Thursday, December 3, 2009

Quilt Whisperer 101

I have been taking part in an online machine quilting course called "Quilt Whisperer 101" which is organised through MQ Resource with the teacher being Carla Barrett of Feathered Fibers.  Carla is an amazing quilter and I had been following her blog for quite a while.  The class taught the technique of "quilt whispering" or reading a quilt.  It is a design class, taught over three weeks, which gives you an understanding of how a quilt needs to be quilted.  The class also taught a large number of quilting designs.  Part of the class involved uploading photos of your creative exercises which were then shared through a forum - it was amazing and very inspirational to see everyone's work.  Also included were a number of videos which were great to watch.

The class included a number of fabulous creative exercises.  I learned the joy of drawing quilting designs with a white gel pen on black paper.  The result is beautiful and is a great reference to show customers.  Here is one of my samples:-



The next creative exercise was to quilt out some of the drawn designs onto black fabric with a contrasting thread.  Quilting with contrasting thread is usually out of my comfort zone but I was very excited with the results.







If I were to quilt these designs onto a quilt I would probably just choose a couple of different elements.  However, I had a great time quilting this little sample and practicing a wide range of designs.

I would highly recommend the Quilt Whisperer 101 Class to all quilters - it is a design class not specifically for longarm machine quilters.  Quilt Whisperer 101 is being run again in January 2010 - I loved it!

11 comments:

  1. You always make it look easy but I know its not.
    Fantastic work. Wish I had your talent.

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  2. Karen ... I am awe struck!
    Class or not - this is wonderful work!
    Fantastic sampler!

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  3. Fantastic doodles and wonderfully translated into the quilting!

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  4. I LOVE this type of quilting - I've only done it once myself (on my own quilt, no one wants to pay what I'd have to charge for this!), but it was such a rush, so much fun! Your samples are so so beautiful!

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  5. Wow! The quilting AND the drawing are beautiful. What talent you have! Thanks for sharing the information on the class.

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  6. Your quilting is AMAZING!!! That class sounds fabulous as well. Love the idea of doodling on black paper with a white gel pen. I'm not a huge fan of quilting with contrasting thread, but for practice, it's the only way to go.

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  7. Your fabric doodle is fabulicious!!!

    I haven't gotten my homework done witht he doodles yet or week 3. Trying to get caught up with customer quilts before Christmas.

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  8. Thanks for the info. This is one of my greatest weaknesses. I have a bernina but would love a long arm. A long arm is not in my budget right now with three children in private college and one just starting high school. I can't wait to have one but in the mean time I just signed up for a class at my local quilt shop for a long arm quilting class so I can rent time on it if I want to. This class is something I am very interested in too. How do I find the class? Thanks for sharing, Steph

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