Last week I had the most fun experience attending Craft Napa 2017 in Napa California!

It was a whirlwind three days of sewing, glueing, cutting, sharing, learning and laughing!

I took three workshops, each taught incredibly well by a different very talented artist.

With Lyric Kinard‘s “Crazy Collaborative Collage” workshop, we went back to the basic elements of design: color, value, line, shape and texture; and practiced design principles of balance, relationship, focal point, repetition and unity.

Lyric’s workshop

Lyric made it different and fun by having us practice these principles while collaborating on fabric-collage. You never knew when she was going to ask you to pass your piece to your neighbor, or get up and move to somebody else’s supplies. By doing so, she ensured we stayed focused in the process and did not get attached to the outcome, thereby enforcing her rule #1: no masterpieces!

Lyric Kinard and me

Classmates in Lyric’s class look over the fabric postcards we made.

Face cards that a classmate and I made of each other. Don’t yell Lyric but I think they are masterpieces 😉

In Victoria Findlay Wolfe‘s “Thunderstruck Star Improv” workshop we used her diamond acrylic template, learned improve slashing, accurate corner piecing and Y-seams while working toward a modern take on the traditional LeMoyne star. Victoria blogged about the class here.

Victoria Findlay Wolfe at the sewing machine

Victoria Findlay Wolfe demonstrates

I finished one of four eventual units of the Thunderstuck Star

In Leslie Tucker Jenison’s improv piecing workshop, we played with negative space, surrounding the “leading ladies” of our bold graphic center blocks with shades of grey “supporting actors.” We learned how small insertions/inclusions of coordinating color on the grey add “wow” and unify the quilt.

Leslie Tucker Jenison shows an example of the technique she will teach

Leslie Tucker Jenison shows another example

A few of the inner blocks I made during the workshop.