Life has been crazy busy for the last year, leaving precious little time to blog, so I’ll let one of my students from the Festival of Quilts 2019, Birmingham, England, tell you about her experience. Take it away, Kim…
Having been quilting for a number of years I wanted to expand my skills and fancied having a go at a portrait quilt. At school I was useless at art – drawing – so my confidence level was really low. I wasn’t sure that I could do it but really wanted to have a go – do you know what I mean?
Looking through the Workshop list for the Festival of Quilts in August 2019 I saw a portrait quilting course by Lea McComas. Biting the bullet, I booked a place with severe trepidation. The course list duly arrived, and I began to feel really nervous. What if the tutor laughed at my failing skills? What if everyone else was so much better than me?
Putting on my Big Girl Pants I went along to the course.
Other participants were working on portraits of dogs, grandchildren, husbands, children friends etc. I had chosen to work on a portrait of my long-time idol – Donny Osmond (Husband and Dog assured me that they were not jealous at all)
So I spent a glorious two whole days working on my portrait, Lea being the most marvellous tutor. I will never forget bringing the portrait to life by adding the white of his eye. Obviously two days isn’t long enough to complete a portrait so there was some homework to do and slowly, slowly I plucked up courage to continue my project with lots of encouragement from Lea.
In October I went to London where I met Donny and showed him my quilt so far. I cannot tell you what he said about it as I was quite literally a gibbering wreck. I managed to get him to sign my label too.
Lea I want to thank you for your expert tuition, encouragement and friendship. To those of you who may not have done a course with Lea I really encourage you to do so – you will really learn a lot and expand your skill set.
Thank you Lea.
Kim Wood UK
Here is Kim with her Donny quilt. Some think it looks like she printed the image, but NO. This is a fused appliqué portrait. Want to learn to make your own? Take my online portrait quilt class.