QuiltCon Class with Bill Kerr

On the third day were in Austin, I was able to take a 3 hour class with Bill Kerr. Not only does Bill design with his wife Weeks Ringle at Modern Quilt Studio, but he also teaches Graphic Design and is Chairman of the Art Department at Dominican University.  The class I had the opportunity to take was The Role of Color in Your Quilts.

Bill talked a lot about the saturation of color, much as Weeks had. Desaturation can be moving light or darker than the most intense version of a hue.  Think about Red and Yellow. Saturated red is much darker than saturated yellow. Actually what is the darkest form of Yellow? It's brown!

As soon as you put boundaries on your art you limit yourself

Interesting concept isn't it? It aligns with Weeks' comment the day before: Rather than choosing the first fabric then selecting from your stash, consider everything as an option, then edit out what doesn't work. It gives so many more fabrics the opportunity to be selected. There could be hidden gems in your stash you didn't think would work.

The first exercise we did in class was based on a painting by an old master. Bill passed out copies of the paintings to everyone in the class. Here's the one I got stuck with  was given, it's "Icebergs and Wreck in Sunset" by Frederic Edwin Church:

OMG was my initial thought. I really don't like to use pastels in my work; especially the dreaded m-a-u-v-e. (So glad I'm not opinionated.) Bill even told me he chose that painting for me because I was wearing an emerald green sweater and he thought it would be a good excersie for me.

Okay, let me step off the mauve soapbox so I can tell you what we had to do. First we were given a color wheel and had to place dots on the wheel that indicated the saturation of color we saw in the painting.  Then we wrote down percentages of those colors that we saw in our painting.

Next we were to select fabric from our stash that represented the colors we saw. We weren't to try to recreate the painting, but trim the fabric to different sizes to reflect the proportion of the colors found in the painting. Here's my end result:

(For the record, I want to say that the pinky-mauvey color you see above was a piece of fabric I was given when my number was chosen in a raffle at a guild meeting...and I've used it to applique flower petals...the color looked great...Gasp! Perhaps I've been a little hard on pinky-mauvey. Maybe it does have its place.)

After about 20 minutes, we all shared our interpretation of the color with the rest of the class.

We talked about each painting and the fabric swatches. It was interesting to see how certain hues were used to evoke a particular message or feeling. I think that by using the peaches and pinks in the sky, Church was able to evoke more of a feeling of anguish for the ship wreck than if the sky had been steel blue or dove grey. After all, pale pink is the lightest saturation of blood red.

It was a great exercise. Another one Bill mentioned was to hand out photos of paintings and ask everyone in your guild to sew a log cabin block with colors that mimic the painting. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

QuiltCon Class with Weeks Ringle

I took two classes at QuiltCon. The first one was Rediscovering Your Stash with Weeks Ringle. On Pat Sloan's podcast I had heard them talk about Weeks' magic when she works with hard to match fabrics in someone's stash  so I knew it would be an interesting class.

At the beginning of the session, we talked about color and its importance. Rather than thinking in terms of light/medium/dark fabric, Weeks encouraged us to realize the importance of contrast. When deciding on a background fabric, the hue shouldn't be found in any of the other fabrics selected for the quilt top. The same value in a different saturation makes the fabrics pop. Also, when determining what fabrics go together, think in terms on commonality i.e., not matching.

Here's a photo of a quilt that will be in the next issue of Modern Quilts Illustrated. You can see each of the colors very vividly.

And here's a close up of another quilt using Liberty of London fabrics. Weeks says every quilt needs contrast. As you can see, the drab makes the bright triangles pop with the contrast.

After we talked about color, we each selected one fabric from our stash that either we really didn't like or we didn't know what to do with it. We put them on a table and Weeks teamed us up with the owner of another fabric on the table.My fabric is the bold huge print on the right - I love it but I'm not sure how to use it. My partner had the alligator print (okay, maybe it's really a crocodile - I'm not sure!).

