Winter/Spring 2025 Workshop Roundup

I’ve been on the road for much of the last four months, traveling and teaching in a variety of places. Travel is one of the best and worst parts of my job!

I love visiting new places and meeting new people, but hauling suitcases around, one of which weighs 50+ lbs. isn’t always the most fun. I’ve streamlined the process where I can so I can manage it though.

In January, Peninsula Quilter’s Guild near San Francisco was my first stop for the year. I gave a lecture on My Journey as an Art Quilter and taught my Fabulous Freehand Curves workshop.

The lecture space this group has is amazing! I was able to hang my quilts from clips on moulding going around the wall so everyone could see them–genius.

 

 

Their workshop space was nice too, with plenty of design wall space for everyone to put their curves up to admire.

Since I was on the West Coast, I took the opportunity to visit my son and daughter-in-law and their adorable Labradoodle Remy in LA before coming back home.

 

In February, I did quite a few Zoom lectures and workshops. I’m grateful that we are still able to get together via Zoom–it works for groups in areas of the country where winter makes travel difficult, or for smaller groups, as well as internationally. I taught Zoom workshops in California, Florida, Canada, and Great Britain in February.

Here’s a photo of my Zoom setup in my home studio. I just bought the desk from a company called WorkFromHomeDesks.com and I’ve been happy with it. It can be taken apart and stored when not in use, but so far I’ve just left it up.  One thing that I really like is the laptop stand that keeps my laptop at the right height and angle. No affiliation–just a pleased customer.

I also teach my own independent Zoom workshops several times a year. The next one coming up is Log Cabin Color Grid in June 2025.

At the end of February I traveled to Phoenix for QuiltCon–always a fun experience! You can read about my trip there in a previous post. 

Since I was already in the western US, I visited family in California and then went up to Washington State to do an informal “Artist in Residence” at a tree farm owned by dear friends of ours. It was a lovely time spent sewing during the day, taking long walks around the property taking inspiration photos, and having dinners with my friends. It was the first time I’ve traveled with my Singer Featherweight and it worked like a charm!

Early March saw me traveling back to California to teach at the 40th anniversary session of Empty Spools Seminars. This was my first time teaching there–what a great venue that is! The event is held at the Asilomar Conference Grounds right on the Pacific Ocean.

I taught a 5 day workshop called Adventures in Improv March 7-12. It was a kind of “choose your own adventure” class and most students chose to work on freehand curves, but some did something different and that was fun too. It was a full class of 25 students and they did great work.

I took walks on the beach morning and night before and after class–lots of wonderful artistic inspiration! Registration just opened for the 2026 session and I’m thrilled to be teaching Abstracting from Art Session 5 from April 29 – May 4, 2026. To get more information, just scroll down the page to see the class descriptions.

Back at home for a couple of weeks, I taught a Free Motion Quilting with Style class at a local quilt shop–The Quilt Studio in Fairfax, VA. Sadly I forgot to take photos there, but I’ll be back teaching Curves and Stripes on June 6, if you’re in the Northern Virginia area.

At the beginning of April I traveled to Pensacola, Florida and Mobile, AL where I gave three lectures and taught three workshops for the Gulf States Quilting Association.

One workshop was my new Artful Improv Medallion class. I’ve taught Artful Improv for a number of years since my first book came out. We learn 5 different Improv techniques that can be put together into an original quilt. This year I decided it would be fun to combine the elements into a medallion style format, which might be more accessible to students just learning Improv. The medallion format gives some structure to the Improv techniques and it’s a lot of fun!

Cindy S. was inspired by the one day class, and went home to finish her medallion quilt.

I also taught Improv Puzzle in Mobile. I only got a few shots of the wonderful work students did in this class.

Nancy used a lovely color palette in solids.

Nina combined her puzzle blocks with curves she made in a previous Zoom class with me.

Next stop was Hudson River Valley Art Workshops for a 4 day Artful Improv class.  Located in Greenville, NY, the venue is charming, the food is delicious, and I got to experience spring for the second time as the daffodils were all blooming!

 

 

I offered the medallion format option again, and some of the students tried that, while others used the techniques to create their own designs. Here are a few photos:

Sue chose to use the elements to make her own statement.

Karen used an inspiration photo of a peony to create her palette in a medallion format.

Lorrie also used the medallion style with different elements.

And Kristina put her units together organically with very few straight lines!

I’m excited about this class, because it gives students a lot of freedom to choose how to put their units and elements together–a more structured approach to Improv for those that want that, but still offering the original puzzle style for those whose creativity works better that way. It’s one of the things I love about teaching Improv–I can give students the same information about color, design and techniques, and then each one interprets them in their own way, so the quilts from each class turn out different from each other and different from my work as well. Everyone wins!

Thanks for reading to the end. I’m off tomorrow to teach at the Four Corners Quilt Gathering in Durango, CO!