Houston Quilt Festival - classes

On Thursday, I took Katrina Walker's Layering Silk Fabrics & Fibers for Textural Effects, and have fallen in love with felting (I'm really glad I had already purchased the felting attachment for my Bernina, as it's going to get lots of exercise now! She demonstrated how to use the fabrics and fibers and let us go to town creating our own designs.

Friday was a busy day, with three classes. The morning started off with Exploring Stitch-Resisted Shibori with Glennis Dolce. Boy, did I learn a lot! I've always been intrigued with shibori, and have played a bit with a few styles, but never got the hang of using stitches as a resist. Now there are more tools in my toolbox for further exploration on my own.

In the afternoon it was Silk Sensations with Marlene Glickman. What can I say, more dye on my fingers, and some beautiful silks that I can say I dyed myself. The most interesting part of this class was seeing how the different silk fabrics came out when dyed in the same bag. My little silk flowers didn't show up on the backgrounds, so I tried using markers to color another piece, but I think I'll just have to dye a new background for them.

By the time the evening class rolled around, I was tired, considered just going back to the hotel to crash, but went anyway. The class was "A Reversible Silk Purse - With Vintage Overtones", and Gay Gerlack was the teacher. I must have forgotten to check her website to see what her style was, so I was kind of expecting something different, but it turned out ok anyways. We were each able to choose a little reversible purse to embellish, and inside was a practice square. I chose to try out the silkscreen on the square before the purse, but did screen the reverse side of the purse with the same design. If you look closely, you can see the painted embellishment on the printed panel.

Saturday morning was my last class. Yep, another silk class, and another opportunity to get dye on my fingers. This class was Dyeing in the Third Dimension - Shibori Techniques with Carol Lane-Saber, and was another excellent class! I've always been intrigued by the tiny wrapped shibori that the Japanese make, and had tried it once on my own, but couldn't get the hang of how to tie the fabric, not to mention how to see what I was doing, once the fabric started scrunching up. Carol provided us with the technique, and I spent most of this class wrapping small areas of the fabric, and guessing at their placement. I can see I'm going to be revisiting this technique, with and without marking the design before starting to tie the fabric.

All I can say is that I wish I could have stayed longer and some of the classes I loved could have been longer. Although at the same time, if they were longer, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn so much from so many great instructors, so now I just hope to be able to return again.