At this point, we were to use our stash and select 8-10 fabrics that would allow the huge print and the alligators to be used in a single quilt top. Weeks taught us to consider everything in our stash as an option, then whittle it down. How to do that?  Look for commonalities - not matchy matchy. We chose the roundness of the berries and the long curved line of the stems and alligators' tails.

It's a very interesting process that certainly has taught me to look at fabric differently. For more information on the exercise, check out issue 7 of Modern Quilts Illustrated. It makes for a fascinating read!

QuiltCon was Great!

After months and months (and months) of planning, QuiltCon has come and gone. A fine time was had by all. We made it out of dodge right before the 'snowapalooza' hit Columbus and out of Austin before the temperature dropped. The Quilting Goddess was definitely smiling on the modern quilting community.

As soon as we got downtown, we headed for the registration desk. Much to my surprise, I spent enough to get the goody bag. And what a goody bag it was! Not only did I get the tote bag but fabric, books, patterns, magazines, thread, discounts at certain booths, and notions. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! First thing I thought when I saw it was 'how am I going to get all of this home?!' My suitcase was already bursting at the seams with everything I took for my classes.(But trust me...I wasn't complaining!)

We enjoyed the show much more this year than two years ago. There was more variety and more quasi-art quilts which both Kathy and I love. MQG doesn't have any photos out on the web site yet, but hopefully they will soon.You can check out #quiltcon on Instagram to see some of the entries.

As soon as Kathy and I got into the show area, there was a Kona booth with a fabric challenge. They had boards with swatches of Kona solids. Each participant was given a bag with names of the colors and you had to attach the name of the color to the right swatch. Then you got your "Kona IQ". There were about 25-30 colors on the board. I got 6 right. What can I say. Kathy on the other had got 16 right, I think. She's an over achiever.

Of course no one can go home a loser, so regardless of your IQ, you got to spin a wheel and it told what prize you won. I got a fat quarter. Kathy got a Kona totebag with some of their color swatches on the front. Very cute.

There were definitely more vendors at the show this year. We got to meet Alyssa from PileO'Fabric and Susan K. Cleveland was there (are you a "Piping Hottie"?...I am). Quite a few people had book signings. I wore my Fit Bit every day and I can tell you we walked over 12,000 steps that Thursday!

At dinner Thursday night we met Linda from Martha's Vineyard MQG. Needless to say with the weather as it has been in New England, Linda was very happy she made it! We were able to talk about our guilds, share some interesting ideas, and talk about why we like the modern aesthetic. This is why attending events like this can be so valuable; making contacts and sharing ideas.Kathy and I ran into Linda several times over the next few days and I'm sure we'll stay in touch with our new friend.(Linda, if you're reading this,thanks for telling us about the Albers Color app. I spent half of my morning today pouring over it. Thanks!)

Friday I had a class with Weeks Ringle and on Saturday with Bill Kerr and attended a lecture given by Victoria Findlay Wolfe. See that's another thing about QuiltCon...you can take classes with the people you follow on the internet, books and magazine articles.  Kathy had a class with Carolyn Friedlander and the two of them talked about a project of Kathy's. I don't know another event where you can get personal time with such a wide variety of  great names in the business.

Last but certainly not least I have to say we attended the key note speaker's event which was Gee's Bend. Four women from Gee's Bend talked about how they grew up and learned to quilt. They sang gospel  for the audience and answered a multitude of questions. Afterward we decided to treat ourselves to dessert and a glass of wine before packing for our 6:30 AM flight. (Since we walked so much over the four days, we certainly deserved it!) As we were getting ready to leave Kathy realized her purse was gone; she had left it at the convention center where we listened to the Gee's Bend presentation. After talking to a security guard and staff from QuiltCon, Kathy's purse was found...someone had turned it in. Once again the Quilting Goddess was shining down on us keeping any eye out for two modern quilters.