Classes
Wholecloth Painting
Class full
5001-SB-FRI-1.00 Susan Brubaker-Knapp
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00 + Tutors Kit $10.00
Students will learn the basics of creating wholecloth painted quilts based on photos. Students can choose from the four projects shown, and will work from line drawings and my photos to recreate the image using acrylic textile paints. No Sewing Machine required.
We will cover:
• selecting the right photos for great results
• which paints and fabrics to use and why
• how to transfer your design to fabric
• painting and blending techniques
• quilting considerations
Needs List
Thread Sketching
Class full
5002-SB-SAT-1 Susan Brubaker-Knapp
Intermediate | 1 day | $175.00
A workshop for those who already have basic machine quilting experience who want to expand their skills to create colour and texture with thread. Using a line drawing of a dragonfly.
Students learn how to:
• make templates for the body and create fusible pieces
• stabilize the fabric surface
• choose the right threads and needles for threadsketching
• adjust tension for the correct stitch
Needs List
Surface Design Madness
Class full
5003-SB-SUN-1 Susan Brubaker-Knapp
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00 + Tutors Kit $20.00
Come and experiment with some of the exciting new materialsyou can use in (or on) your quilts to create texture and colour. This is a fun, low stress way to try some new things. The only thing you need to bring is a quarter yard of white fabric, a quarter yard of black fabric, and a creative spirit! No sewing Machine required.
We will work with:
• fabric paint
• Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Artists' Crayons
• Jacquard textile medium
• Shiva paint sticks and rubbing plates
• rubber stamps & stencils
• Angelina & Textiva fibers
• Tyvek
• Wonder Under (used as a paint transfer material)
Needs List
Start with a Photo
5004-SB-MON-1 Susan Brubaker-Knapp
Intermediate | 1 day | $175.00
This workshop is designed to help you learn the skills you need to go home, take your favourite photo, and interpret it in fabric using fusible appliqué. In the workshop, we will all be working on the same photo, a close-up shot I took of a wonderful round barn at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.
You’ll learn how to:
• make a positioning overlay from clear upholstery vinyl
• cut out your fabric pieces and fuse them
• use thread to “sketch” on top of your fabric to add detail,
• Colour and texture.
Needs List
Needle turn Applique
Class full
5005-SB-TUE-1 Susan Brubaker-Knapp
Beginner/Intermediate | 1 day | $175.00
Learn the fine art of needleturn applique step by step. If you’ve never done needleturn applique and are intimidated and afraid to try, this workshop is for you. Using my “Spring Valentine” pattern, which has all the shapes and techniques beginner appliquers need to learn, we will cover:
• marking and pinning
• reverse applique
• convex curves and points
• small and medium circles
• bias stems
• making a positioning overlay
• straight lines
Needs List
Serendipitous Sea Turtle
5011-SC-FRI-3 Susan Carlson
All Levels | 3 days | $525.00
Working with Susan’s sea turtle design, she takes you through her Cutting Loose Collage process step-by-step, from fabric selection through quilting and binding. This is a template-free class, encouraging playfulness, serendipity, and a willingness to cut loose.
Susan shares her tips to create your own fabric collaged creature, be it realistically colored or fun and fanciful. The sea turtle design will be available for use in different sizes or students may choose to draw their own version.
Needs List
What Goes Around Comes Around
5012-SC-MON-2 Susan Carlson
All Levels | 2 days | $350.00
Learn Susan’s fabric collage method using a simple yet dynamic spiral as your subject. This abstract project will give you a complete overview of this fun and forgiving technique, which can later be applied for more complex subjects.
Emphasis is placed on learning how to combine small pieces of a variety of fabrics to create smooth transitions between colors, highlights, and shadows. Skills covered include: piecing, gluing, quilting, and finishing.
Needs List
Piping Hot Binding
Class full
5021-SKC-FRI-1 Susan Cleveland
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Piped bindings add spark and a professional finish to any style piece. Every detail of binding and tiny, perfect piping will be covered in class with step-by-step demos and printed instructions.
