Portraits 101 Class at Wisconsin Quilt Expo

I am teaching a 3 hour Make and Take on my Intro to Portrait Quilts using my "Angelina" Pattern at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison WI on Sept. 7th from 1-4pm. The top photo is the original quilt that is on the cover of the pattern and on display at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette WI where I work.This class is a no sew class which means that the planning, cutting and fusing steps will take place and the students will finish at home. I mentioned that there is a pattern for the bob hairstyle plus a short spiky and a long wavy hairstyle option. So I used scraps, two skin tones, a brunette and a white haired example for the class samples for visualization. I added a few embellishments to the new quilts but not as much as the original. The idea was to help people who think they can not make a portrait quilt do so. I have designed the pattern to be simple with only three pieces for the face and neck, one piece for the hair and small pieces for the eyes, mouth and brows. The rest is drawn in using Pigma pens or Sharpies. The additional details come from the quilting and embellishing. I see this similar to the American Girl Dolls where you can customize to look like someone in particular or just have random fun!!I am humbled by the fact that there is already 18 people signed up for my class!!

This photo are the samples for the short spiky and the long wavy hairstyles. I used a busy border fabric in one piece and a calmer fabric in the other one to show variation. Also a dark inner border and a light inner border-see the difference? I like the dark border better because it sets off the portrait better.

The finished size is 18" x 18-" let me know if you are interested in a pattern because I can mail one or more to you. The pattern is $8.00 plus $2.00 shipping.

The website for the quilt expo which runs Sept. 6-8, 2012 is www.wiquiltexpo.com
 

Zendoodle

This is my latest quilt which was inspired by the black and white fabric challenge from my local quilt group, the outside border fabric named Fabric Doodle, Pinterest images and the drawing technique Zentangles. I fell in love with the fabric because I love flowers and circles but also noticed the black and white striped circle which went with the black/white fabric swap. I am intrigued with the drawing technique Zentangles, and have a few books on the subject, so I drew up a Zentangle style drawing and the idea was born. I fussy cut some flower images and made my own repeating the flower shapes from the border fabric. This fabric is from Andover Fabrics and is called Fabric Doodle. I am not fond of the entire line of fabrics but love this particular fabric. I added only one other color, the green eyes, to the quilt. I combined as many prints from the swap and added some of my own to have enough contrast to be pleasing to the eye. There was plenty of positive and negative space in this quilt. I used an awesome large scale white fabric with simple large black flowers as the face fabric. I quilted the face fabric with one flower defined on the left cheekbone. I quilted around the circle flowers in the borders and added black buttons in the border to add texture as well as secure the fabric because I didn't want to quilt a lot in the borders. I thought the quilt didn't need much embellishing because it was very visually graphic on its own. I added a bit of green paint on the irises of the eyes and some black glitter for the subtle tongue in the mouth. I combined Zen from Zentangles and Doodle from the fabric line to get Zendoodle for this quilt's name.

The second photo is a close up of the face and the flower detail. I love polka dots and stripes and made sure I included them in this quilt! I liked the checkerboard and zebra fabrics as well. The quilt is 39"w x 45"l and I used a 8" border to show enough of the border fabric. I will enter this quilt is upcoming quilt shows.

UW Platteville Sewing and Quilting Expo

I had the blessing of teaching at the UW Platteville Sewing and Quilting Expo on August 3-4 on the university campus. I taught "Color is Our Friend," "Elements and Principles of Design for Quilter" and "Embellishing 101." The organizer of the expo is Tisha Sandberg (she is the woman on the left on the second photo) and she is beyond fun, artsy and pulled off a great expo while having the responsiblities placed on her half way through the process. I  selected two quilts that I could spare from my teaching demos and picked my "Woman With Red Lipstick" quilt and was thrilled to see it on the gallery poster!!

This photo is Tisha and the woman who painted  quilt blocks on wood. There was a gallery reception on Thursday evening August 2nd and I was able to meet the artists/presenters at the expo. It  was a very nice time and beautiful quilts!

This was my other quilt in the exhibit called "Hera and Aphrodite"

I was able to visit the local quilt shop called Hidden Quilts and they have shop colors-lime green and orange which pleased me since color is my thing and lime green is one of my favs!! The owner had a very unusal coiffed hairstyle which was eyecatching and unique. She knew to carve a niche and customers will remember you!