Bragging Rights

 I taught a workshop for the Asheville Quilt Guild a couple of weeks back. It's one of my favorite workshops; it involves working with layers - a top layer of sheer organza and bottom layer of cotton also silk screens, paint, appliques etc.  The best part for me is working with students while they design their pieces, sometimes a little hesitant working outside of their comfort zone but always with the best results.

This wonderful piece was created by Meredith Brooks and titled "Sunshine on the Forest Floor". She wanted to create a look that suggested leaves scattered in the forest, some leaves more prominent and some hidden.  Using the sheer layer helps to achieve that effect with leaves on top and underneath the sheer. I think she did a wonderful job and I love her piece.

Marene Parsons created this next piece, equally as wonderful and very different.  She calls it "Golden Woodlands".  There is a really nice balance between the elements she used on top (mushrooms, acorns and some ferns) and the big tree and pine boughs underneath. Marene used some of her couching skills to create a forest floor with couching threads - a nice touch and a lovely piece. 

This next piece is from Mona who took my workshop in Charlottesville, VA last fall.  It's called Misty Morning. She uses some beautiful colors in her background and very lively colors on top of the organza. She finished her piece early on and sent me a picture. I waited to group it with other works from this workshop.  In the workshop we did with Mona's guild, we painted the organza but also added another step of sprinkling salt on top.  Salt draws the liquid towards itself to create movement lines - a great effect. But it does add another step as you have to heat set, rinse off the salt and let dry again. I was helping a lot of students with the process, brushing off salt, heat setting but for whatever reason overlooked rinsing this particular piece.  Mona emailed me to say there were droplets of water on top of her finished piece...wow...where did that come from...and finally realized it was the residue of salt - very undetectable, that created the moisture. A good hint to pass on, if working with salt, to make sure and rinse.
   As I mentioned before, this is at the top of my list of favorite workshops to teach: I'll be teaching this at the NC Symposium in May and the Quilt Symposium of Alabama in June. Check out my blog for my schedule..