This weekend, I attended a two day workshop (August 8 and 9) with textile artist, Barb Mortell of Denman Island. Description of the first class from Barb:  Day 1 : Triangles, Diamonds, Value and Colour (Rulers rule!) Description:  This workshop is a composition workshop, and a place to make experiments in colour and value. Each person will make their own unique patchwork, and perhaps work out a system that sustains the artist for many months or longer. I know I could work on triangles for a long, long time without becoming bored of them, there are so many variations….We’ll be learning a variety of traditional and speedy techniques for making triangles one at a time and in bulk, and there will be instruction in cutting and sewing different types of triangles and diamonds.  Once we have decided on a technique, we’ll move into colour and value studies with the idea that the studies, perhaps with some bending and twisting and stretching,  will all fit together to create a small quilt top. The point is, with trials and experimentation, we will come away with a better understanding of Colour and Value, with the added benefit of trying out some new techniques.  We started the day with an inspirational show and tell of some of Barb’s work.               This was my little creative space for the two day workshop.  I shared my design wall with three other talented and inspirational quilters.  My HST’s are on the left of the design wall in this picture.  Do you recognize my signature green?  🙂  My squares were not sewn into blocks at this point.  I now have the HST’s arranged in an entirely different setting on my design wall at home.  I am trying to figure out what setting I like best before I commit to sewing my HST’s into blocks and my blocks into a small quilt top. The next four pictures are of other students’ work in the class. I loved this piece.  This person plans on making her quilt top into a pillow.  She focused mainly on white, black, and grey with just a pop of the turquoise and purple.  Stunning!   Description of the second class from Barb: Day 2 (Saturday, Aug 9th, 2014) Improvising with a Simple Shape, with Focus on Colour and Value (Shake off the ruler)   Description:  We will decide on a simple shape, such as a triangle or diamond or ??? and play with scale as well as colour and value, with the aim of making a small composition. No real techniques taught here – just permission to free cut and lots of design help along the way.   If you were in Day 1, this is a great forum for carrying on with those experiments, or feel free to start fresh.   We started the second day with some more inspirational samples of Barb’s. I think I enjoyed working on the wonky triangles during the second day more than working with the ruler on the first day.  Barb told us all you had to remember when working in this format was if you want to make your piece smaller, cut it off and if you want to make your piece bigger, add something to it. These were my blocks after the second day.  I was thinking that I should be naming my piece, “Pine Beetle Forest” since the Pine Beetle is the only thing I know of that will change a green pine tree orange/red with blue wood.  🙂  As you can see, I earned an “A” for my work from Barb! The following six pictures were taken around the room at the end of Day 2.  What an explosion of colour! This was a great two days.  As always, I am recharged and inspired.

“It is value that does all the work, but colour gets the credit”  ~ Barb Mortell