Velda Newman Archives - Colleen Kole

It was a great weekend. We drove to Indianapolis for my son’s soccer tournament. It was crazy in Indy as it was the weekend for the Indy 500. The town was celebrating! The weather was steamy-90 and humid. Our team made it to the finals but lost 1-0. The boys weren’t really disappointed just happy to get off the hot fields-so were we! We were able to visit with my brother and sister-in-law too.

(He’s so grown up already-no more baby face).

We drove home and spent some time in the yard trying to get caught up on Monday. A bad storm early Monday left us with out power all day. My early summer flowers are really pretty now.

And finally, after a long month of learning, I went to sew. I first ironed some of my class samples from our day of discharge dyeing at the Velda Newman class. It was fairly easy techniques using bleach.

Just used masking tape on these samples.

Freezer paper templates.

Paintbrush, dipping directly into it, etc. Just playing.

I am working on finishing a quilt I am actually getting paid for this week. At least that is my goal! And it’s the last week of school. I can hardly wait to have them be done. I just wanna play!

Happy Sewing, my friends!

I haven’t even finished sharing with you about my class yet and I am on to the next one. I spent the last two days at a workshop sponsored by my local quilt guild. We are very spoiled and have had some great teachers come the past few years. I really didn’t know what to expect but jumped right in to a Velda Newman workshop. And I wasn’t a bit disappointed. Velda makes very large quilts- the last quilt she has worked on for 21/2 years and it is 180 inches long….Just beautiful pictorial quilts she has made from hand dyed fabrics and then hand painted them. This is one of her fish quilts:

Another pretty one stretched across the steps:

Another one :

These were amazing and exquisite and that doesn’t even begin to explain it to you. She hand dyes the fabric then hand paints each piece. Awesome and amazing. She is definitely inspired by nature.

The first workshop day was on how to create texture and form with in a quilt. She made everything look so easy and simplified how to do a few techniques-making leaves, flowers, tucks in fabric and some machine quilting techniques.

Velda’s flowers, leaves and vegetables

The second day was using bleach as a discharge technique. Lots of fun doing many techniques. We went outside to play in the steaming hot weather. (I would definitely invest in a respirator if I do much of this). In the afternoon we moved on to using acrylic paint as a wash for the fabric. Also tried using various watercolor pencils and crayons to shade in areas. Lots of information in a short period of time. Good stuff. She kept us very busy and was a great teacher. Calm, knowledgeable, talented and willing to share and help you learn.

So I know you are asking yourself -what am I going to do with all this stuff? I don’t know-yet. I can see myself using some of the discharge techniques. It’s just a great way to try some of this stuff without having to buy the supplies and realize you hate the technique.

I am just a professional student. All that worry about what to call myself and I am perfectly happy being a student. Makes the mistakes easier to explain:).

Happy Sewing, my friends.

A 2 hour dentist appointment awaits me at 8am. I feel like it’s my punishment for playing the last two days….