Machine differences will be addressed so students will be successful with their own machines. Students work on their practice piece to achieve making perfect piping, preparing the quilt, applying binding, mitering corners, joining tails, and finishing for a show-quality back. Variations will be on display and discussed. Many major award winners are using this technique to achieve stunning results!
Needs List
Piping Hot Curves Macaroni
Class full
5022-SKC-SAT-1 Susan Cleveland
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Accent curves with piping! This technique is wonderful for traditional curved patterns and great for contemporary designs.
In class, students will learn to make perfect piping and add that piping to curves such as Susan’s macaroni block or traditional drunkard’s path blocks. Piping adds pizzazz! Quilting and finishing will be discussed.
29”x29” (9 blocks) or 63”x49” (48 blocks), 6” blocks
Needs List
Marvelous Mitres
Class full
5023-SC-SUN-1.00 Susan Cleveland
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Why fear the Y-seam? Choose a wonderful print to “frame” and learn a marvelous technique for mitering sashing and borders while making a few blocks in class. Your fabric will be cut to showcase its motif and frame size will be your choice. You may also decide how many different frame fabrics to use. Individual help will be given to everyone who would like the advice. Accuracy will be taught and emphasized. Several variations will be discussed so you’ll have skills to design your own frames, sashing and borders with perfect miters!
Needs List
Prairie Point Pillow
5024-SKC-MON-1 Susan Cleveland
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Learn to use heavy decorative thread through the needle to embellish prairie points, then make perfect prairie points, and use a variation of foundation piecing to accurately piece many prairie points into a 14” pillow.
Piping and ric-rac finishing techniques included for a fabulous finish!
Needs List
Attic Windows
Class full
5025-SKC-TUE-1 Susan Cleveland
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Showcase a fabulous feature fabric in this variation of attic windows! Susan’s mitering technique and built-in sashing will make the block much easier than traditional piecing, will produce beautiful results, and will take any fear out of mitered corners.
This technique may then be applied to any project involving mitered corners or borders. Quilting and finishing will be discussed.
Needs List
Structured Fabrics
Class full
5041-DC-FRI-1 Dena Crain
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Students learn how to rotary cut freehand and how to weave a check onto a fusible interfacing foundation as they build multicolored and highly 3-dimensional fabric constructions. They use part of the check as a base for multiple layers of strips, added sequentially to produce a plaid. They will learn how to make a coordinated stripe by any of several different methods.
Students then combine their Structured Fabrics with other materials to produce a finished original art quilt top, each a unique study in color, value, texture and composition, with tips for quilting discussed. Class is not a project class and no patterns will be provided. Students will not make the quilt pictured, but will learn design fundamentals for good composition. Surprising things happen in this workshop as each student moves in a different direction, with lots of “Aha!” moments and fun for everyone! (Structured Fabrics are also suitable for wearable’s.)
Needs List
Fuss-Free and Seamless Bindings
Class full
5042-DC-SAT-1/2-morning Dena Crain
All Levels | 0 day | $87.50
Tired of tedious hand sewing to secure your quilt bindings? Want a quicker, easier, simpler way to bind your quilts that saves time, labour and fabric? Want to get rid of ugly joining seams in your bindings? This workshop will teach you two ways to achieve all these goals and make all your quilts look professionally bound. Learn how to plan, cut, sew, mitre corners and close your bindings entirely by machine in a fraction of the time you may now be spending. For Fuss-Free Binding, you will cut, join and apply your binding and discover a neat way to close the binding ends before sewing the binding down on the other side of the quilt. Seamless Binding relies on many of the same methods, but it eliminates obvious joins in binding strips, placing those joins into the seams of the mitred corners. Both methods are virtually fool proof ways, once you learn how, to apply all your quilt bindings efficiently and beautifully. Extra bonus: Perfect Piping!
