Thankful for My Amazing Students

A Recent 'Live' Q & A Session

Thanksgiving was filled with lots of family fun, but the season of thanks wouldn’t be complete without sharing what we’ve been up to the past couple months behind the scenes. 

The first session of Colorwash 360 launched on October 1 and we spent the next 40 days walking together through the course material with students from across the world. 

Each week we had Live Q & A sessions from my studio. I never thought I'd be on live video, but I discovered it was really lots of fun.

But probably my favorite part of all was seeing what my students were accomplishing in their own home studios. Many students shared their progress with me and a few were kind enough to allow their projects on the blog today. 

Students worked in a variety of fabrics. These first student artworks were made in all Batik fabrics.

by Linda Swanekamp, USA
https://artinsearch.blogspot.com/

by Mary Powers, USA
https://hillcountryquilter-mary.blogspot.com/ 

by Pat Graham, USA

The work below is made with hand dyed fabrics as well as commercial prints.

by Susan Gardner, Canada

Another favorite fabric selection for Colorwash was Kaffe Fassett prints sometimes pure Kaffe, other times Kaffe Collective and other prints.

by Donnie Brownsey, USA

by Marnie Haines, USA

 by Julie Sefton USA
htpps:quiltdivajulie.blogspot.com

Kumi Fisher USA
@kumifisher

Many more amazing works were made and are in the finishing stages now. Perhaps we'll show more student works later, if you'd like to see more.  I'm so proud of all of them and hope you'll cheer them on as well!

Do you want to learn to make a Colorwash too? CLICK HERE to sign up for our Waitlist...we'll be offering the online course again early Spring 2019.

Class fun.........

One student is using a reducing glass to view her work and decide if anything needs to be moved. 
Today will be tweaking day.

Another student is filling in the green area on hers.  She was hoping to find more red batiks at home to cut and bring this morning.  

Students' work.............

The students did a great job on their colorwash pieces in my class.

They all used 2.5" squares.

They are all much richer looking in person.  The camera wants to focus on the light area as if it is a face instead of focusing on the whole thing.
 

Students' work.............

Below are the pieces designed by my 5 students the last 2 days.  I am so proud of them.  I think they might have thought I was exaggerating when I told them how long it takes to tweak it to perfection but they are believers now.  The pieces are all beautiful and unique.

I hope to get a better photo of this last one.  It is really prettier than this photo shows.  It happened to be on the wall that has the worst lighting near it.

Students' quilts........

This is the one that I didn't get a photo of at the last class.  It is a lap/couch quilt size.  Be sure to click and enlarge the photo to see all of the fabric choices.

I love how they look sewn together after the unpicking is all done.  Check back here to see this one in progress on the design wall.

The left side of this one is sewn and the right side was unpicked yesterday.  

A lot of class time was spent with fabrics the students brought.  We put them in order and figured out the cutting sizes for their future projects.

I put a pile of my fabrics on the table and had them work on an order for them.  The top row is the way they were when the students left.  I looked at them later in the day and decided to add one more light fabric and one more multicolor and pulled out 2 of the black/charcoal gray fabrics (the bottom row).

Student quilts.........

Here are the students' quilts in progress from the class Monday.  One student had hers off the wall already by the time I grabbed my camera.

They are all making large lap/couch size quilts.

I love the variety of fabric types in a class setting.  Everyone learns something from everyone else's fabric choices.

Second class..........

It took 3 weeks to get a nice weather day to have class 2 of the January TAW class.  This one by JH is a couch quilt that will lay over a gray couch.

This one by SW is a large couch quilt. You can go back to this post to see the starts of the layouts on Jan. 20th.  I love the border fabric on this quilt.

This one by BD is a wallhanging size and we were auditioning for borders.  The fourth student had to go to a dentist appt. and I'm sure she would rather have been with us.

It is so much fun to see the fabrics that the students bring to class and to see quilts start to come to life on the design wall and then it is a treat to see them all sewn together.

Class quilt starts..........

 I have had 4 busy days, so not many words today.  Here are the quilt starts from the class yesterday

# 7 January finish.......

I finished the binding on the X and + quilt while I watched TV last night.  I LOVE this quilt!  I was explaining to my art quilting group that each block is a project in itself for this quilt.  You don't plan the whole quilt; you plan each block and when you have enough of them made you lay them out in a pleasing arrangement.

 

I have a piece of a Kaffe Fassett green print inserted across the backing of a Jane Sassaman print.

Two of the art quilters brought their finished trip around the world quilt tops.

This is the center of the one above.

The rail of my quilting machine is in the way to see the whole quilt from this angle but this photo showed the African fabrics the best.

Here is the full view.  I thought the students from my 2 classes might like to see some alternate fabric choices.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing or making this quilt pattern.

Class photos......

Today I'll just share the fabric combinations that everyone brought to class yesterday.  I am worn out after this busy week and didn't even finish answering comments yesterday.

My niece's squares before stacking and slashing.....

Here are 3 sets out of 5 after slashing and sewing back together.

I had my camera with me when we laid out all of these blocks and then I forgot to take the picture while we were talking.

This lady dyed all of her fabrics.  She is going to be opening a quilt shop about 10 miles from here in a few months.  This was her first quilt class and about her third quilt. She is an accomplished seamstress as in clothing sewing, something most of us have given up as we got into quilting.

I hope the tilt on this photo doesn't make you seasick.  This one is all batiks.

Another star student who finished her top in class.  She has a border fabric in mind that sounds perfect.

The camera liked the yellows in this quilt but they aren't quite that predominant in person.  This is an example of low contrast vs. the high contrast in the one above.  This pattern works well with most combinations of fabrics.

It has been a busy week and I'm dragging but I hope to work on my colorwash a little today.  I'll try to document the changes I make and show them tomorrow.