My workshops focus not only on what you make in the workshop, but also what happens to you during the class - not merely the gaining of skills in the process and techniques we explore, but also in your future use of those approaches in your quilt-making. Students are encouraged to experiment, to express personal responses to questions, to discuss ideas, explore innovative and intuitive choices, and employ creative decision-making. All of my workshops include brief visual presentations throughout the day, group discussions, individual and group conferences. All emphasize original design, work-wall experimentation, the use of expressive color, a love of the quilt-makers' art, a respect for the quilt-making tradition & a willingness to add to the heritage rather than merely repeat it.

I have never taught workshops in which students make a 'Judi Blaydon' quilt, because I believe that inside every quilt-maker there is at least one quilt that no one else can make as well, as beautifully and as eloquently - a quilt that deserves to be made by the one person who is willing to speak from the heart and take sole responsibility for the content, as well as the expression of that content.

• The ARTful Quilt More info about this new workshop
In the ARTful Quilt workshop, the colors, patterns, textures and visual content of interior settings and/or exterior environments found in iconic paintings will be the inspiration for quilts with limitless possibilities! By focusing on details and fragments found within a painting, pictorial imagery will be taken out of context and transformed into abstract design resources generated by intuitively-chosen isolated views taken from multiple color copies of the painting. These elements will be layered, multiplied, mirrored and manipulated in experimental formats to create a paper collage inspired by the painting. Your quilt will be a fabric translation of your collage, combining the vision of the artist and the voice of the quilt-maker.

• After-Image+Photo-Finish
Abstract collage elements from black-and-white photographs become the preface for an innovative quilt - a design diagram that will be transformed via the colors, patterns, textures and visual content of the fabrics you use to communicate a theme that is real or imaginary, lyrical or literary, memory or dream.

• Transformations
Our understanding of value contrasts can be used to suggest transparent layers lit from within. You'll make a Portfolio, a hand-made reference, that will record several different types of transparencies, and experiment with sewn blocks.

• Mist on the Moon
Challenges you to use transparency concepts in pieced blocks that suggest clouds of light passing across the surface of imaginary planets.

• Collage+Cloth=Quilt
The workshop that inspired the book. Fragments of photos are combined, layered and arranged to make a collage 'sketch' that becomes the map for a quilt that no one but you can make.

• Individual Interpretations=Diverse Designs [You Like Tomato / I Like Tomahto]
We’ll begin with an identical asymmetrical geometric motif and allow the colors, visual content, patterns and personality of the fabrics you bring to the workshop to introduce expressive interpretations originating from that single inspiration. The design motif will be repeated, spun, mirrored, multiplied, manipulated and expanded to create innovative multi-block pieced quilts that affirm your personal style, via intuitive approaches and inventive design solutions.

• The Elements of Design: A Visual Language
Build a portfolio of college-level two-dimensional Design Exercises and look at quilts-in-progress with a critical eye, to make informed Design decisions that result in eloquent quilts.

• Drawing the Line: Beginning Drawing for Quilt-Makers
Drawing for its own pleasures, and for its myriad applications to quilt-making. Drawing Foundations. If you already draw like Leonardo da Vinci, you don't need this class!

• White-on-White: Lace Crystals and/or Quilting a Geometric Surface
Two workshops that offer a multitude of ideas for innovative quilting designs, either stitched by machine or by hand. Let your quilting do more than just hold the layers together - let it enhance and enrich your quilt!

• As the Spirit Moves You (interactive studio)
You'll determine the goals; I'll offer support, motivation, challenges and critiques-on-request, as you progress from concept to completed quilt top.

Note: some of my workshops work best as 4-5 day studios, but most can be adapted to your needs and interests.

• email Judi for complete descriptions and details about workshops, including fees, scheduling and resumé. Please include your postal address, email & phone #.