Sunday, July 25, 2010

Diamonds & tumbling blocks

Workshop Day 1
For Friday's workshop we were working with Big Diamonds from Kaffe Fassett's book Kaleidoscope of Quilts & I chose to work with the selection of blues pictured above. The day was very full on & intense as the idea is to get a huge variety of fabric cut & placed on the design wall quickly in order to have the time to focus on placement of colour values & the overall quilt design.

Brandon loved getting right in there with suggested alternative placements & was always on hand for advice when needed.
At 3pm it was critique time & Kaffe went round and gave his perspective of each individual piece of work & offered more advice on placement, emphasising the importance of using large prints for this quilt as small ones tend to become lost in the overall design and end up looking like plain colour fabrics with no definition or movement.

It was a fabulously inspiring day, so much so, that once home I had to continue cutting diamonds to complete my quilt & started machine stitching them into strips the next day (yes I actually used the machine!).

Workshop Day 2

Sunday's workshop was dedicated to creating big tumbling blocks inspired by Liza Prior Lucy's quilt in Kaffe's Quilt Romance book. The emphasis here was to focus on light, medium & dark colour values & their correct placement to create the 3 dimensional effect of the blocks.

Alot of cutting & placing was done

Loved this above combination by one of the ladies

I chose to work with graphic prints in warm ochres, browns & golds from Kaffe's & Brandon's range of fabrics as I'm planning to make this for my son. It was quite funny to start with as Brandon was pinching my diamonds & placing them as quickly as I was cutting, so the first few blocks at the top left of the picture will remain as placed by him!
After the all important critique, Kaffe once again offered to sign copies of his books & pose for pictures before departing for the day.
I thoroughly enjoyed my 2 days with these guys & am so glad I chose to do both workshops.......even though exhausting! They are very intense but an awful lot is achieved, so well worth it & I would highly recommend them without hesitation.

7 comments:

bockel24 said...

Thanks for letting us take part a bit - I bet there has been a lot to learn from Mr. Fassett!

Oops-Lah said...

It looks like you had two wonderful and interesting days. I love your blue diamonds, it will be a stunning quilt. I must say, I think I would be a bit intimidated if someone like Kaffe or Brandon would look over my shoulders while I work ;).

Valentina said...

Lucky (and oh-so-smart!) Girl!!!
Oh thank you for sharing this amazing experience with us. I think both quilts will be stunners, Gisele!
And thanks for explaining it so well.
wow... ( now I need to talk myself down from rushing in and starting to cut diamonds!)
:)
... as you process it all and remember more tips, please share, ok?

Shirley said...

Oh lucky girl. Both quilts will be fab. Those two guys are certainly inspirational. Well done.
Love Shirley.

Marijke said...

Hi I,m Marijke from the Netherlands for the first time on your blog, I love it. Many pretty things you make and nice that you share your learning days with me... us. Please excuse me for the English mistakes.
May I add your blog to mine blog list quiltcrea.blogspot.com?

Daniƫlle said...

Thanks so much for sharing your day full of tips and trics! You are such a lucky girl that you were able to attend these classes!! happy sewing on the quilts, Daniƫlle

Sandra Henderson said...

I'm SO happy for you Gisele!~What a wonderful experience, as I knew you'd not regret the two classes. Yes, I imagine you were exhausted. So much to take in~!!! Look at your gorgeous quilts! You make me want to do these difficult quilts. Your fabrics are amazing!!! Sorry to be late getting around to visit...