North Carolina Quilt Symposium Part 2

On to the rest of my Quilt Symposium weekend!  Actually, I did not attend on Saturday.  We are going away on vacation next weekend, and The Hubs and I had to do some yard work before we go.  He got the hedge trimmers and cut back the overgrown branches from our shrub borders, and I hauled them off to the woods.  Good to get that done.

On Sunday, I had a three-hour class with Frieda Anderson.  Her work is well-known, as she has written two books and designed many art quilt patterns.  She dyes fabrics in gorgeous jewel tones, and most of her work is in a bright, tropical palette in gradations of color.

So, I arrived early on Sunday morning, and there were literally heaps of these colorful strips of dyed fabric on a table in the front, as well as dozens of Frieda's colorful quilt samples on the walls and windowsills.  What a delight for the eyes!

Frieda had lost her voice after teaching classes and then presenting a group lecture at Symposium.  In order to simplify the instructions, she had us all work from the same pattern.  We each got a copy of Sister Trees, and also three of the glorious hand-dyed fabric strips of our choice!

She had made up this quilt in two colorways:  the bright pastels above, and a more muted palette with brown hills, blue sky, and chartreuse trees.  I decided to make mine with blue sky, green hills, and purple tree trunks.  I have not decided what color to use for the leaves.  Orange, perhaps?

I have not finished constructing the hills yet.  We used pinking blades on the rotary cutter to make "furrows" for the hills.   I haven't made any leaves yet.

You might be able to tell from the above photo that I had a little trouble constructing the sky.  I had to add some bits and pieces here and there.  These sky strips are made of fabric fused with Wonder Under.  You trace the pattern onto the release paper of the Wonder Under, and then burnish it with a credit card on to the fused side of the fabric.  Pretty cool trick.  For the  darker fabrics, you trace the pattern onto the release paper with a black Sharpie pen, and then iron the design onto the fused side of the fabric.

One problem with taking a class on fusing is that there have to be irons available for constant use.  Throughout Symposium, fuses were blowing and circuits were breaking from all the irons.  We could only have two in the room and two in the hall.  We blew the two in the hall right away, so we took an empty classroom hostage and set up some ironing stations in there.  Quilters are good at sharing, fortunately!

I did not get my elements all constructed and fused, but I understand this method very well.  I do intend to finish one day!

Frieda shared several ways to add interesting stripes and textures to her quilts, and also to bind and finish her small art quilts.

They don't call it The Chicago School of Fusing for nothing!  Even the bindings are fused on!  Frieda is also making fabric-covered Peltex backings and either Velcro-ing or stitching the bound art quilt to them.

After class, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my fellow classmates from the online Pamela Allen classes!  Katherine McNeese is a physician from Williamston, North Carolina.  How nice to put a name to a face after several years of connecting by e-mail!  We arranged to meet for lunch, then picked up our quilts together from the quilt show.  Katherine is the creator of the beautiful Daffodil O'Keefe studio art quilt in bright yellow and green.  Sure wish I had my camera so I could have taken some pictures at the show!

Finally, a report on the Apron Silent Auction:  every apron was sold, and we raised approximately $2,000 for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle!  This was a very fun charity fund-raiser.  Kudos to my Anything Art bee pal Roberta Morgan for spearheading this effort, as well as the whole Wearable Garments and Accessories division of the quilt show!