Saturday, December 23, 2017

Bars Quilt Class

Tara Faughnan spoke to our guild the end of November. Several of us joined her at the San Jose Museum of Textiles and Quilts for the latest exhibit highlighting some of their collection.

Tara Faughnan admires Koi Diptych by Tim Harding
With it's long narrow columns, Tim Harding's Koi Diptych has aspects of Chinese Coins but despite looking at the details for quite a while, I'm still unsure how he constructed this masterpiece. Parts I would have sewn on at the end were some of the first things sewn. A lovely puzzle.

Detail of Koi Diptych by Tim Harding at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

The next day, Tara taught a color class using her Bars quilt. She's a textile designer who works with Michael Miller and other clients. In fact, her Fireworks quilt was translated to fabric. Perhaps you've seen it?

She started class with a short lesson pairing fabrics. After a quick mention of the color wheel we selected two fabrics based on her word prompts and created a page of samples. Then we spent the rest of that wonderful day playing with all the colors.

And I forgot to take any photos.

I put my sewn strips on the wall at home but they aren't in the same arrangement.

Strip sets from #Barsquilt class
Strip sets from #Barsquilt class.

Then I noticed I'd set them as horizontal coins. Tara had us work with vertical bars. I might have continued horizontally and then rotated it but I decided to try her style. It was surprisingly difficult to work with rotated strips. Obviously a good challenge for me.

At this point these are arranged like the original photo although I've sewn a few more.

End of second day making Bars quilt

Almost done.

End of third day making Bars quilt

I started sewing the rows. Then went to make dinner and didn't return till bedtime. When I looked at it at night, I didn't like it that much. A good night's sleep helped me determine why.

#Barsquilt in progress
Bars quilt ready to sew

Time to make some adjustments.

AHIQ linkup is this coming Tuesday. I love Kaja's idea to link work, reviews of this past year, or plans for next year. This is certainly a good time to pause, reflect, and plan ahead. What have you been doing this holiday season?

Enjoy the day, Ann

14 comments:

Sophie Zaugg said...

Your Bar quilt is going to be gorgeous ! Interesting to see how different it looks depending on the direction of the bars, vertical or horizontal.

Mystic Quilter said...

I do love what you're doing here Ann and think the vertical setting is perfect. With my track record this past year my contribution to the AHIQ link is likely to be plans for next year!!

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

I love Tim's but I love yours pretty good too! LOL.....

Mary Marcotte said...

How wonderful to take a quilt class that challenges you. Even better is to meet the challenge with a good response, because that's what your work is so far. I love the idea of turning what feels normal on its ear every now and again. Isn't it interesting how a change in perspective ends in a completely different quilt?

Nifty Quilts said...

Your bars quilt is really inspiring, Ann! Thank you for your inspiration and good humor all year. Best holiday wishes to you and yours.

Ann said...

How kind of you, Sophie. The differences between the horizontal and vertical bars surprised me, too. Merry Christmas.

Ann said...

Merry Christmas, Maureen. Plans are always good. I made a bunch last year but then ignored them. This year I hope to stick to a plan for changes. We'll see.

Ann said...

Thanks, Glen. Tim is certainly talented. I'd love to be able to create a three dimensional design like he does. Wow. But I'm enjoying working with these solids.

Ann said...

You are so kind, Mary. I saw many parallels between Tara's Bars and my Chinese Coins so I really enjoyed working through her process. The simple rotation of the layout caused a bigger change than I expected. You're right; it's good to shake things up a bit now and then. Merry Christmas.

Ann said...

Thanks, Lee Ann. I find your work so lovely and hope you have time to make more this coming year. Happy Holidays.

Pamela said...

Very interesting! Funny how stepping away and coming back makes you think differently about it.

Merry Christmas!

Ann said...

I try to take time but frequently just "barrel through" the work. It was interesting to stop and look that night. Just wish I'd waited to look until the next day. Merry Christmas to you, too.

Mel Beach said...

It was such fun sitting across from you in the workshop and watching you combine fun colors into your bar sets!! I look forward to seeing your quilt progress and how you add your own fun Ann twist!!

Ann said...

It was a treat to share the table with you, Mel, although I didn't realize you were combining the workshop with some personal sewing. Ha! I'm oblivious and you're funny. Let's do it again.