Monday, September 24, 2012

Lola Jenkins comes to Pelham Quilters!

As a TQS (The Quilt Show by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims) Star Member, I get to watch all the available shows.  To be honest I watch some and not others, all depending on how interesting the subject 'sounds', or if I know the featured quilter.  Well, when I saw the intro for the show featuring Lola Jenkins, I almost didn't watch it.  In fact, I think the show had been available for a couple of months before I did.  Boy,  was I glad I did!

First, Lola was a very entertaining guest on the show.  She is energetic and bubbly, with this interesting voice. Yes, interesting is the only way I know how to describe it :-).  But what really got me was her personal story, how she came to quilting and how she tackled each step along her journey.  It is a very moving story!!  Please watch if you can.

But what got me to reach out to her, was when she said she had a goal of visiting every guild in the country.  So I emailed her and asked if she wanted to visit our small, casual guild in Pelham, NY.  She responded immediately, saying she would LOVE to come and that she was presently scheduled to be in NY in September, 2012.  So we booked her, and boy was that a smart move.

Yesterday, Lola taught her Fantasy Landscape workshop to the Pelham Quilters, or at least 9 of us and 3 guests.  We had a ball.  Lola shared her secrets of looking at fabrics with an eye for the scene we have in our minds, vs what fabric as a whole.  She shared the 1/3's principle of design and guided us to our own, COMPLETED, top of the day.

That is right, everyone in the class completed a landscape top and earlier than we had expected!

Let me share with you some pictures from the day....

First, pictures of the quilts she brought with her as inspiration...

This first piece is from Lola's online Art Deco class.  She uses it as a sample for the class.  It is a whole cloth style quilt, with black thread as the basis of the design and then the fabric is "colored" in with colored pencils and other coloring aids.


Each of the following pieces are done using Lola's collage approach.  I tell you, I will never look at fabric the same again!




It is amazing to see what can be done by clipping pieces of fabric from many different pieces of material and pasting it down!













Here are some of the pieces that were completed in this one day workshop...

Barbara and her Apollo Jazz scene.  To you recognize her sky from one of Lola's quilts.  Funny they had a lot of the same fabrics!















Cheryl's piece with her fire sky...




















Donna's, City meets Africa cityscape...  As always Donna listened to the instructions and thought out of the box.  This was supposed to be a 'fantasy' landscape.  I think she captured the essence of "fantasy".


Doris, one of the doll ladies joined us and did a serene, calming landscape...

 Doris Green and her gorgeous water scene. I love the boys running by the river bank.  Sorry Doris, it is prettier than you think....


















Dorothy's inspiration fabric had these gorgeous fall tree's...



















Jacqueline another of our guest for the day, did a wonderful desert scene...



















I love Lorraine's New England scene with a lighthouse and sail boats...



















Here I am with my second Sister Chat piece or as I will call it, Sister Chat II !


















And a former member of Pelham Quilters, Gwyn, a doll maker and Doris's sister as she adds the last rock surrounding the river.
 Now, the queen of landscape collage, Ms. Sandra herself. Her birds are lovely as usual.  Sandra and Donna would ruin the class curve if this was a real art class :-). 




















I love June's farm scene.  It looks like a little bit of Tuscany. 

It was a wonderful day, with a wonderfully group of talented women.

A special THANKS to Lola for traveling all the way from Oklahoma City in her PT Cruiser, with her sister Darlene as her co-pilot!



1 comment:

Ellen Ann Craig said...

Thank you for haring your class experiment! I saw her on TQS too and have wanted to take a class with her too! Love the completed tops! They are all beautiful!