Saturday, July 24, 2010

Nancy Crow's Workshop (Boot Camp?) ....Awesome!

Nancy Crow, my quilt and me. You can't see how sleep deprived I was in this picture! My week at QBL was a whirlwind of creativity, sewing, good food and great company. I loved every minute.
Nancy was demanding in her rigorous assignments to sew strips into fabrics using line & shape (defined by the width of a strip) and color & value gradations.
I am not able to discern a warm or cold color, I need to work on that. Value in fabrics, don't see it. I can, however, intuitively put colors into gradation of value. Go figure.
Our first exercise was in black & white. Strips of each in varying widths were used to make a composition. In my critique Nancy remarked that the top half was not grounded, but the bottom had good figure to ground composition. She is an artist and composition is what she does.
I love the little square/line thing going on throughout the piece and would like to do more with that element.
Then we got into color. Lots of color all over the room!
Seemingly miles of strips in many complicated variations kept me sewing til 2 AM one night and past 11 PM each other night. (not unusual in her workshops). We were all in the "zone". I love that feeling. Susan, the woman who set up camp next to me said it was like we all didn't want to disappoint Nancy. She makes it clear she expected hard work and we all delivered. There is a lot to be said for high expectations.
Below are some of fabrics I made.

I love black (obviously) and deep color (obviously) and find working with light/bright color more challenging (obviously).
The middle strip was my favorite fabric. I knew I would begin with that.
Nancy assigned a ribbon quilt formation (basically a stripped quilt or strips inside a rectangular formation) 4'x8' or 7' or 6'. (mine was on the diminutive side of 4'x6' coming in at a little over 3'x5'...
My progression to final piece. I do like it.  I truly love the center bit...the not-rigid structure, the color, the lines.
I need to decide how to quilt it now.
Rewarding experience.
I will save the the pics of the class projects for another day. I need to do some things around here! My mower broke and a few acres of lawn already need to be cut.
I forgot about the Buffalo Garden Walk tomorrow with Sandy and Carol.

I have learned:
  1. Nancy began class with a disclaimer that she is NOT mean. She IS not mean. Just demanding (her own words).
  2. How exhilarating it is to be amongst women that "get" my passion for all things fiber and creative. 
  3. I CAN stay up past midnight!
  4. Spell check is back on blogger. Good.

3 comments:

Debbie said...

Wow...lots of work...demanding work. Love the OUTER strips...those are my colors. Actually the whole thing is stunning.

Margaret McDonald said...

it was so nice to meet & work with you in class. Your piece is totally AWESOME!! You should be very pleased. Hope you are recovering from our stint in quilting boot camp. I found it interesting that I was recognizing that it was truly my choice to work that hard.
thanks for sharing
Margaret

Jill Robinson said...

Kathi,
I took one of Nancy's workshops at the bar in 2008 so your pics bring back GOOD memories of fast sewing and long hours. Nancy is a great teacher and (my opinion) knows how to get the best out of each person.
Your fabric compositions look good!!!
I'm taking another class with her this winter, can't wait. I'm a hand-dyer so need to get my behind in gear!
All the best,
Jill Robinson