- To signup and pay via credit card: click HERE.
- To signup and pay by check:
– EMAIL programs@northernstarquilters.com with your selection
– NOTE on your check what workshop and MAIL your check (payable to Northern Star Quilters’ Guild) to:
Deborah Tashjian, 6 McDougal Lane, Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567
– Please be sure your NSQG membership is up-to-date (click here to renew or join) before registering as a member.
IRENE RODERICK
Dancing with the Wall: Improv Irene-Style Quick-Step
MONDAY and TUESDAY, May 6-7, 2024
9:00 am to 6:00 pm each day with an hour for lunch
Members $150
Live, in-person, 2 days at the Millwood Firehouse on 100 Millwood Road in Millwood, NY 10546
Come spend two days with Irene and learn how to let your sub-conscience and creativity drive you to make a unique expression of your individual aesthetic and process. Using only two contrasting colors, you will learn how to construct the individual components used to make an improv Irene-style quilt. You will discover how fun it is to make many types of stripes, triangles, squares and curves in new and original ways. Expect to leave with a piece in progress as well as all the techniques to pursue this approach to improv quilting.
About two weeks before the workshop Irene will send copies of her handouts and links to two of her videos–one on components and one on skinny lines.
Please sign up promptly. If there is enough interest and registration and this workshop closes out early, a second class can be arranged with Irene.
To learn more about Irene Roderick, visit her website: Irene Roderick
You can purchase her book at your local quilt or book store, or order on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Supply List
- Sewing machine and all stuff that goes with sewing: scissors, rotary cutter, cutting mat, marking pens/chalk, pins for pinning pieces together and for putting onto design wall, thread, etc.
- A quilting ruler at least 4”x14”. Helpful for squaring up components made improvisationally
- Design Wall at least 4 x 6’ – or if design walls are provided, a piece of flannel or batting at least 6×7’
- Spray starch and spray water bottle
- Fabric – 2 yards each of 2 colors that play nicely together and you love! The two colors need to be high contrast and solids (ombres work quite well for this workshop!).
About Irene
My artwork is currently grounded in the textile arts, focused on quilt making and fabric dyeing. I am trained as a painter and I have always been interested in pattern and color and how these elements can evoke emotional and political responses. A few years ago, I encountered modern quilting and loved the idea of making a “utilitarian painting.” I learned to quilt and accidentally discovered improvisational quilting, an intuitive, spontaneous process I call “dancing with the wall.” The technique opened up a new-found creativity for me. This work is entirely intuitive and visceral.
I begin by placing a scrap of fabric in the center of my design wall and then grow the quilt one element at a time, responding to each “step” until it feels balanced, interesting and joyful. When I begin, I do not know what is going to happen but create through trial and error, literally dancing between the wall, the cutting mat, the sewing machine and the iron. Through this act of making, I have learned to embrace the joy of creative intuition, spontaneous expression, and a blind trust in process.