Monday, April 20, 2009

Symposium classes

Now I have recovered from a full-on week at Symposium (well, not fully recovered - I still have some things to unpack from my bag - at least all the washing is now up to date) I thought I would show you the results of the two classes I did. The first is the 2 day Layer By Layer Landscape class with Gloria Loughman. Instead of doing one of the patterns she provided I decided to draw up my own design based on what I could see out of the window of the cricket pavilion at Wellington Girls College. With windows all along the front it was an excellent place to sew. I took the class because I thought I would be doing a more abstract landscape, like Gloria's class samples. I am no artist so it was with some surprise I found myself sketching out an 'original' design!
I didn't get as far as other students and there is still quite a bit of work to do to get it finished. There are 5 sections to this small quilt and I pinned them together so I could hang it up for the other students to see. The big blank space in front of the 3 town houses need some greenery and there is still a tree to put in and the Mt Victoria tower to add in the sky line piece. Gloria is an excellent teacher and I enjoyed the fact that there were a variety of techniques we could use to put in a 'layer'. The houses look like they are on a bit of a lean - windy Wellington :-) Actually the weather was great for the whole week, only one slightly yukky day.

The second class I did was also 2 days, with Dena Crain, called 'Darned Quilts'. The technique involved curve-piecing a graduated background, adding embellishments and then cutting shapes (circles were the easiest to start with) out and swapping them around and re-stitching them back in. Very interesting and a great way to try out all those fancy stitches on the machine that I normally never use.
I think I'll call this one 'Sunrise, Sunset'. It just needs basting up, quilting and binding. It will measure about 53 cm wide by 74 cm high (21" by 29"). I wonder if I can finish this one before the end of the holidays?

6 comments:

Ali Honey said...

That sounds great. Both your class pieces look promising. I like the 2nd one best, being freer and more abstract. Lucky you having those great teachers.

Shirley Goodwin said...

Great work, Helen!

meggie said...

What a great experience. How exciting your pieces look.
Well done.

Helen said...

I love the circles...that's fantastic, and the Wgtn view is pretty cool too. they both deserve to be finished pieces. Hooray!

Unknown said...

Hey how are you Helen. No posts for a month. I bet you're looking forward to the school holidays. I hope you are well.

Sunshine said...

My goodness, your work is way up there, really neat, and so different from all the other quilting blogs I follow. You'll add quite a bit of variety to my blog roll!

Cheers,
Christine :)