Cultivating Creativity: Don't Hem Me In!

In this slide and trunk show Karen takes you along on her creative journey as author and quilter and shares with you the quilts she has made along the way. Her focus is on the theme of creativity and making your art uniquely yours. Whether you make traditional quilts, or art quilts as Karen does, we all make creative decisions as we work. Helpful tips can help you get out of a rut and keep your creative spark alive.

Under Construction

(This workshop can be expanded to 2-5 days to complete a quilt top.)

No blueprints are needed to make these houses. Using a no-rules, play with your fabric approach, Karen will show you how to piece and fuse free-form, whimsical houses of varying sizes, shapes, colors and styles. We'll emphasize the individuality of each house through fabric choices, shapes, and level of detail, and then look for places to add fused and dimensional embellishments to further enhance them. You'll put your house blocks on the design wall, find interesting combinations and begin to create your village. In longer classes  we will talk about elements of design, composition and balance and use connecting blocks and spacers to help you create your unique neighborhood.

Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Flowers

Join Karen for a fun-filled day making beautiful blooms based on her book, "Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Flowers." You don't even have to know how to sew for this workshop. Flowers go together FAST without sewing, or FANCY when you embellish with decorative stitching, buttons, and frills. By the end of the day you'll be wearing (at least one!) one-of-a-kind flower pin and clutching a bouquet of no-wilt blooms.

Postcards From the Edge

Ready for a vacation? Spend a day having fun, relaxing, and being creative, then send postcards about the fun to all your friends. We'll play with fabric, fusibles, pens, embellishments and decorative stitching to make one-of-a-kind postcards (or mini-quilts, invitations, announcements, thank-you's) ready for mailing. This class is a good time to try out unusual threads and decorative stitches.

Jen's Closet Quilt

Make this fun, easy wall quilt top based on Karen's pattern for Jen's Closet quilt as seen in her book "Fast, Fun and Easy Fabric Flowers." This project goes together like a breeze with the easy-to follow pattern. Then you add your personal touch by embellishing the purses, hats and shoes with fabric flowers of your own design. Tack on a few buttons and trims and it's ready to admire.

Shelby's Spring Flowers

Fusing is fast and fun. Join Karen Flamme, author of "Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Flowers" to make her "Shelby's Spring Flowers" pattern. By the end of the day you'll have a vase of fabric flowers with button centers ready to hang on your wall. The quilt goes together quickly as you learn to use simple templates, fuse and make dimensional flowers for embellishments.