Gloria Loughman Class… or how I made my first art quilt part two

So, after being visually ker-blammed by Gloria’s lovely quilts, it was our turn to have a go.

I admit.  I was so far out of my comfort zone it wasn’t funny.  I have never, ever made anything arty in my life.

I told her too.  I said ‘Gloria, I may be your dumbest student ever!’.  She was very gracious and told me ‘it’s EASY….’

I don’t want to tell you the intricacies of her technique, because that wouldn’t be fair.  And you should totally buy her book.  But I don’t think she’ll mind if I share a few photos.

First of all, you had to start with a photo of a forest.  This is mine.

In a nutshell, Gloria’s technique is tiles, lots and lots of tiles.  We picked out our fabrics.  I had lots of fabrics, as I own more fabrics than anyone else on earth.  I also brought more for the class.

The general idea was to do the background.  I had to ignore all the noise in the front of the picture, and just concentrate on the background.

When we had sorted that out, we ironed on some fusible webbing and cut out 2957349203895756 tiles.

Then, you really quickly lay them in place.  This takes about ten minutes.

Oh har har.  It doesn’t take ten minutes.  It takes All… Jolly…..Afternoon….

When everything is as you like it, you press them all down, hoping that none move or get stuck on the iron.

After two eight hour days, I only got to this step.  Others were so far ahead of me, it wasn’t funny.  I told them they were showing off.  I decided I talk too much.

Most of the class on the second day involved painting trees, appliqueing foliage – all of those sorts of things.  I took mental note, on the off chance I actually got this finished, how to paint them.  I didn’t take any photos of this step – I didn’t want to be rude.  I encourage you to buy her books, or take her classes – she makes it all very, very easy.

So at the end of our two day course, this is what I have to show you:

I did manage to stitch down two rows. 

 

 

My photos don’t come up as good as I would have hoped – in reality my colours blend beautifully from one to the next.  Much more free flowing.  Trust me.

And here are some photos of the others in our class.  All in various stages of finishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as she was working next to me, I got more photos of Mum’s.  She’s an overachiever also, managing to applique some foreground before the end of the day.

 

 

So – all in all, a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.  I totally understood all I was doing at the time, but now it’s all gone slightly blurry and I’m not sure I’m confident enough in my arty abilities to finish it. 

Time will tell.

See you soon!

Suzie