Saturday’s fabric painting was, as far as I can tell, an unqualified success. The follow-up to this was Sunday’s Quilted Landscape Design and Construction workshop. My chief aim in going into this workshop was to help people select an idea that they wanted to tackle, assist them in deisgning a plan as to how to implement it and to do all the pattern design, technique planning and construction decision making so that they had a quilt top that was largely started and ready to take away with them for completion, the tools and fabrics for which they would have at hand.


I think I succeeded quite nicely for the most part. There were a couple of people whose ideas were much more stylised than my own and their work looks very different from what I was initially thinking I would teach. It was what they wanted to do, though, so I helped them work through the more linear development of a pattern. I’m actually pretty happy about how I was able to adapt and work with several different approaches.

Many people used fabrics that they had painted the day before, which made their pieces quite unique and really interesting. Some used photos of places that were meaningful to them , others took photos from books or travel guides as their inspiration.

I’ve posted a few pictures to the right showing a rough progression, unfortunately not of the same piece. The first shows the matching of ocean and sky, after having selected a sky fabric that set the tone for the piece. The second is selecting fabrics to use for different parts of the piece such that they go with the sky and all fit together within the work. Next is a photo of the work of one of the women who did a stylised, non-realistic type landscape. You can see that she used straight lines and a more patchwork-type of piecing. The next photo is an intricate layout of a night-time ocean scene inspired by a photo from a book. She varied it to make it more unique and arranged the land and rocks in a way that she found worked. When she left, she had the plans in place for finishing the top, borders and quilting. The final piece is an appliquéd version of photo number two and was also left with the plans for completion.

There were others, of course (15 people in total). I spent the whole day moving from person to person and giving individualised attention, interspersed with brief general presentations of techniques, tools and ideas. I tried to make sure that even the people who were quiet and didn’t request help got regular attention. I think I succeeded pretty well and I was quite impressed by the pieces that they turned out.

I wish I had had more time with them. One woman said that they needed at least two days with me. I may contact the group and see about tagging along to a workday to give some of them a bit more feedback. Things have occurred to me since about the various projects and I’d love to be able to chat with them briefly. Maybe I’ll go to the next meeting.

By mid-afternoon, people were feeling the effects of a weekend of reduced sleep. A few had to leave to get home and prepare for Monday and many were feeling much as I was – slightly tired and not entirely clear-headed. We finished up by three, though, and I think most people left feeling like they’d accomplished something new.

It’s nice knowing that these workshops work well. I’ll have to see about marketing them to some other groups in the near future.

All in all, a good weekend. Now for the Craft Council’s Christmas Fair….