A few weeks ago I attended a class with Sherri Lynn Wood. You might have heard of her - she's written a book called:
The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters (shown on the flyer on my cutting mat below).
Sherri was in New Zealand for Symposium, but had agreed to stay on and teach a few classes for one of the local guilds.
The class I attended was called Patchwork Doodle. Sherri explained lots of techniques for using up scraps, and then left us to each work out what we could do with the fabrics we had bought along. The big challenge for me was that there were no rulers allowed!!
All the cutting was done freehand, which was a bit scary at first, but I soon got into it.
Sherri was clearly more used to working in solids, and was probably horrified at us putting pattern with pattern, but hey, if we're going to go improv we may as well go all out.
I tested my piece against some different fabrics when I got home, but I don't see this getting finished anytime soon. I've tried, but I don't really think freehand improv is my thing.
There are just so many other things that I enjoy doing more at the moment.
I chose to attend this class because it was close to my house, and Sherri may never come back to New Zealand to teach again. My motto is - seize the opportunity while you can. You don't know what you might learn until you take part.
I have to agree with your motto. How else would we know if we didn't give something a try. I find that I like to have things cut with a ruler in very straight lines. I can and do work with curves but even those are pretty symmetrical. Perhaps this is the years of doing accounting and budgeting work. I can't say that working in all solids is something I enjoy either. But I do appreciate the quilts others are able to create using improv and solids.
ReplyDeleteTotally understand Wendy. Don't think its my thing either, but I wanted to try her wedges class. All good fun!
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