FVTC Sewing Expo : Saturday Workshops and Wrap-up

I attended several energetic and informative lectures by Wendy Bulter Berns on color, picture quilts, and borders. She talked about value, as much as color. She said that if you run out of a certain fabric, you can combine several other fabrics of the same value. From a distance, it will look the same. Now I have a much better understanding of VALUE. Something clicked for me at that lecture. Just looking at the hair on The Little Gardners, you get the idea of what sh'e talking about with VALUE.

She also said DecorBond Fusible Interfacing is a great stabilizer and serves to hold together the pieces of her form of applique before it's stitched.

I bought her book, Photo Album Quilts :

It is re-assuring to see that she used some of the same basic techniques I used to go from the Oliver-blowing-bubbles photograph. She does a lot more with value and color.

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Another Lecture : What to do with 5-inch squares / Charm Packs?
This lady also had to cancel for health reasons, so she sent her sister. Also with little preparation, she put on an entertaining program. The books she recommended were :
Nickle Quilts, More Nickle Quilts, and Charm Quilts.



At Christmas-time, I had asked for a charm pack--a single charm pack. I got 3 or 4 charm packs. What to do with them? Now I have some ideas ...

I suppose Chinese Coins would also be a good pattern.

The speaker was a quilt-shop owner. She said that we should be careful/beware with the pattens produced to utilize charm packs. Some of them are designed to sell more fabric, and not necessarily use the fabric efficiently.

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Pauline Richards finished out the day with Needle Felting by machine and by hand. She also just recently published a book :

I'm glad she put this book out, because other books seem to emphasize the $300 felting machines (like I need another toy!).

She said she does a lot of her felting work traveling on planes. That surprised me a little, but seems more appealing than other types of handwork while traveling. I was surprised that she was able to take those needle-felting needles on a plane. Perhaps that's what I'll take on my next trip!