I have put some photos of a wall hangings in my flickr album. The smaller square one was completed on my recent trip to Spain, the long one was completed back home.
Back in the spring I was supposed to be going on a short quilting break taught by Dawn Cameron Dick, but unfortunately due to the course being cut short by an extra holiday there were not enough of us to make it viable and it was cancelled. :-( So I trawled the web and found this site:
Early on Sunday morning I flew down to Gatwick and then checked in for my flight to Valencia feeling a little nervous - remember at this point I had never been to even a half day quilting workshop & I don't belong to a local guild or group! At the gate I spotted two ladies who looked likely prospects and waved my copy of The Quilter at them, they smiled and we introduced ourselves and then sat together on the short (2 hour) flight to Valencia.
After touching down and getting our baggage we identified the others in our group, 8 learners & 1 tutor and then waited for our lift. It was rather warmer in Valencia (30+C, 86+F) than in England so we were glad when Sally & June arrived to pack us and our cases into their people movers and we set off for La Drova. We drove through orange groves and up & up a long windy road and arrived at the villa where we were pleased to find cool rooms, cold drinks and a pool. Later that evening we had our first meal of Billy's wonderful cooking and I resolved that I had to swim each day.
Each day we woke to a continental breakfast at 8.30 and started our "lessons" before the day got too hot. Lunch was a sumptuous buffet of cold meats, salads, vegetables & fruit. Dinner each evening was 3 courses of superb food, lots of fresh vegetables & more fruit and wine if desired. Most evening we followed dinner by a few games of Rummikub sat by the pool - sheer bliss.
Monday we started with some Kunin felt that Yvonne had already coloured with transfer paints and made our first tiles for the square wall hanging, cutting the designs out with hot soldering irons and then distressing them with a heat gun, before mounting them on the main fabric.
Tuesday we worked with Kunin felt again, but this time also with other textural fabrics - scrim, lace, net, string, tyvek etc etc and made a fabric sculpture panel. This we painted all over with white emulsion (latex) and then added further depth and colour with acrylic paints to give the impression of weathered stonework.
Wednesday we tried out the transfer paints for ourselves using them to colour pieces of synthetic fabric & felt and then extended the technique of cutting with a soldering iron to layered sheers.
Thursday morning was spent at the local market where people bought shoes, trousers, tops, paella pans, cans of olives & churros.
Thursday afternoon and all of Friday were spent working on projects we chose using our new cutting & burning skills and completing some of the projects from earlier in the week.
On Saturday we had a prompt start and caught the train into Valencia where we drank coffee, took a cultural bus tour (to stop flooding they moved the entire river from the middle of the city and now have a long ribbon like park cutting through the buildings!), ate lunch while watching two society weddings at the Cathedral, took a tour around the cathedral and finally caught the train back to the local station.
That evening we received our course certificates and had one last meal to enjoy Billy's cooking before tidying up all our fabrics and projects, squeezing them into our cases ready for heading back to the airport in the morning.
The week passed all too quickly and I have made new friends and cannot recommend Sally, Billy & their dedicated team warmly enough. For a whole week I didn't have to think about food, shopping, cleaning, laundry or any of the mundane things in life. I was able to sew, eat, swim and sit in the sun to my heart's delight and it was absolute bliss. The food was superb (have you got that message yet?), the weather hot, but not too hot (it is a dry heat up in the mountains) the company excellent. If you ran out of fabric or needed something a bit different Sally has a quilt shop in her garage with threads, book fabrics and more!
Our tutor, Yvonne Brown, was enthusiastic, positive and always encouraging and helpful as she led us through new and unusual fabric, colouring, handling (& destroying) techniques leaving each of us with a great sense of achievement and a stack of projects to bring home.
I am no longer a workshop newbie and would recommend Sally's courses to anyone. The group was welcoming to those of us who hadn't been to La Drova before and we are all planning when we can next go back to enjoy the Spanish quilting experience.
NAYY
Lizzy