Here is this year’s 12″ donation quilt for the annual SAQA Benefit Auction , in which I participate every year. The auction money raised helps fund the programs and activities of the Studio Art Quilt Associates organisation, many of which I find very worthwhile. I’ve been a member for many years, and as my geographic location prevents me from being hands on at events, contributing to the annual auction is something I can do from afar.

Although I have not made anything new since mailing that in at the end of April, I have been pretty busy. I mentioned earlier I’ve been invited to teach at Gramado this coming September, and apart from learning some basic Brasilian portuguese, I’ve spent quite a bit of time revamping the beginner and advanced freehand (improvisational) workshops that I’ll be teaching, with help from my wonderful portuguese teacher Moira Riccetto Blanco, who is learning a great deal about improvisational patchwork along the way! Of course, I’ll be demonstrating the basic construction steps. But I will also have powerpoints for each class that cover/reprise those basic techniques, with some ideas sources, along with references to my own work. Moira’s watching that my very brief captions make sense. The PPPs will be shown either on demand or in a loop once everyone gets sewing – it all depends. Bearing in mind that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that I enjoy assembling PPPs, this has all been very absorbing.

In addition to being invited to teach, I am being featured as a master quilter through an exhibition of 12 of my own quilts. So, of course I expect some people will want to talk to me about them, and I’d like my answers to make some sense 🙂

As each class is only 6 hours, I don’t want students to be laboriously taking notes, instead I want them to be learning by doing. I know people usually love to start to make something and if possible finish it in such workshops, and while ‘finish’ might not be possible in such a short time, I’m sure everyone would rather sew than take notes! I myself have no trouble listing a few key words and doing a quick diagram, but not everyone can manage that while they’re listening or watching.

The beginners’ class is on day 1, and the advanced class is on day 3. On every day, the festival program will feature many workshops, and demonstrations, plus exhibitions and the razzle dazzle of a vendors’ mall featuring new fabrics, books, notions and demos. I myself could be blown away as ‘they’ tell me Brasilian fabrics are marvellous. Each student will receive brief aide memoire notes of the workshop in their own language (portuguese, spanish or english) with pics and/or diagrams of what was covered. Wanting to inspire with the thought that undulating lines are everywhere in nature, I collaged a set of sand ripples with my 2008 SAQA auction quilt, which came out as a really lovely background to some very brief text –