Needs List
Fuss-Free and Seamless Bindings
Class full
5043-DC-SAT-1/2-afternoon Dena Crain
All Levels | 0 day | $87.50
Tired of tedious hand sewing to secure your quilt bindings? Want a quicker, easier, simpler way to bind your quilts that saves time, labour and fabric? Want to get rid of ugly joining seams in your bindings? This workshop will teach you two ways to achieve all these goals and make all your quilts look professionally bound. Learn how to plan, cut, sew, mitre corners and close your bindings entirely by machine in a fraction of the time you may now be spending. For Fuss-Free Binding, you will cut, join and apply your binding and discover a neat way to close the binding ends before sewing the binding down on the other side of the quilt. Seamless Binding relies on many of the same methods, but it eliminates obvious joins in binding strips, placing those joins into the seams of the mitred corners. Both methods are virtually fool proof ways, once you learn how, to apply all your quilt bindings efficiently and beautifully. Extra bonus: Perfect Piping!
Needs List
Designer Pinwheels
5044-DC-SUN-1 Dena Crain
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Fourfold rotation of a tessellated right triangle: sounds challenging, and it is! Students receive careful instruction and guidance as they begin sketching and developing their own designs until they achieve an image they like. They can draw with straight or curved lines, or a combination of the two. The final sketch becomes a pattern to be traced onto fusible interfacing. Students learn new construction methods for turning a sketch into a finished quilt top. Demonstrations of piecing techniques, a little practice, and students make lovely original design quilt tops about 30” square, ready for further enhancement and completion as quilts. Class is not a project class and no patterns will be provided. Students will not make the quilt pictured, but will learn design fundamentals and the use of symmetry as a design tool for making their own quilt designs and patterns.
Needs List
Goodbye to the Grid
Class full
5045-DC-MON-1 Dena Crain
Intermediate/Advanced | 1 day | $175.00
Are you convinced you cannot draw and make art quilts? Becoming an art quilter is easier than you think! Learn how to use simple abstract sketching techniques to make remarkable one-of-a-kind art quilts. Refine your initial rough sketches into thoughtful and understandable compositions, each with a strong focal point. Explore the potential for interpreting any sketch you can draw as a finished quilt top. Discover your personal artistic style, and find a means of expressing it that leads to new ways of thinking about design. With equal emphasis on construction, this workshop encourages you to resolve design and sewing challenges as you gain artistic insights and experience. This challenging class stretches your creative abilities at the same time that it expands your horizons and builds your self-confidence – a “must” for any budding or serious art quilter.
Needs List
Design Lines
Class full
5046-DC-TUE-1 Dena Crain
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
Stack, slice, mix and reassemble layers of fabric, adding three different and contrasting linear elements--1/2”, 1/4” and 1/8” narrow--as you create an abstract art quilt without a pattern. Assemble the sections of the quilt by intuitive tessellation as you fit pre-constructed sections together. Add a coordinated color panel to create an automatic focal point, to be enhanced with augmentation using contrasting colors, a touch of hand painting, found objects and/or hand or machine thread work to personalize your design. Students are encouraged to draw on their repertoire of embellishment skills as they explore the possibilities their designs offer. We will consider other patchwork methods where these techniques might be used. An additional quick quilting technique, bonus mini-quilt ideas and methods are introduced near the end of class.
Needs List
Create Flower from own Photo
Class full
5051-LC-FRI-2 Lenore Crawford
All Levels | 2 days | $350.00 + Tutors Kit $12.50
In this workshop students will learn how to make their own pattern from a photo and create a fused detailed flower. We will work from an 11” X 17” photo or Lenore’s making a freezer paper pattern and then using Lenore’s simple fusing technique design your flower from your own fabrics. She will show you how to choose your fabrics, add detail to your flower using your photo as a reference and fabric paint, and finish your art quilt with her simple binding technique.
