Tuesday 5 February 2008

SOUTH WEST QUILTERS RETREAT 2008

Last week, from Sunday 27th January until Friday 1st February, I spent a most wonderful few days in the company of these lovely ladies (plus another six who had to slope off earlier than 4.00pm on Friday!) making mixed media Accordion Style Books.I was the Tutor and the idea was to introduce these ladies, in a gentle way, to mixed media, as they are all Quilters and usually only work in cotton fabric. Actually two of them (Dot and Mandi) were already well into mixed media. However, we started by making a large piece of 'Artwork' which they then embellished in various ways, before cutting it up. In the meantime they made up four double sided pages (a couple of ladies made five!) put together with fabric hinges (to take the keebab sticks which made very good legs) and then embellished these with hand stitching and lace etc. They then covered their books with emulsion paint, and when dry painted with dry brushes what colours they fancied, although you can see one green one there in the picture (well, you always get one in a class don't you!)

Actually, I had more than one in my Group, as you can see in the pic. below - she didn't paint her pages at all - rebellion, that's what I call it!

Unfortunately not all the Books are here on the table, as I didn't start taking pictures until lunchtime Friday, by which time a couple of ladies had already had to leave, and of course none of them was completely finished, although they were all well on the way.
I did think you might like to see some of their 'stuff' while they were working; I'll just briefly name each one as we go:

Jenny

Pam
Sandra
Arlene
Sally
Desira
Jean
Mandi
Dot
Sally
Pat
Linda
Linda (the Rebel!)

Maggie

Out of the fifteen ladies taking the Workshop I think only one had previously come across ATCs, so it was with huge pleasure, as you can imagine, that I introduced them to such delights when I asked each one if they would make me an ATC from their Artwork as a personal Memento of the Retreat. Here they are, all fifteen of them, and fourteen of them are 'firsts'. Just gorgeous, don't you think?

14 comments:

Donna said...

looks like a great fun day was had by all :-)

Sandy said...

Lucky ladies to have you as a tutor. and lucky you to get those nice ATC's Sandy

Doreen G said...

What a great workshop Val you wouldn't be able to come visit me when things slow down would you.

Carol said...

They look great Val and I love those ATC's

Barbara said...

what a wonderful workshop..love all your works...HUGS Barbara

Mandi said...

Wow Val, that didn't take you long to get all our work on show. What a great time we all had, so much creativity and laughter. Of course having such a fab tutor made our week of 'playing' all the more enjoyable. Roll on the next one!

Purple Missus said...

Sounds like everyone had a great time Val - lucky them. And what wonderful work they have all produced under your influence.
Very strange that the 'rebel' was called Linda *LOL*

Pat said...

I noticed that Lynda!!! It looks like a great experiece for all involved and the completed works look great.

sharon young said...

Hi Val
What a wonderful retreat, and what lucky students to have a tutor like you. It looks as if they all had a great time and produced some wonderful work!

Jan said...

great work val. please tell me what are 'fabric hinges'?
jan

Judy Rys said...

What a great workshop. Looks like you gave them a great intro to mixed media and they were ready to make the leap.

Dianne said...

What a wonderful looking workshop!! Love the ATC's!!

Simone said...

The workshop must be very interesting and the results and the ATCs are beautiful. You have a very nice and inspiring blog. Thanks for showing.
Simone

Digitalgran said...

What a wonderful day they all had and a brilliant idea to ask them to make you an ATC!