Summer Class

My beloved camera journeyed to Egypt with my more-beloved loved one. I felt a bit like one of my eyes was missing. But they are both back now and I'm able to update my activities. In July Phil Beaver taught a class at Quilt Odyssey. I have always thought his quilts were amazing and Hershey is fairly close so off I went.

His quilts are large and he has such a distinctive style. I wondered how that would translate in a two day class. It was a mix of technique, hands-on quilt building and a smidge of art theory lecture. He pays quite a bit of attention to teaching his style of painting fabric and it does produce beautifully colored fabrics. I can also see how one could experiment with different brush strokes and paint application patterns to produce different effects.

He was an art teacher for a some years. That is evident in his class. He is encouraging and generous with his time and attention and he takes the trouble to try to teach some larger design principals. It is also evident that he is inspired by his imagery.
As usual I got more ambitious than I thought I would. The class is geared towards completing four or five blossoms but once I started looking at his samples I got my own ideas for an autumnal scene.

Large pieces that I built in class.


Core design, using four sunflowers in a rough diamond.


Small pumpkin and leaves. I'm particularly pleased with the little pumpkin.


Rabbit and large pumpkin.


All of my pieces are cut out for this quilt. This is what I have left over.


I've nearly completed the quilting for the applique portion of the quilt. The entire project has gone quickly and I'm pretty thrilled with the process. Despite the fact that I love sunflowers, I'd like to experiment with other color pallets using this painting method. The paint stabilizes the fabric just enough to make the raw-edged applique easy to deal with. That allows some pretty detailed shapes to be cut.