This past Saturday I taught my first
full-fledged day long class and it was a joy. I had a full class of
8 students, the maximum the facility could accommodate with sewing
machines. The class was not about the sewing however, it was about
design. It was based on my recent article in The Quilt Life Magazine
(October) on making Strata Art Quilts.
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| Strata Art Quilt article in The Quilt Life Magazine and example from article. |
The students were varied in their
backgrounds and level of art quilting knowledge. I think most were in the
stage of having a great interest but not having done a whole lot that
they would call art quilts. They were all very enthusiastic students
and I enjoyed them.
Each student had to come with a feature fabric or focal point fabric as well as some other fabrics to possibly go with it. I brought a giant stack of scraps as well, although they were of limited use in that many of them were pre-cut strips and weren't very wide.
At least two of the participants had
chosen a focal fabric and then changed their minds and selected a
different one. Luckily they brought their original choices and I
talked them into using those as they were better choices. Go with
your intuition!!
I did not know when I was planning the
agenda for the day how long it would take for the students to do the
actual designing of their pieces, so I allowed plenty of time. It
turned out that it did take a while so the timing worked fine. Some
of the students would get my attention to come see what they had done
as they felt they were about ready to sew it together and I would
proceed to encourage reworking what they had and almost completely
changing it! I guess they were OK with that as they seemed to really
like what we ended up with and could see how it worked better than
what they had. Goal accomplished.
After the design segment of the class I
gave them some information and tips about the quilting and then
beading/embellishing. I think everyone was interested in the
possibility of another class where I would help them with the beading
of their projects, including maybe going to a bead shop to select
what they might use. I'm considering such a class for January but
haven't sat down to work out what it might look like, where we'd have
it, and what I might charge for it.
I really enjoyed moving between the
students and helping them with their projects and hopefully providing
them insight as to what might not be working and what to consider
that might make it better. There were a couple of students who were
quite capable of doing this themselves and had something up on the
design wall that looked pretty good in a short period of time. I
didn't really feel like I offered them much assistance in their
pieces besides a comment or suggestion or two, but hopefully they got
something out of my lecture and tips during the other segments of the
class time.
The comment was made that they
definitely think I have lots of wisdom to impart so I feel a little
more comfortable that I am not a fraud and that I might actually be
able to teach something! I've held off doing this because I didn't
want to just be regurgitating what I had learned from others. I
wanted what I teach to be uniquely my experience, knowledge,
technique, or style. I think I might be there finally and hope for
more successful class experiences in the future.
Thank you to all my students and I'll be in touch!
