Whirlwind October Recap

I’m back from my whirlwind trips in October and resting for a few days before I go to Gainesville, Florida next week for the Downtown Art Festival.

I spent the first week of the month at home, then flew to LA to lecture and teach at the Westside Quilters Guild. You can see my post about that here.

After a couple of days at home after that trip, I flew to Rochester, NY for a visit to the Genessee Valley Quilt Club. I’d never been to Rochester before, and it was just beautiful in the fall!

I gave a lecture on the “Anatomy of an Improv Quilt” and people seemed to enjoy it. This one is about using improvisational techniques to make original art quilts.

And I taught two classes there–Improv Puzzles and Retro Curves.

 

My students did a great job of choosing colors and combining solids and prints together.

The members of the group were so generous with their time taking me around to show me the sights of a city I’d never been to. The opportunity to see new places and be informed about it by people who live there–that’s one of the things about my job that I really enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Rochester, I flew to Houston for the International Quilt Festival, where I had two quilts in the show, taught five classes, gave a lecture, and several shorter presentations. It was a busy week!

This post will focus on my classes, and I’ll write another one about the show itself.

My Fire and Ice Bargello class is always popular. I had a full class of 25 students, and they did a wonderful job! It’s always fun to see how different the quilts look even with the same instructions.

Next up was an Angled Stripe Table Runner, Improv Log Cabin, and Improv Color Blocks. The Log Cabin class was a half day class and there was a fire alarm midway through, so they weren’t able to get as much done as they would have liked. I hope I’ll be able to teach it as a longer class next time.

 

In these sewing classes, students were encouraged to bring colors that they liked together and use my techniques to create something that became their own design. I think they did good work!

I really enjoyed teaching a new class–Cracking the Art Show Circuit–about my tips and tricks learned over ten years showing and selling my work at fine art and craft fairs, but it was a PowerPoint presentation and I didn’t get any pictures.

My “Playing with Colors” lecture was well attended–I enjoy sharing tips about how to use color more effectively in your quilts. It’s a PowerPoint presentation with quilts and thankfully the A/V worked just fine!

Finally I participated in the Friday Sampler. Think speed dating, but with quilts! I gave a 10 minute presentation on creating Improv Log Cabin blocks about eight different times over two hours as participants rotated among the different teachers. It’s a lot of fun, but my voice started to give out about halfway through and I was grateful to one of my listeners who gave me a cough drop that helped.

This has been a long post–thank you for reading all the way through. I love to travel and teach–it’s incredibly energizing to be able to share my work and my story with other quilters. If you are interested in having me visit your guild, my available lectures and workshops are on the website here and my 2020 schedule is up here.