Gwen Marston's "Liberated Stars"

I've wanted to take a class from Gwen Marston for years. My Tangled Threads friend Kim has spent several days in Gwen's classes and said she was the best. So I was thrilled that Kim and I were able to take her "Liberated Stars" class in Sisters. Kim's right - what a down-to-earth, nice-as-can-be lady! She has a wonderful way of immediately making you feel like her close friend. I'd take another class from her in a minute - if you ever get the chance I highly recommend you do it. I'd love to attend her Michigan retreat sometime.

This was a very fun class - something I've wanted to try ever since I bought her "Liberated Quiltmaking" book years ago. I knew it would be a challenge as I've always been so anal about seams matching, points, etc. What I learned is one can go too far the other way. Instead of just putting down fabric and stitching, sometimes I tried too hard to liberate points. At least one is liberated way too much - notice the star point that is hardly there? That block will be relegated to the orphan drawer. When I make more I'm going to try to just let it happen instead of over thinking the process.


My friend Kim hard at work.


It was lots of fun to just sew without thinking a lot - the only thinking involved dividing by 3 to determine how to make different size blocks. Not necessarily an easy math problem when trying to figure out the size of a little star to fit into the middle of a big star!

I've pictures of Gwen's quilts in her books, but seeing them in person is always so much better. I love the one with the appliquéd border. Good news for those of you who don't have the Liberated Quilts book and can't afford the sky high price of second hand. Gwen has gotten her publisher to agree to a new edition. It'll be a new book, with much of the same info as the old book plus additions. The "Liberated Baskets" quilt I've pictured will be in that book.

Sue Spargo class

I loved every minute of Sue Spargo's class in Sisters. I took a class years ago from Sue when she first started teaching. She has certainly learned a bunch of new tricks of the teaching trade! This is a new class for her - "Embellishment" - that she premiered in Australia and/or New Zealand last spring (I think that's when it was.) I learned so much, and of course had lots of fun shopping in her "classroom store".

We were sent a basic kit and pattern for a wool appliqué piece that was to be finished before class. All of them were alike. We were to bring threads, yarns, beads, buttons, appliqué fabric - anything we wanted to use to embellish our "artwork". As you can see the colors are very bright, and I just don't have those colors in my stash. So I bought a few fat quarters and little remnant "knots" of brights. I forgot my baby rickrack at home so bought a bit more. I borrowed a friend's collection of beads (which I never got around to use!) and figured I was set. The piece didn't excite me at all so far, but I was reserving final judgement until after the class.

I had no idea what this might evolve into until I saw Sue's piece "in progress". She had done much to it, but it still didn't tell her it was done. (Sometimes the piece must be declared done because her quilter has forbidden her to have more than 8 layers, including the backing, batting, and background.) Here you see hers - you can hardly tell it began with the same kit!

I didn't make much progress on mine, but I'm happy with what I've done so far. I tried braiding yarn and then couching it down for additional stems. Leaves have been pinned on, though I think I need more. A couple flowers have pieces ready to appliqué onto them. In a class like this I find it helpful to circulate around the class regularly to see what others are doing, which of course takes away from working time. It's easy to see who worked and who spent time visiting and chatting when you look at each project at the end of the class.

One of the things I really enjoyed was Sue telling us about her journals. She keeps a journal for every quilt, and each has a little bit of everything. She sketches ideas for things to put on the quilt. She adds clippings from magazines and newspapers. Poetry, photos, fabric swatches and more are included. Some journals are very different from others. She never knows what the final quilt will look like until she has it finished - she designs as she goes - and the journals help her do that. We were sent a journal to bring for our own quilt along with the pattern and fabric - wouldn't you know that I accidentally left mine at home!

Of course I had to have my picture taken with Sue, and bought a couple of her newer books for her to sign, as I'd forgotten to bring her books that I had here at home.

Here are some pictures of the class, including my friend Alana from North Star quilters, as well as pictures of other student work.