Last weekend I attended the Virtual Quilt Festival that took the place of the International Quilt Festival in Houston. While it was not NEARLY as much fun as spending 3 tiring days walking the convention floor, it was still fun to peruse the galleries and take some classes.
The most exciting thing was to see my quilt Mahek the Market Girl “hanging” in the competition entitled “In My Mind”…..
It was also fun to be able to sit with my feet up, drinking a cup of tea while I watched the classes that I had signed up for. Both were quilting related and while one was just so-so, the second one was AMAZING.
I spent 1.5 hours with Claudia Pfeil in her studio in Germany!!
I would never have taken this class in person because it was designed for a long-arm machine, but with distance learning, I was able to enjoy her work and learn lots about developing new quilting designs.
She started off by talking about her “alphabet”….the building blocks that she uses with most quilting designs…..
She starts with 5 basic patterns…..bridge, swirls, S-designs, straight lines and balls!!
Then she talked about her 5 elves (she had cute names for them) …. additional element, echo, mirror, combination, spacing
Then she moved to the machine and demonstrated how she uses these elements. As she started quilting in an area, she would begin with one of her simple designs. She would echo and/or mirror the design and start adding additional elements as she went. The final combinations were amazing….
She also showed a way to tie off your threads without having to bury them. I videoed this portion and want to get to the machine and try it out. IF I can figure out exactly how she did it, I will be sure to pass it on!!
I left the seminar feeling encouraged and inspired and then discovered that she had also provided a 27 page pdf full of quilting designs!!!
If you haven’t heard of Claudia, be sure to check out her website. And, if you get American Quilter magazine, there is a wonderful article about her quilts in the January 2021 issue!!
2 thoughts on “Virtual Quilt Festival”
How exciting for Mahek. I saw Claudia on Fb and I sure was tempted. But I shall try to find her website. For sure I’ll be most interested as you try her techniques.
It is great to see how groups have come up with wonderful alternatives to being there in person. Glad you had a good time.