In this class, we’ll explore the possibilities offered by complex textiles while demystifying the nature of symmetry. I’ve distilled thirty years of complex quiltmaking into simple theories that explain my idiosyncratic patchwork sensibility and define my way of thinking about fabric.
We’ll spend the first few days studying two different approaches. After learning design strategies and techniques for each, students can choose to begin a complex kaleidoscope or a Puzzle Quilt.
THE FULL KALEIDOSCOPE:
Students will learn all the unique machine piecing and template techniques I use to create complex kaleidoscopic images while simultaneously exploring the virtues of bilaterally symmetrical fabric. You’ll learn to draft perfect angles and to identify and join different angles together. This product and process class culminates in the creation of a unique and fabulous kaleidoscope block. Often effects more wonderful than you imagine occur, making you both the one who makes the magic and the one who is surprised.
Students who have been in previous classes can opt to work independently with instructor guidance.
THE PUZZLE QUILT:
A Puzzle Quilt is a clever vehicle for combining these elements into a sampler with a secret: each block design is used twice. By using totally different fabric combinations, an illusion is created: each block appears unique. The “puzzle” is to pick out which two are the same. I promise: you will see possibilities in fabric in a whole new way. This class is aimed at the quilter who wants to embrace the potential offered by a wide range of fabric choices rather than be overwhelmed by it. The focus is on design, specifically learning to use fabric to create unexpected results.
NOTE:
Why take a multi-day workshop? In a longer format, the instructor doesn’t need to oversimplify. Time is provided for both process and product and for setbacks — which often turn out to be the takeaways, the lessons that occur when a misstep occurs. Skills get cemented and integrated, making the processes richer and layered. Consider time and space to create among like-minded peers a rare gift to be much appreciated. In the classroom context, seeing what others make is almost as good as making it yourself.
About Paula Nadelstern
Paula Nadelstern (b. 1951) found hers early in her career as a quilt artist, inspired by a bolt of sensuous and beautiful Liberty of London fabric. The bilateral symmetry of the design was an epiphany that stirred Nadelstern’s imagination and that has yielded a seemingly infinite vein of creative expression for more than twenty years. Focusing first on the kaleidoscopic quality in the symmetry, Nadelstern innovated new techniques and developed a highly refined, intricate, and distinctive personal aesthetic. The incorporation of related crystalline forms, notably snowflakes, has continued to lead Nadelstern through an artistic evolution that has encompassed science, history, innovation, and tradition. Each composition offers a fresh revelation of the complexities inherent in Nadelstern’s labor-intensive approach. Minute pieces of fabric are joined like slivers of colored glass into a magical whole, the masterful manipulations of color and pattern resulting in scintillating wheels, shifting ellipses, and other movements across the surfaces of the textiles. The hard-edged, fractal structure of snowflake and kaleidoscopic images might seem inimical to the seductive softness of a quilt, but in Paula Nadelstern’s singular quilt idiom, this provocative tension erases the historical divide between art and quilt.
Rates & Enrollment
Day Student Tuition: $920.00
Full 5-Day Package*: $2,637.85 – $2,851.69
*5-Day Workshop Package includes: Tuition for 5 full class days, 6 nights of dinner, lodging, breakfast, daily cookie and fruit breaks, unlimited coffee and tea, and welcoming wine and cheese reception. Your choice between a room to yourself (single occupancy) or bring a friend and split a room (double occupancy).
Get more information about your options to enroll here.