I’ve planned to add a workshop page to my website for a while, a long while. But, truth be told, I’d ALWAYS rather make something than work on my website and one of the benefits of being self-employed is also one of its perils: you’re the boss.
Lately though life events have reinforced the fact that I don’t have forever and just wanting something to be is not enough. I have to make it happen.
So, the other day I asked myself what kinds of classes I wanted to teach and why. In the past I’ve let that be dictated by the folks who invited me, but, now I wanted to more intentional and decided to focus all my offerings around a single concept: Simple Design.
Simple Design is my foundational ideal and the basis of most of my designs in recent years. I define it as the use of simple blocks and techniques that, combined with thoughtful fabric choices and placement, make complicated-looking, seemingly multiple- patterned quilts. All the quilt patterns I feature in the classes listed on my workshops page are constructed of strips, squares, and half triangle squares. There’s nothing more complicated than that. Additionally, many of the designs rely on components of same or similar measurements throughout.
For instance, in both versions of Medusa just three measurements are needed, two different strip lengths and a square. All the design decisions are focused on creating movement across the quilt top via color and placement. I want to liberate folks to explore these concepts without sweating complex technical issues.
Despite the classes falling under the same umbrella concept, each workshop is unique, both in terms of finished product and the design challenges. All will help you grow as a modern quilt artist, which, by the way, you are, whether this is your first or your 100th quilt. I say that because, along with my belief in the value of simple design to unleash creative thinking, I think making/art is not exclusive to a few “talented” people, but available to everyone.
Curious to know more? Feel free to contact me.