Gwen Marston Class - Small Sketches

My first class at Taupo Symposium was two days with Gwen Marston.  Gwen was kind of the 'headline' act at Symposium.  She had a special exhibition of her quilts showing at the Taupo Museum.  She is a prolific quilter, book writer and quilt teacher and is wonderfully encouraging and knowledgeable.

We spent time learning a few of her techniques for making small units, inserting thin strips of fabric and  constructing different triangles and then we set to making our own small studies.  These are our first lot hanging on the notice board and by the end of the second day we had almost filled the wall.

I had lots of fun and I can see this type of work being useful for working out ideas and colour schemes and maybe a jump off point for bigger works.

We had a wee break during lunch for the obligatory fire evacuation - no actual fire - but apparently there was a fire evacuation at the Wellington Symposium too.  Will there be one at Manawatu in 2015?!

These are my three studies that I had completed by the end of the two days.  As you can see, I wasn't big on triangles - I did make some, but they didn't get used.  I really liked the vertical energy created by using the long strips and then the little peeks of interest created by the striped fabrics and dashes of colour.  I didn't want to stop and I reckon that's a sign of a good class!

At the end of the second day, Gwen kindly did a quick run through of her quilts that she had shown at her lunch-time lecture.  They were all wonderful, but I particularly liked this one's energy and depth of colour.  (Hello Helen!  She was our lovely angel (class helper) for the second day and she is also on the committee for organising the Manawatu Symposium 2015.)