal Play Day. I don’t teach locally very often so it was really nice to drive instead of dealing with the hassles of flying. There was lots of fun experimenting with different embossing techniques on silver and colored aluminum, [...]
Saturday: Make it U, friends, Surviving the Runway and Pokey’s Surprise Birthday Party
Saturday I taught a Make it University workshop using DeColorourant, a product used to discharge color from fabric using an iron. I have an article on DeColorourant in Quilting Arts magazine after the new year. Hanging with Friends Melly, Rice and I ran into Jamie and Leslie on their way to open studios and had [...]
Friday: Lecture, Interview, Reception, Dinner
On friday my day began with giving a power point lecture called Making an Award Winning Artquilt (and everything that can go wrong in the process). It’s an information packed lecture showing a series of quilts from start to finish, how I pull together a concept with imagery to create a design, products that I prefer and [...]
Thursday: Tsukineko Inks Again and Dinner at 8
On thursday, I taught a second Tsukineko inks class at festival and the good news is if you were trying to get in and didn’t, I had such a big waiting list, I have been invited to come back and teach it again in Houston next year. Dinner at 8 Sue Dennis, Rachel, Sue Bleiweiss, [...]
Wednesday: Tea, Preview Night and Dinner with Friends
On wednesday I taught Tea & Ephemera which is really a class about trying out lots of different techniques on one piece of colored fabric. It’s all very spontaneous, playing with various papers, printed paper imagery, drawing on tea bags, using printed abaca paper to emulate tea bags, stamping patterns and texture and using shiva [...]
Tuesday: Tsukineko All Purpose Inks
All my classes at festival were full with 25 students and such a treat to teach, so much incredible work was produced. This is the work of the youngest student I have ever had in any of my classes at festival, beautiful! huh? She’s 17, from England and a total delight. I was so lucky [...]
Magical Metal Altars at Create
Thursday I taught Magical Metal Altars to a full class with 20 students. This is a new class, kind of a larger modified version of the popular Fiesta Ornaments. What fun this was! I gave the students a wide range of options to create their altar; from using a template with everything predesigned by me [...]
Painting Fabric Class at the Create Retreat
The Create retreat got off to a wonderful start on Wednesday. My first class had 8 students, it’s such a pleasure to have a class that small on occasion, teaching 25 (my usual number for festival) can be challenging, because I always like to give everyone individual attention along with the class demos. These gals [...]
Wonderful work inspired by a few of my classes and techniques
After taking my Heavy Metal Play Day class in St Paul last June Janet Hartje made this wonderful book to hold a variety of papers showcasing mixed media techniques. Check out Janets blog to read more about the book and see some of the other cool stuff she’s been creating! This week Marilyn Fischer, from Kentucky, shared this [...]
A Spot of Tea in Long Beach
My last class in Long Beach was Tea & Ephemera, where everyone works with drawing and painting on tea bags, collaging; printed abaca paper, decorative art papers, napkins and old garment patterns, bits of text from books and foreign newspapers and iron on ink jet transfers made with TAP. Then another layer of visual texture [...]
Heavy Metal in Long Beach
Heavy Metal Play Day is a day of fun and exploration; embossing and adding color to metal in a variety of ways, working with both aluminum and copper. It was another great workshop at International Quilt Festival. Tweet
Tsukineko Inks at International Quilt Festival, Long Beach
My first day teaching at festival, I had a full class with 24 students and a lot of wonderful work was produced using Tsukineko’s All Purpose Inks. We always start by using a dry brush method; dipping the fantastix tool in to the ink and working on white fabric and then progress to using paint [...]
Art Quilts: Painting and Surface Design at Idyllwild Arts
Our studio for 3 days, amongst the boulders and pines. It was lovely, Idyllwild Arts is such a fabulous retreat venue! Day 1 Color Theory Day 2 Painting a few people kept working on their paintings after class and brought finished paintings the next day. Day 3 Mixed Media What a wonderful 3 days! Noel, [...]
Southern California here I come!
I have been really busy the last week preparing to spend the second half of July in Southern California, with a quick trip up to Northern California to see my mom between teaching at Idyllwild Arts and International Quilt Festival. My bags are quickly filling with lots of supplies, I just hope I have room [...]
Sign up for Create before it’s too late!
Interweave’s Create Retreat is fast approaching and classes are filling up! The retreat is going to be located in Lisle, Illinois, which is a suburb southwest of Chicago. You can fly into Midway (a smaller airport) or O’Hare, it’s about the same distance from either. I will be teaching two classes: Painting Fabric for Whole Cloth Quilts and [...]
St Paul Day 3: Metal Workshop
free motion quilting designs were this students inspiration for the peice with the leaves My third class in St. Paul was Heavy Metal Play Day, I was so excited to finally have the opportunity to teach this class after planning it almost 2 years ago. The first half of the class we concentrated on working [...]
Tsukineko All Purpose Inks in St. Paul
My Tsukineko Inks class was a large one with 25 students. In this class I teach two different techniques for applying the inks to fabric. In the first half of the class we use a dry brush method with the Fantastix applicators that are dipped into the ink. Using the Fantastix pen tools are kind [...]
Day 1 in St. Paul, what a week!
Last Tuesday, I drove 400 miles from Chicago, IL to St Paul, MN, the longest road trip I have driven by the way, to teach 4 classes at the Minnesota Quilters Show and Conference. It was a wonderful show put on by an all volunteer committee, very impressive! Nina, my daughter and class assistant, painting [...]
