Friday 22 January 2016

South West Quilters Retreat - Landscapes at the Seaside

I spent a fabulous few days in beautiful Beer on the Devon coast teaching Fabric Collage Landscapes to a group of 16 intrepid ladies from South West Quilters. From the minute I arrived at the hotel on Sunday evening, I was made to feel welcome and part of the group. After dinner (mine was a fabulous crab and prawn salad served on a platter the size of a dustbin lid!), I gave an informal talk, showing some of my Evolution quilts and a few of my current abstracts. Then I showed some of my landscape quilts and talked briefly about the techniques I would be teaching. Over the following few days, all the ladies dived in with gusto, even those who were new to patchwork and quilting and those who had always done more traditional work. They all soon got over any fear of collage and raw edges and tiny ¾” wide strips and were busy turning their source photographs into beautiful landscapes. I was particularly impressed with the range of styles that emerged, from the deceptively simple but very atmospheric and elegant quilts to the pieces with a wealth of surface detail and texture. I would strongly recommend to both potential tutors and participants reading this, if you get the chance to go, take it. It is a great venue and a really friendly and well-organised retreat. Thanks to Jean and Jenny and all the ladies for having me and I am really sorry my team cleared up on quiz night! k3n x

What a beautiful group of ladies - even without airbrushing!

The beautiful quilts after just two and a half days - I am hoping to be sent a photo of progress at the end of the week.