Saturday was the latest meeting of Contemporary Quilt Region 14, a workshop with tutor Janet Bottomley on Liberated Piecing. One of the best workshops I've ever been to - loads of fun, excellent teaching, and plenty of ideas for future projects (just need the time to make them now). You can find out more about Janet from her blogs:
A Quilters Journal (her personal blog),
her City and Guilds/Contemporary Quilt blog, and her
teaching blog. For anyone involved in running a quilting group she would be an excellent choice for a workshop that could appeal to both traditional and contemporary quilters.
For those who, like me, were unclear about the difference between liberated and improvisational quilting, liberated quilting involves putting together traditional blocks in a non-traditional way, with a minimum of measuring, as in much African American quilting. Improvisational or freeform quilting doesn't use blocks.
Below are some of the samples Janet brought, and you can see a corner of one of her quilts above (I wish I'd taken more photographs, but you can see more of Janet's work on her blogs. I especially love her use of bright colours and fresh-looking fabrics, in particular her use of stripes - the blue quilt just peeping out in the picture above is particularly good.
Anyway we were quickly on with the first blocks - stars and square in a square (occasionally pausing to flick through the books Janet brought)
and by lunchtime we'd completed our first blocks. Being an adventurous group we soon discovered how to make things wonky, adapt and experiment with the techniques, and have lots of fun playing.
And - probably Janet's influence - there was a lot of orange about. And some really nice fabrics, as in Lesley's beautifully wonky star.
In the afternoon we experimented with asterix blocks, hash signs, and wonky houses and trees, but I got so caught up in the process I forgot to take photographs.
And we all went home grinning from ear to ear, with a new challenge - to use the techniques in our own pieces to be revealed at the next meeting. Watch this space!
5 comments:
Sounds like you had a great day. Thanks for the tip about Janet as a tutor because as a new Area 11 rep I am on the lookout for possible ideas for Area Days
Oh, I love it! And it makes me feel ever so much better about my half-square triangles! :-)
You have to love those wonky bits! I had no clue that there even was a difference bewixt liberated and improvisational quilting - though I think it's because I never stopped to think about it!
Sounds like a fun day. 'pawful' hugs from the Tillie person and me
What a lot of fun! and lovely to see Penny too :-) I shall now go and have a look at Janet's blog and I'm looking forward to seeing what else you do as I am used to you working in very different ways.
Ah - grinning from ear to ear is how you should be after a session with making quilts. If it isn't fun, why bother?
I wouldn't know how to work any other way:-).
I'm watching this space!
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