A Day With Susan Brubaker Knapp

Today I spent a day at my local quilt shop taking a class with the famous Susan Brubaker Knapp.  Check out her website here or her blog here…..

You have probably seen some of her wonderful thread paintings in many of the popular quilting magazines and today I had the privilege of sitting under her teaching!!!

The class was called “Start with a Photo” and it took us through the process of using a photo as the inspiration and then turning it into a quilt.  She provided a photo and pattern of a red barn……

The first step was to use a sharpie to draw the design onto  a medium weight upholstery clear vinyl.  This is the pattern that we used for the rest of the day.

We then prepared fusible web sections, selected fabrics and fused the piece together.  The full piece was placed on a piece of sew-in interfacing and the FUN BEGAN…..

We took various threads and started to add details with machined threadwork.   Most of the threads were 40 weight, but many of us used whatever we happened to have.   I particularly enjoyed using some variegated threads in the grass areas. 

Here is my piece at the end of the day……

Obviously I have a way to go before it will be finished!!!!

Now, on to the REAL quilts of  the day.  Here are some of the quilts that Susan brought to inspire us……

I loved these spools when I saw them in a magazine……

This is a small quilt (maybe 8×6) and Susan told us that there are only four different pieces of fabric in it….the rest is done with THREAD……

In this one, the slices were done separately, a back was sewn on, they were turned and then appliqued to the top.  The result is that they have a LOT of wonderful dimension……

I love the movement in the grasses……..

Some of these pumpkins are done in trapunto to give them more dimension…..

I am fortunate to be able to take Susan’s Thread Painting Class tomorrow…..I CANT WAIT!!!!