WMQG workshop Archives - Colleen Kole

I have all these grandiose plans to write a separate blog post for all the fun things I have been doing. But it just seems like old news. So I will give you the abbreviated whirlwind catch up:

1. Attended a day long workshop by Susan Brubaker Knapp at the WMQG on Thread Sketching. I didn’t take the class but was just a classroom volunteer. She is a very good teacher and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her for a workshop.

2.After two weeks of Artprize, I loaded up the car and went to the Barn for Sets and Variables #3. Really intense assignments given by Nancy but I loved it. I , of course, came home with lots of pieces and parts not sewn together but I understood the concepts and am loving fine lines. Lots of ideas swirling around in my head from this class. I need no reminder to know what a privilege it is to study with Nancy Crow each and every time I take another workshop from her.

3. More press: Jennifer’s nice article about me

4. The Saturday I drove home from the Barn I squeezed in a quick 90 minute trip to our West Michigan Quilt Guild which was held at the Deltaplex Oct 3-5th. I was surprised to have won three ribbons for some of my work.

I was proud of our guild and the quality of the work shown.

4. I over-dyed about 40 yards of medium valued fabrics as I used up lots of my darks at the Barn. I used an electric blanket under my plastic containers to maintain some warmth overnight. More blotchy than usual but not bad! The dye studio has been packed up and placed down the basement ready for next summer.

5. Yardwork, housework, more yardwork and more housework in a major catchup mode. ( I did very little around here in the month of September).

6. A week of jury duty where they chose me to sit on the jury. At least it was an interesting case=bad boys in big bad trucks being very bad. A business case.

7. And Lucy , my Bernese Mountain Dog, who had an anterior cruciate ligament repair at MSU vet school. Looks like a 3 month rehab process.

Oh geez….life just goes round and round, doesn’t it? I always have hopes of life slowing down but that is not the case. I am just going to embrace it.

I hope to regain a studio schedule on Monday and am looking forward to it.

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….