Just home from a long weekend in Palm Desert, California where there are more palm trees than Starbucks...maybe. The temperature was warm, the sky blue, and flowers bloomed everywhere. My mission was a two-day workshop at one of two fabric stores in Palm Desert, Quilter's Faire. The owner, Debby, has an amazing sense of color and line, and her fabrics and displays are exciting.
On day 1 of the workshop, we worked on the Here2There pattern A's Strips. They had their fabrics already cut into strips, so we started with making 9-patch blocks, auditioning fabric choices and placement as we went along.
They tried splicing in bird photos and bits of fabric into the long strips of the columns.
On day 2 we worked on free form placemats, using the strips left from their A's Strips blocks from yesterday. It is a bit daunting to create without a pattern as a guide, but the students were willing and pleased with the results.
By mid day, each had a growing pile of scraps and strips left over from the projects to take home to use for another project.
And I left with a suitcase full of bright fabrics to take back to my studio.....
and warm memories of Palm Desert and Quilter's Faire. Thank you Debby, Zak, Alice, and Janet and everyone who made the workshop a success.
Amy and Opal are two artists living in different states on the west coast who have teamed up to create fiber art together. Their journey and process is captured here.
