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Longarm/Stand-up Quilting Classes
Thinking With the Needle = Flying Freehand
Laura originated hundreds of designs now considered machine quilting classics. Learn from the designer herself.
This is a series of eight classes, each lasting 6 hours. Schedule one, schedule all, no particular sequence is required. Both series of classes can be offered either as hands-on classes OR as Sketchbook quilting classes.
HANDS-ON is the best way to teach these classes for beginners and intermediate longarm quilters. They need to learn to fly freehand at the machine. Each 6-hour class will cost $750 plus travel expenses, and will be limited to 2 students per machine head. This price is limited to the first 7 students. (I need a spot at a machine to demonstrate, so that covers 4 machine heads). If you have a large classroom with many more machine heads, the class will be $100 more per additional participant.
SKETCHBOOK QUILTING is preferred by most advanced longarm quilters, they want to learn how the designs move, and how to create new designs. These classes are $100 per student per 6 hour class, plus travel expenses. The class is not limited to a number of participants, as long as each quilter gets about 3 feet wide elbow room at a comfortable table. The room needs good working light, a large whiteboard for me to project onto from an overhead projector, and the for us to all draw on.
1. Mindful Meandering I: Classic fills and overalls. From the basic jigsaw meandering and vermicelli, to seagulls in the clouds, from still waters to thunderheads over the mountains, the background quilting makes all the difference: does it detract or fulfill the story of the quilt top. How will you know? how will you quilt it? See Mindful Meandering from C&T Publications
2. Mindful Meandering II: Novelty fills and overalls. Here we find the split circles, the spiraling universe, the dinosaurs in volcano-land, tropical leaves with fiddleheads, dancing people, art-deco florals, undersea worlds. These overalls tend to compete for your attention, but hey, that helps make the quilt sing. See Mindful Meandering from C&T Publications
3. Leaves and Flowers. That's about it, we'll quilt leaves and more leaves, composing them in overall edge-to-edge formats and in borders and sashings. We'll do the same with flowers. Endless possibilities
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4. Baptist Fans. Learn the basic and Laura's novelty versions of this classic quilting design. Quilt it in an over-all random form, in braided borders, in thin sashes, and in a grid of blocks. 6 hours is hardle enough to cover all the possibilities. See creative Classics from C&T Publications
5. Mindful Meandering III: Orange Peels and other squares. Play with the square itself, play with the seamlines, find a reason to emerge from one design to the next. Interlocking circles reveal themselves, secondary designs abound. Learn which moves propel themselves across the quilt. See Mindful Meandering from C&T Publications
6. Ropes, Braids and Classic Feathers. Yes, classics, perfect for borders, for row quilts, for sashes. More than one way to implement each design, more than one way to travel from border to the body of the quilt. See Creative Classics from C&T Publications
7. Novelty borders: serpentines, waves, and flaunted feathers. First we gain confidence with the basic line path, then we add the elements which can tie the design into a quilt's story, and distract the judgmental eye at the same time. See Creative Classics from C&T Publications
8: Using imagery in your quilting. Here is the ultimate quilting class. How to get the imagery onto the quilt once you've found the right images to fit the quilt. How to compose the isolated image into a cohesive border, overall, or fluid custom-to-block design.
Host machines should be loaded with wide backing fabric, at least 90" wide, and 3 yards long, with batting of any sort as wide and long as the backing, and with solid-color top fabric to fit the other 2 layers. There should be thread in a color to contrast with the top fabric, and should be one which you are accustomed to tensioning on those machines.
Participants should come to class with sketch books or scratch paper to doodle designs on, small scissors to snip their threads with, Size 1 embroidery hand-sewing needle for burying threads.