Friday, October 1, 2010

Tutorial turns into class

I’ve never made money with my art. I’ve had a few commissions for art quilts, done a store display quilt and sold some baby quilts. Mostly I just spend time in my studio because I enjoy it, and give the resulting projects to my friends and family. I recently stopped in the Sewing Garret a quilt shop near my home. I wanted to buy some Kona cottons to do bleach discharge. The salesperson asked me what I was going to do with the fabrics I was buying and I told her about my project. She was interested, and asked me to bring samples. After seeing the samples, she put me on the calendar to teach a class on coaster construction and surface design in November. It will be fun!

We’ll do some sewing with scraps and decorative machine stitches, we’ll learn two easy methods of coaster construction, and we’ll do some discharge dyeing with bleach pens. I’ll have lots of ideas on how to translate these techniques to other projects.

coaster samplers

1—couched threads

2—bleach discharged on black fabric quilted with metallic thread

3—bleach discharged fabric thread painted with multiple threads

4—scraps and decorative stitches

5—scrappy background with fused and stitched elements

6—scrappy background diagonal format

7—bleach discharged fabric quilted with fluorescent thread

8—bleach discharged fabric with machine and hand stitching

9—easiest of all, simple fabric coaster

3 comments:

  1. What fun... your students will find this fascinating. A simple idea, but the results look so complex.

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  2. Nice samples there, that class should be very enjoyable. I like to give away my work too but if you can earn a bit of money by teaching a class, that will be a good way to help fund your art habit.

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  3. Way to go, Susan! I can't remember if I emailed you or not that I liked the coasters you posted earlier. But I did. Reminded me of when we went to that gal's house in Illinois and did some discharging. Remember, my new car died! Anyway, you'll be a great teacher and it should be lots of fun for your students.

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