Summer School

In less than a month, I've managed to take four workshops, resulting in 3 works-in-progress and one not-even-started project. It feels a little like summer school for this quilter.

The only progress made on the Agapanthus, since the Jane Sassaman workshop, was the purchase of some possible background fabrics and another which will become highlights on some of my petals.

At NQA last week, I took classes from Andi Perejda and Laura Wasilowski--two artists whose work I have long admired. Here's Andi and her class sample for Dazzling Dogwoods--this quilt is the center panel from her award-winning quilt, Branching Out, currently gracing the home page on her web site.



We painted petals, appliquéd them together and added a ruched and beaded center. Her approach to creating the branches is interesting (and new to me). I'm looking forward to creating a small quilt based on Dazzling Dowoods, but so far, I only have a single blossom and a possible background.



It's true, I'm usually at the bottom of the learning curve in any class environment--I'm just not very good at being creative and focused and productive in the noisy distracting environment of a class full of quilters. Add into the mix the fact that I somehow managed to buy--only last week--some of the infamous bad batch of fusible for Laura's class, which added extra steps to the process for me--just to be sure--and slowed me down even more. Here's one of Laura's beautiful samples and my beginning on a wood block quilt.



I usually manage to catch up and finish at the top of the curve with the rest of the class and I am motivated to finish both of these. I know I will create more woodblock style quilts, too, because after the class was over and I was on the road, I kept designing more of them in my head ... all the way home.

The fourth, unstarted WIP? I decided to give Quilt University a try and since I've never made a Stack and Whack quilt (but, of course have fabric in my stash for one), I signed up for Bethany Reynolds class. The timing wasn't great and I was already over commited, but I was sure I could catch up by the end of the session. We'll see ;-)