Photo To Landscape Class

On Saturday, April 19, I taught my first quilting class! I did this for the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters, Inc, the guild to which I belong.

Though I love doing landscape quilts, I was a bit nervous about teaching my techniques to others. My friend, Alta Dekema (who also took the class), was the chairman for our guild's Saturday workshops and she talked me into teaching a class. Boy was she good at begging!

Below are some pictures from the class, starting with the full class at work on their quilts. The class included Pat Shaw, Vickie Smith, Ellen Colston, Cathy Warner, Linda Mosher, Gina Irelan, Jackie Skarritt, Roberta Annsla, Alta Dekema and Sally Amador

Below are the students' works in progress.

In the morning's session we worked on the above landscapes. After lunch we worked on free motion embroidery(FME), using tulle between two layers of Sulvy water soluble stabilizer, to produce free standing appliques. The appliques will be added to the finished landscapes. I was inspired by the different looks the students produced, especially since they were all working from the photo I provided. Only one student brought in her own photo (from a book on Matisse-the piece with the bridge) to work from.

I did learn a couple of things teaching this class. It should actually be a two day class, with the first day doing the landscape and the second day working on the free motion embroidery. Everyone was having so much fun doing the landscape, we ended up breaking late for lunch, which made us late starting the FME portion of the class. Luckily, everyone was able to nearly complete their applique in the class.

I'm hoping the students will bring their finished pieces to the next guild meeting for show and tell, so I can see what else they did. All in all, this is a class I would teach again, and may decide to pitch it to several different quilt stores in the area.