NOTE: This page is under construction. Information is accurate but incomplete.
Carol Anne's lectures reflect her wide ranging interest and respect for quilts of all kinds--from traditional to contemporary, including an interest in world wide traditions of fabric dyeing and today's many innovative surface design techniques. Her lectures are influenced by her background in art history and fine arts, as well as her many years as a full time art quilter. The lectures are illustrated with slides or power point projection. Carol Anne also brings examples of her work to share.
Carol Anne’s teaching philosophy is to give students tools to help them develop their own unique style. Classes are process-, not product-oriented. One-day workshops teach basics. Longer sessions explore advanced techniques and begin extended projects. Topics can be combined into extended formats such as shibori and indigo, fabric dyeing and stamping. No previous experience is necessary. Workshop days last 6-7 hours. There will be a supply list and possibly a materials fee. Classes are limited to 20 students. Equipment required is minimal; surface design classes need access to a sink with hot and cold water. Details available on request.
New classes include Colorful Quarters and Shibori:Beyond the Sampler. See new lecture--A Quilt Critique Group: The Art of "Bee-ing."
Scroll down the page or jump to:
lectures,
surface design workshops,
quilting technique/design workshops,
multiple day/extended workshops
or
fee information.
/Lectures
Shibori is an ancient Japanese tradition, an ancestor to tie-dye. This hour-long presentation begins with a demonstration of the basic techniques of knotting, binding, pleating, stitching and clamping. Slides briefly trace shibori’s development through historical and contemporary kimonos. I then follow my evolution describing how this dye technique helped me find my voice in landscape imagery.
A Quilt Critique Group: The New Art of "Bee-ing"
For over 20 years, the six quilters and one embroiderer of the Crit Group have met to share their art and exchange ideas and information. This slide lecture introduces the members--Judy Becker, Linda Behar, Barbara Crane, Nancy Crasco, Sandy Donabed, Sylvia Einstein and Carol Anne Grotrian. It shows how a critique group works and offers advice on starting a group of your own.
More information on members.
American artists, including needle workers have naturally turned to the land for inspiration. This hour-long slide lecture touches on the appearance of landscape in antique quilts, looks at the diverse views and viewpoints of contemporary quilters and, on a personal note, includes a few of Carol Anne’s expressive landscape quilts in slides and in person.
Needlework and garden design intertwine frequently throughout world history. For millennia our foremothers used needles and hoes to create beauty out of necessity. Gardens are “embroidered” with flowers and textiles bloom year round indoors. Needlework records lost gardens, while gardens deliberately resemble carpets. With an emphasis on garden-inspired quilters, this hour-long lecture is illustrated with slides.
(back to top)
/Workshops: Surface Design
Shibori Sampler
An ancient Japanese art, shibori’s subtlety goes far beyond the usual tie-dye techniques. Try you hand at the elegant patterns found in imperial kimonos. Basic shaped resist techniques-- binding, pleating, knotting, stitching, clamping and pole-wrapping--are easy to learn and endlessly variable. Adaptable to any fabric-dye combination, the class uses Procion MX dyes on cotton and silk. Shibori workshops can be extended to include indigo dyeing.
Materials List
Shibori: Beyond the Sampler
Explore pole wrapping and stitching, two important shibori techniques that are part of Japan’s ancient tie-dye traditions. Simple basics create endless pattern variations; overdyeing produces elegant complexity. The quicker rythm of pole wrapping balances the more time consuming techniques of sewing. No previous experience necessary.
Materials List
An Introduction to Indigo
Why does indigo seem magical? Because it dates back to ancient Egypt? Because the vat has a bloom and the color only develops on contact with air? Because it needs a centered dyer with a calm hand? Because successive dipping makes the shades of one color --blue--seem like many colors? Experience the magic and learn about the care and feeding of an indigo vat, using synthetic indigo.
