A Sea of Colorful Fabric Using 10 Techniques with Acrylic Inks

This was the scene on the floor before we broke for lunch on Saturday. Luckily we had a really big room. I spread out a 9' x 12' tarp and then added another 6 feet to it an hour later. These were our base fabrics created using the first 5 techniques. 

After lunch we used this fabric to work through the next 5 techniques.


It's a pretty action packed class to get through all 10.

It would be great to do this as a 2 day class working at a slightly more relaxed pace with more time dedicated to each technique, then have the second day to incorporate all the techniques into one larger piece.

And for those students in my class that were interested in the beautiful wooden block stamps we used, as well as all of you reading this post, they are from The Indian Block Company. I'm fairly certain the company Colouricious will have a booth selling them at International Quilt Festival, Houston this fall.

Everyone was very productive creating a lot of unique fabric and most importantly had a lot of fun doing it.

Charting a Course in Color

I teach color theory very much like you would learn it in art school, because I think the way to really understand color is by mixing paint and seeing what happens when you physically add one color to another. As an educator I believe experiential learning like this creates the deepest level of learning for most people.

In the first half of the class I show a power point explaining the various terms relating to color theory with graphics and going through all the color schemes with fabric swatch examples along with samples of my art quilt work that falls into the various categories.

One of the first charts we make is a basic color wheel with primary, secondary and tertiary colors created from red, yellow and blue.

It's funny how every class has an over achiever, who takes the project to a higher level than required :-)

Actually this gal is a fabric dyer who wants to really understand how to attain exact colors when mixing dyes.

I think she's well on her way.




After lunch I show another powerpoint with examples of how colors interact and affect each other so that one can choose colors to enhance mood, visual activity, depth and contrast. Then we get on with our next charts.

This is exercise is mixing complimentary colors, one of my favorites! I love the beautiful color palette you achieve when doing this, look at those gorgeous greens and browns made from blue and orange.

The class has 6 charts in all, we usually get through about 3-4 in 6 hours, but everyone has the experience they need to continue at home.

I teach an online version of this class too, but right now the class is on hold until after I move later this fall, am resettled, get a new web host and have the site up and running again.

Linda took my Tea & Ephemera class last year and brought in this fantastic pillow she made with her collaged fabric, it's backed with a rust colored ultra suede.

Beautiful!

Alternatively Bound and Stitched in Long Beach

There are always a few things I learn teaching a new class, like if I've forgotten to put something on the supply list or how long will it take students to go through each part of the class within the 6 hour time frame.

With sewing machine based classes at conventions, it always takes a little extra time as well when students are working on machines they're unfamiliar with, that said the Bernina 550's were a dream to work on and everyone got the hang of them pretty quickly.

The main thing I learned was making quilted samples as big as 12" x 12" were a little too big to finish before lunch. Luckily we had a 2 hour lunch break and since the show hadn't opened yet, students could take the extra time to finish.

Everyone did a wonderful job with the three different binding techniques in the afternoon.

From now on I'll have students precut fabric and batting and work on smaller samples in the morning and the timing should work out just right.

International Quilt Festival Long Beach Pre-show Set Up

It was so nice to be back in Southern California for another Quilt Festival. This is the lovely view from our hotel window at the Hyatt.

Here's what the convention center looks like the day before festival opens. It is amazing how it all comes together in a relatively short period of time.

That's a lot of lightbulbs!

6 of us hung the 'Rituals' exhibit organized by curators Jamie Fingal and Leslie Jenisen. Each quilt is
2' x 5' and will travel to each International Quilt Festival venue over the next year, including the newly added Chicago location.

the hanging crew: Leslie, Me, Julie, Jamie, Sherry and Peggy

 

 

Leslie, Jamie and I volunteered to put up the Artist Village exhibit curated by Kathy York. The platform was longer than the exhibit so we decided to put the quilt on point and rearrange the houses, what fun we had doing that.

Stay tuned for posts from my classes.