FEES AND LOGISTICS

Six Hour In-Person LIVE Workshop $1200 per Day with a required minimum of three days ($3,600) (Workshop is held on location and in person)

One Hour Lecture virtual or in person $600

It is preferred that virtual LECTURES are hosted on the guild’s ZOOM account.
 

INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOPS

BITS & PIECES—DESIGNING FROM THE SCRAP BAG
This workshop is for scrap-a-holics. Learn how to shape, sort, and piece your fabric bits into art quilt masterpieces. While learning how to work with bits and pieces, students will also be given information about improvisational piecing techniques and ideas for taking these techniques and creating original quilts. 

CIRCLE AND CURVE SAMPLER
A complete discussion of all the ways you can improvisation-ally PIECE circles and curves. From braided curves to log cabin circles, students will be led through a series of demos about non-linear improvisational piecing techniques and ideas for taking these techniques and creating original quilts. During the class, students create a collection of circle and curve quilt blocks–great for a sampler.

GAME OF IMPROV
Improv piecing is a method of creating that involves work, chance, technique, exploration, and tenacity. We are going to explore all of these things within the perimeters of a game. Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick your category. This workshop is a full exploration of letting go of expectations and embracing the unknown.

HOW TO BUILD A QUILT
The focus of this workshop is on using up left-overs, bit making (creating small improvisation-ally cut and pieced traditional quilt blocks and units), and composition. In particular, we will be thinking a lot about how to use random pieced units to create an off the grid improv celebration of leftovers!

MAKING PRINTS
Students will learn how to improvisionally piece an assortment of prints—stripes, dots, tracks, and plaids. While learning how to build these new units, students will also be given information about working with solids fabrics, fine craft piecing techniques, and ideas for taking these units and creating original quilt compositions.

PERFECTLY POINTLESS—IMPROV TRIANGLES
The triangle is an elegant shape that can be used to create dynamic quilts. This workshop covers all manner of triangles and ways to improvisation-ally cut and piece them into patchwork art. There is a special focus on working stripes and other prints to create triangles as well as an in-depth exploration of how different angles create different final units. 

RIFFING ON TRADITION—Exploring Design Elements with Quilt Blocks
In this workshop, we combine the basic design elements of art with the traditional quilt block to create interesting, new, and dynamic quilt units. The workshop begins with a presentation of design elements—line, shape, pattern, composition, motion, and color.  We will look at a variety of quilts from all traditions of quilt making to see how individual makers use design elements to create original quilt compositions. From there, students will begin to stitch their own quilt blocks based on design elements.

ROUND & ROUND
Creating an improv medallion quilt is a super fun way to learn about improvisionally piecing within a structure. Students will learn the following things and more—how to piece improv units so that they are approximately the same size, how to do intuitive math, how to create asymmetrical symmetry, and how to create a super satisfying medallion masterpiece.

ADVANCED WORKSHOPS

AROUND THE BEND—DESIGNING WITH CURVES
Advanced workshop for students who are ready to create original compositions that emphasis curvilinear shapes. This workshop takes all the technical skills learned in Circle & Curve Sampler and moves towards an exploration of design and composition.

BIG BOTANY—ABSTRACTION THROUGH COLOR, PATTERN, AND REPETITION
Working from several sources of inspiration grounded in the natural world, students will work through a design process that emphasizes sketching, developing color palettes, creating pattern, and problem solving organic construction issues.

GET IN SHAPE
This design and composition workshop focuses on how to find and stitch small pieced shapes into a dynamic quilt composition. We will cover the following improv techniques—finding inspiration in our daily lives, translating that inspiration into pieced shapes that we can use for creating quilts, and arranging those shapes into dynamic pieced compositions that feature excellent figure ground relationships!

PATTERN IN THE WILD
In this workshop, we will explore complex pieced pattern. We will investigate the use of pattern across cultures, while also educating ourselves on how to create our own individualized pieced pattern work, and incorporate that work into authentic quilt compositions. It is recommended that students have either completed the exercises in the Improv Patchwork book or have taken a previous workshop with me.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE
This piecing workshop is for students who are interested in creating their own original quilt compositions based on subject matter that is meaningful to them. Students will actively search for artistic influences and inspirational subject matter to incorporate into their own authentic quilts. Students will be led through a series of exercises that will result in a final large quilt composition.

THREE HOUR WORKSHOPS

ARTFUL OVEN MITTS (Additional $10 fee for Pattern)
Learn all the basics of quilt making—piecing, quilting, and binding—while creating an artful oven mitt.These are perfect gifts for the holidays and are super fun to make.

BRAIDED CURVES
This is a fun free hand curve class for all skill levels! Students will gain curve confidence through tips, demos, and practice. We will start with the simple improv curve and then move on to braided curves, what to do with leftovers, and how to incorporate these fabulous units into original quilt creations.

COLOR—ITS RELATIVE
Color is the one of the most important components to quilt making. This short and intense workshop is based on a series of mini-lectures and exercises designed to take your color usage to the next level. (Three Hour Workshop)

LINES + TRIANGLES = SQUARES
This workshop empowers students to take the basic shapes of patchwork to a new level. We will start by learning how to create improvisation-ally cut and pieced stripes. These “stripes” made into traditional patchwork shapes will be the basis for creating dynamic patchwork.

PIN-WHEELERS
Students will explore creating original strip sets that they will then cut on the diagonal to make interesting Pinwheelers—a pinwheel block made of line! Learn all about pieced improv line while creating some super interesting Pinwheel blocks.

PODTASTIC PODS
Learn the basics of cutting and piecing improvisationally while stitching impov pods. Pods are leaves, are cups, are boats, are hills, are MORE. We are going to explore this simple improvisationally cut and pieced curved shape from all angles. We will also talk about the fundamentals–including technical and design details– of curved improvisational pieced pods. It is great fun!

THE PLAID EXPERIMENT
In this class, we learn how to cut and piece without a ruler while exploring how to construct a basic plaid that can be used to create fun and original quilts.

LECTURES

BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH QUILTS
In 2014, Maria Shell spent two months as an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina. While there, she worked weekly with a formerly chronically homeless community now living in Moore Place. By teaching basic sewing skills to the residents, she developed a relationship with the residents of Moore Place that eventually lead to the making of a community quilt that celebrated the residents and their journey towards finding a home and a community. Share her wonderful story.

PATCHWORK TO ARTWORK—JOURNEY OF AN ALASKAN QUILT MAKER
Quilt Artist Maria Shell will share her work from her first stitches to her most recent pieces along with some fun stories about trying to quilt while raising three boys in the wild lands of Alaska. Maria’s work is grounded in the the tradition of American patchwork while also connecting to both the modern and art quilt moments. It is journey filled with laughter, dark Alaskan nights, and lots of stitching.

SHOW YOUR WORK!
How do you get from nervous & shy stitcher to exhibiting and talking your work internationally? This lecture details the steps you can take to get out from behind your sewing machine and into the larger world of being a professional quilt maker. 

TRADITIONAL, ART, MODERN—NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Maria Shell started out as a traditional quilter, but soon found herself making abstract pieced art quilts that look surprisingly modern. Maria will share her personal journey in and about the traditional, art, and modern quilt movements. Can you be all three? Come to the lecture and find out.

Please click here for a printable pdf of workshops and lectures. 

I love to teach! Please contact me here to schedule a workshop or lecture or ask any questions. Thank you!