Lectures
Indigo Blues
From the ancient world through the 19th century, indigo provided the only reliable blue dye. While global traditions continue, the beauty of indigo blues has naturally appealed to American quilters throughout our history from ithe earliest quilts to popular 19th century blue and whites to contemporary art quilts.
Quilts with a View: New Landscape Traditions
American artists, including needle workers have naturally turned to the land for inspiration. This 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 my landscape quilts among projected images and in person.
Shibori & Me: From Ancient Techniques to Contemporary Quilts
Shibori is an ancient Japanese tradition, an ancestor to tie-dye. Beginning with a demonstration of basic techniques--knotting, binding, pleating, stitching and clamping--digital images 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 33 years, the five quilters of the Crit Group have met to share their art and exchange ideas and information. This lecture introduces the members--Judy Becker, Nancy Crasco, Sandy Donabed, Sylvia Einstein and Carol Anne Grotrian, Learning to trust and appreciate individual viewpoints during critiques, their voices have remained unique and influences, if any, have been subtle. This lecture shows how a critique group works and offers advice on starting a group of your own. More about Crit members.
The Tortoise & The Hare: How Learned to Love Quilting in the Slow Lane
Quilters today have lots of good techniques and tools to help them hurry along like the hare, but this is the story of how, in recent years, I’ve learned to enjoy the ways of the tortoise. I’ll bring lots of examples to show how doing the time can pay off, whether creating new designs or continuing a series, whether trying a new technique or revisiting something familiar.