Craft Napa 2019: Another Wonderful Event

It is possible I am the luckiest teacher in the world.  I always seem to have the most amazing people in my workshops!  I can't tell you how much I enjoy working with students.

Craft Napa has evolved to have a really wonderful culture.  Some people have come every year and new people come each year.  Friendships have developed and people are keeping in touch as a result of this event.  What could be better?  I love teaching at Craft Napa.

This year was no exception!

In my two-day surface design workshop a wonderful group of artists joined me at Pokey's art barn.
We delved into all types of work using a variety of tools to make marks on cloth and fabric.

We really enjoyed our morning meeting and lunch discussions.

How could it have been better?! 

The evening between my two-day workshop I taught a hand-stitching workshop which was equally enjoyable.  I instructed people that it was casual, so much so that they were welcome to come in their jammies.  And.....one person took me up on it!

Frances Holliday Alford, always up for a good time!

Students worked with sheers to create a lovely abstract composition and 

stitched it with embroidery thread.  

This was such a fun evening!

The next day my husband arrived in Napa to do a screening of his film, "Tim's Vermeer", for the retreat attendees.  It was so much fun to have him visit!

He had fun talking to Earomicha.

We had Ritual coffee at the Oxbow Market the afternoon before the screening.

Students enjoyed asking him questions post-screening...

While some of the teachers posed on the floor:

Jamie Fingal, Lyric Kinard, Judy  Coates-Perez, Victoria Findlay-Wolfe, and myself

(counter-clockwise from top left)

 Finally, I taught a ruler-free improv class with the theme of "Housetops and Variations".

Students creatively made compositions with this theme in a variety  of colors and prints.

I certainly hope my students had as much fun as I did.  Truly, being able to interact with all these

wonderful artists is a privilege and I enjoy every moment of it.  

Start Out Your Year in Napa: the Craft Napa blog hop stop!

I hope you are as excited about the upcoming Craft Napa retreat as I am!  I will be teaching all three days, but if I wasn't I would be taking workshops alongside you.  I'm delighted to be teaching with so many wonderful and inspiring instructors.  What a perfect way to jumpstart the creativity for 2016, right?

I've decided to offer these three workshops:
"Intro to Improvisational Piecing: Quilt Design with a Modern Spirit"
"Sweet Little Somethings: Mixed Media Paper & Fabric Collage"
and "Geltastic & Printalicious"

I thought I would show you a bit about all three of them, so come on!

Intro To Improv was inspired by my desire to figure out what people might do with those stacks of die-cut fabric, usually called "Layer Cakes".  I wondered if I could come up with something interesting.

This was the first quilt I constructed, called "Fifty Shades of Groovy".

This quilt was juried into the inaugural QuiltCon show in 2013.

I had so much fun making this quilt that I proceeded to make many more using this basic technique.  Each quilt has its own "personality", and I learned some new tricks along the way which I will share with you in this workshop.  It is a really fun process and is perfect if you are a beginning quilt maker or if you have some serious skills.  As long as you can use a rotary cutter/ruler and know the basic stuff about using a sewing machine, you are good to go!

Here is the most-recent quilt using the same general technique.

This quilt is called "Thoroughly Mondrian Millie" and is queen-sized.

Truly, the possibilities are endless so come explore this fun improv class with me.  Most students get the basic central "unit" constructed in the 6-hour workshop.  

And guess what?  We will have our own beautiful stable of Bernina sewing machines to use all day long!  What?   How great is that?! 

Geltastic & Printalicious is a fun and fabulous way to do some mark-making/printing in a few different ways.  First, we will craft our own unique stamps using fun foam.  We will use the stamps in two ways:  gelatin mono printing and stamping!  We might even make a few rubbings using these same stamps.  Versatile, aren't they?! 

I love using this set of techniques to make all sorts of tags, cards, and more.

Gelatin printing is great when used with stencils, too!

Oh, I use all sorts of crazy tools to make marks.  Come play with me and I'll show you!  I'm writing about this one 2nd because I think these could be used in the third and final workshop.....

Sweet Little Somethings is a very lovely, meditative workshop that I think you will enjoy.  I am one of those people that needs to be doing something with my hands when I have down-time.  I love to have a little project to stitch on when I am in an airplane, the rare times I am a passenger in a car, etc..  I love to stitch!   I combine that with my habit of collecting little bits of ephemera along the path of my travels.  Combining the textures of cloth, paper, and stitch is so much fun and I will show you several approaches I use to do this.  

We will create some basic substrates and use part of the day to simply stitch (using Bernina sewing machines and hand-embroidery, so bring both types of thread!).  What could be better?  Plus, you will have some groovy tidbits to continue working on in your hotel rooms or while you are hanging out with all your new friends during the evenings of the event.

Here are a few things I have made in the spirit of this workshop:

and machine stitching.....

And wait!  There's more!

 CRAFT NAPA is being sponsored by BERNINA and Meissner Sewing and Vacuum Centers.   https://www.meissnersewing.com 

 http://www.bernina.com/en-US

·        Deadline for comments is December 10th at midnight PST.  The grand prize is a $500 Gift Certificate from eQuilter!

Please leave a comment on my blog (and all the others!) to be eligible for the drawing.  Pokey will draw the winner from all blog comments after midnight of December 10th.

Please be sure to visit all the other participants!  Here's the blog hop list:

Nov 30 – Jane LaFazio – http://janeville.blogspot.com/

Dec 1 – Lynn Krawczyk – http://smudgeddesignstudio.com/blog/

Dec 2 – Judy Coates Perez - http://www.judycoatesperez.com/

Dec 3 – Jenny K. Lyon - http://quiltskipper.com/blog/

Dec 4 – Jamie Fingal -  http://JamieFingalDesigns.blogspot.com/

Dec 5 – Melanie Testa – http://melanietesta.com/blog/

Dec 6 – Elizabeth St. Hilaire - http://www.paperpaintings.com/

Dec 7 – YOU ARE HERE! - http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/

Dec 8 – Carrie Bloomston - http://www.carriebloomston.com/blog/

Dec 9 – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com

Dec 10 – Pokey Bolton - http://pokeysponderings.com/