2017 Julia Gahagan Workshop
A Miniature Quilt Workshop with Julia Gahagan – by Sue
Fifteen Shirley Quilters joined Julia to learn a really quick and easy technique to make a mini quilt using the theme of ‘Little Villages.’
We were greeted with a lovely display of Julia’s own work giving us plenty of ideas. She gathered us round and talked us through the process she uses and gave us handouts. We were advised to stick to A4 or a smaller size. Most of chose an alpine village using Christmas fabrics. Julia gave us lots of tips such as not cutting the shapes over your background fabric and sneezing in the vicinity before gluing them down! She showed us a boat seat she has bought and recommends for anyone who has back problems (found at ‘Force 4 Chandlery,’ it was reduced to £39.95.)
The morning was spent designing our quilts looking at colour and perspective when cutting and placing the houses and trees on the mountains. Patterned fabrics were chosen with small designs. After sticking the pieces on the background we placed the shadow fabric, a soft tulle net, on top and away we went with wavy quilting or free machine embroidery. The binding was then attached and additional embellishment e.g. buttons and embroidered trees can be added.
Claire very kindly manned the urns all day so that we had tea and coffee when needed. Julia emphasised that we should work at our own pace and were not to panic so the day was very relaxed. Amazingly we all got to the final stages or completed our quilts and were really pleased with the results.
Photographs of this workshop can be viewed in the Gallery.