Needs List
Fusing & Fabric Painting create realistic fabr
Class full
5052-LC-SUN-2 Lenore Crawford
All Levels | 2 days | $350.00 + Tutors Kit $18.50
In this workshop the designing of a small fused project will begin. We will work from one of Lenore’s patterns that are shown on the Patterns page of this website. It will be outlined on freezer paper and then transferred to muslin or a background on which the fabric design will be fused. No sewing will be done during the workshop, only the designing and fusing. You will also learn how to make patterns from your own photos. Lenore will also demonstrate how to add fabric painting to your design to add detail and depth; students will do painting on their own designs in the two day workshops.
Needs List
Shredded Fabric Art Quilts
Class full
5053-LC-TUE-1 Lenore Crawford
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00
In this workshop students will learn to create their own shredded fabric impressionistic art quilt using a technique originated by Noriko Endo.
Fabrics are shredded in class and used to design a scene. Then the design is covered in tulle and top-stitched using free-motion sewing. Finishing techniques will also be covered such as binding the piece and hanging methods. Lenore will also show how she uses fabric paints to enhance these pieces even more where appropriate.
Needs List
Free Expression Buffet
Class full
5061-RE-FRI-1 Robbi Eklow
All Levels | 1 day | $175.00 + Tutors Kit $6.00
Learn Robbi’s innovative techniques to create sophisticated art quilts. In this fun and relaxing class, each student will create an 18”x24” fused quilt top, using their choice of a pattern from Robbi’s current selection. Robbi will bring at least a dozen different patterns to class for students to choose. Patterns range from simple to complicated allowing everyone to decide their own challenge level for the day. The patterns are designed for use in class and only available in class. Selections include: Puzzle Quilts-Overlapping images such as vases, guitars, and violins), Still Lifes featuring teapots, teacups, vases, Gears and Spirals geometric images combining gears and spirals, some overlapping. Patterns can be combined and customized by each student. Fused applique will be used in class, however the designs can be used with traditional methods too! No sewing machine required for this class.
Needs List
Art Deco and Flower Fused Components
Class full
5062-RE-SAT-2 Robbi Eklow
All Levels | 2 days | $350.00 + Tutors Kit $6.00
Fused applique will be used to create unique large scale geometric flowers and art deco designs from individual components that can be arranged in an infinite number of compositions to make quilts of varying sizes.
Robbi has made quilts ranging from 40” x 54” to over 60” square using these patterns. Several different pattern sheets will be available for students to choose from. Spend a fun day creating with more ideas to take home.
No sewing machine required for this class.
Needs List
Designing & Draw Wedge Shape
5063-RE-MON-2 Robbi Eklow
All Levels | 2 days | $350.00 + Tutors Kit $6.00
Learn to design, draw, and fabricate complicated designs with radial symmetry using Robbi’s system of wedged shaped repeating “blocks”. Fusing is used to put the quilts together quickly in class, but designs can be adapted to hand or machine applique when you get home. Robbi has been exploring this design concept for several years and her resulting quilts have won many awards. This technique is much easier to do than the results imply, we are merely creating a circular grid and popping interesting things into the bands, instead of working with squares.
You will work on one small quilt design, that will fit on one yard of fabric, about 30 by 40 inches. Robbi uses Adobe Illustrator to do the heavy lifting on her designs, but she will supply you with grids you can use without a computer. No sewing machine required for this class.
Needs List
Sensational Stars & Spectacular Circular Borde
Class full
5071-GG-FRI-2.00 Gail Garber
Intermediate | 2 days | $350.00 + Tutors Kit $51.00
Two days to explore, draw, design and play! Spend a two day “vacation” learning the fundamentals of star design and a myriad of spectacular borders.
In this class you’ll create an original quilt design with a central star and surrounding borders, and begin stitching it together using paper foundation piecing. Learn the step-by-step process to make your own one-of-a-kind art quilt.
Needs List