Introduction to Art Quilting: Making A Flower Quilt

Making an original art quilt can be a fabulous journey involving creativity, courage, and joy. In this class, you will learn techniques to create a 16” by 22” art quilt of a flower. This class is not a cut-by-the-numbers class. You will make a pattern, choose fabrics, and make design decisions as you assemble the fabric flower. You will be creating an original piece of art.

We will provide flower photographs so that you can pick the one you want to quilt. We will also pre-package many of the tools and supplies you will need for this class. The kit cost is included in the price of the class.

In the course, you’ll learn how to identify the different color values in your flower photograph and make a pattern based on those value differences. Then we will enlarge that pattern and use it to create a beautiful quilted version of the flower. There will be time to shop for the fabric you need during the course and you are welcome to bring fabric from your stash.

We will teach two techniques for drawing the flower pattern from a photograph:
Hand Drawn: Using an 8” by 10” printed photograph, you will draw your pattern on transparent plastic film taped to the flower photo.
iPad, Apple Pencil & Procreate: If you are technically comfortable and have an iPad and an Apple Pencil, the second option is to use a program called Procreate to develop your pattern from a digital photo of a flower.

We will explore thread painting on the second day of the class. Thread painting is a free-motion machine sewing technique used to quilt your art quilt. You will need to bring a sewing machine, a free-motion closed toe quilting foot, and be able to drop the feed dogs on your machine.

The purpose of the class is to teach you the techniques to make this quilt. We won’t have enough time during the two days to create a finished quilt, but you will walk away with all the skills and tools necessary to complete your quilt at home.

The workshop begins with a virtual lecture over Zoom on Friday evening, followed by two consecutive hands-on days at Capital Quilts. Following enrollment, we will provide you with a list of tools and supplies you will need to bring to class. In addition, a required kit will provided on the first day of class.

Click HERE for the Supply List.