Materials List
Experiment with the organic patterns produced by these two resists. When potato dextrin dries, its crackled surface can be dye painted to create textures from fine veins to bold webs. In arashi shibori, poles (pvc pipes) are wrapped with fabric and compressed into folds, exposing only their outer surfaces in the dye bath. The class will cover many ways these techniques can be manipulated and over dyed to create patterns of “regular irregularity”. The focus will be on cotton samples using fiber reactive dyes, though techniques apply to other dyes and fibers.
Materials List
Colorful Quarters
If you’re a beginner or experienced, join us for a day of dyeing fat quarters using fiber reactive dyes, buckets and baggies. Learn methods of gradation from light to dark and color to color, starting with blue and ending up with 6 colorful yards of cotton suitable for quilting projects. We’ll use familiar “kitchen” measurements and focus on repeatable results (never run out of a fabric again!). Materials fee covers cost of fabric and dyes.
Materials List/More Details
Fabric Stamping
Add pizzazz to the textiles in your life. Print your own unique patterns with stamps that are store-bought, fashioned from everyday objects, quickly carved from erasers or simply constructed with glue. The materials are inexpensive and non-toxic, basic techniques are easily learned and the results are immediate. Design theory is introduced as students create their own styles from elegant restraint to outrageous and funky.
Materials List
This is a how-to, hands-on primer on fabric dyeing using permanent and versatile fiber reactive dyes (Procion MX), that are simple and safe to use at home. The focus is on immersion (bath) dyeing, including ways to adapt to small spaces. The result is a library of swatches, as we learn methods of gradation from light to dark and from color to color, discovering a limitless palette from basic primaries and a few toners. We’ll use familiar kitchen measurements to get repeatable results (never run out of a fabric again!).
All materials will be supplied. Wear old clothes; bring rubber gloves and a dust mask.
(back to top)
/Workshops: Quilting Techniques & Design
Create fabric pictures--landscape, still life, etc.-- based on assigned snapshots that you bring to class. Pick your favorite photo and adapt it to quilting, using simple tools like photocopies and tracing paper. Begin selecting fabrics that will bring the image to life. A one day class produces designs on paper; a weekend workshop includes fused fabric sketches.
Materials List
Picture Perfect Piecing
Start piecing a picture quilt with gentle curves and easy corners. Move on to adventurous hairpin turns and jagged peaks. Learn when to sew by hand or machine. Students will piece a landscape study from templates designed to cover the basic and advanced techniques Carol Anne uses to make her quilts.
More information, samples.
Materials list.
Natural Lines: Mark Free Techniques for Quilting
“Draw” a design on a quilt top without touching it. Learn about lines, mark-free methods for transferring designs to fabric and hand and machine quilting options. Techniques use simple, available tools. Students work on samples and, if available, a previously completed top. Step away from the straight and narrow and try irregular patterns especially suited for picture quilts.
More information
Materials list
/Workshops: Multiple Day/Extended (4-5 days)
Experience the magic of ancient indigo dyeing and its special affinity with shibori. The final project will be sewing the dyed fabric together in a format inspired by a spirit cloth, such as Buddhist kesas or temple banners.
Surface to Surface
Record impressions of patterns outdoors in nature and then translate them to fabric using various surface design techniques such as stamping, dextrin resist and shibori.
Materials List
The extended version of this workshop students can choose to create multiple designs and fabric sketches or enlarge a design and start a full scale quilt top. Focus is on individual attention and design issues.
This combines the shorter format Picture Perfect Piecing and Natural Lines. Instead of a preset pattern, students create unique designs from provided templates. Focus will be on techniques as the quilt top is completed and quilting is begun,though design issues will be covered
(back to top)
Fees, Requirements and Scheduling
Lecture fee is $300. Workshops are $400 a day. Specific requirements and availability are available on request. Inquiries should be made directly to Carol Anne:
by mail (24 Fiske Pl, Cambridge, MA) or by
e-mail.
(back to top)