My Weekend At PNCA Part 1
Could you hear the excitement and anticipation coming from my house? Early last Saturday morning, I got up before the rest of the family and headed down to Portland for a 2 day workshop at PNCA with Denyse Schmidt. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that Denyse is my quilting hero, the reason I made my first quilt years ago, the spark that started my love and passion for quilts, and this workshop, part of the Summer of Making series was a birthday gift from Peter, one that I’d been anticipating all summer (as I told the kids, my summer camp). I knew it would be a fun weekend, not only to sew alongside some other fantastic, funny, and interesting ladies (so fun to sew with others, rather than alone as I usually do), but to hang out with my favorite Frantz family.
We started Saturday with Denyse explaining her improvisational “paper bag piecing” method. I know some of you quilters know the idea behind this, but you are given 3 brown paper bags with various sizes of fabric. Without looking in the bag and choosing, you pull out pieces randomly, begin sewing and piecing, and building squares. Here is our first set of blocks (mine is bottom left).
We did this exercise 3 times, discussing after each what we liked and didn’t like. As we each suspected, there were some nice combinations within each block.
Here is Denyse, arranging the blocks on the flannel wall.
By midday on Saturday, we had the makings of a beautiful quilt top.
The goal of this exercise is to really embrace the unexpected combinations and happy accidents of colors, shapes, and patterns that we wouldn’t normally think of putting together. I focused on speeding through my own improvisational blocks, I didn’t want to hesitate for a minute and possibly start making decisions.
Here is one of my first blocks-
Often quilting can feel very rule-oriented and rigid. It can feel wrong and incorrect if its not done using the proven traditional techniques. Rules aren’t bad, in fact there are many times when I’m sewing a quilt that I enjoy being told exact process steps and I often learn something sewing that way. But it is also great to break free of that and experiment without the rigidity of hard and fast rules. Making it up as you go along can also be beautiful.
At the end of Saturday, once we’d completed these blocks, Denyse tasked us with pulling out the elements that really spoke to us during that exercise, to start designing blocks for our own quilt in our sketchbooks. I’ll explain more about what I came up with tomorrow, I wasn’t initially excited about it, but after talking with Denyse about it, now I am.
jenna
August 3, 2011 at 10:41 amwow, this is incredible. lucky you, and nice work!
Erin | house on hill road
August 3, 2011 at 11:30 ami just knew you were going to love it! can’t wait to see what you came up with in your sketch book. i need to go back to my project that i did in her second class in CT. it’s all up there waiting for me…this may give me the push i need.
Mama Urchin
August 3, 2011 at 12:01 pmI imagine talking with Denyse could get you excited about any quilt project! Sounds like a wonderful time.
rachel | buttons magee
August 3, 2011 at 12:05 pmi just love hearing about this entire process. I imagine the entire experience was so inspiring.
jennifer
August 3, 2011 at 1:03 pmwhat a fantastic experience, so full of inspiration. so happy for you!
Debbie-Esch House Quilts
August 3, 2011 at 4:32 pmWhat a wonderful opportunity! Looking forward to part 2.
kelly
August 3, 2011 at 8:32 pmLOVE this work — what a great exercise! I think I would be vibrating with nervousness at a workshop with Denyse Schmidt (because I get stupid around my heroes). Thanks for posting this — it’s such an inspiration. Can’t wait to see part 2!
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:54 pmThank you Kelly. Denyse was so easy to be around, though I admit that I was a little starstruck at first.
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:55 pmThank you Debbie!
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:56 pmThanks Jenna, I tried to soak in every minute.
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:57 pmI was thinking at first that I wouldn’t stay with my idea, but now I think I’m going to continue on with it next week, I really like it.
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:57 pmShe did not disappoint, very inspiring!
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:57 pmShe totally got me inspired about process again, I needed it!
blair/wisecraft
August 3, 2011 at 9:59 pmThanks Jennifer!
margie
August 4, 2011 at 6:10 amThat quilt top looks amazing. I have a ton of scraps AND paper bags ….
Lizette
August 5, 2011 at 10:28 amHow great. I’m in Portland right now 🙁 but will probably leave for Sequim WA today. We stopped by for just a day and a night but would love to see more.:)
blair/wisecraft
August 5, 2011 at 5:09 pmSafe travels Lizette!
blair/wisecraft
August 5, 2011 at 5:17 pmthen you should definitely try out this method, very liberating.
Morgan
August 15, 2011 at 11:08 pmYou lucky duck!! I wanna go!!