"Playtime Neighborhood" quilt class

I taught a quilting workshop at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium on May 30, entitled "Playtime Neighborhood in Fusible Applique". In this class I teach the students to draw childlike houses, how to choose the colors so the house shows up on the background, how to use fusible webbing, and how to embellish. The students like it because they don't have to bring a sewing machine, and they get to play and cut up fabric and stick it back together.

It gives them a lot of confidence, because most people think they can't draw. I tell them that the reason they are in my class is because they have seen my quilts with houses on them, and the houses look like they were drawn by a kindergartner. I say, "I draw freehand, without rulers, I don't fold the house in half when I cut it because I just leave it asymmetrical. You liked it when I did it, now you get to draw that way too."

Here are three of the women and their creations.