The Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild is pleased to announce our 2024 workshop instructors and lecturers. Our VP of Programs, Jane Clark, has listened to our members and has worked hard to provide a variety of classes and venues. From art quilts to traditional quilts, our guests include an architect, authors, pattern designers, a fabric designer and a podcast host.
Teachers for January, September and November will come to attendees via Zoom. Our March and May teachers will be in-person. July speaker, Deb Strain, a fabric designer for Moda, will also be in-person.
Registration for GAAQG members begins in November 2023. Additional details for each workshop will be available at that time.
We have a lot to look forward to and hope you join us!
Now that we are back to gathering in person, at least most of the time, we’re excited about our inspiring new workshops with a variety of instructors for 2023.
We have scheduled in-person workshops for March, May, September and November at Washtenaw Community College. If unplanned circumstances arise, all our instructors are prepared to switch to Zoom should it become necessary.
After you have looked at all of the classes shown below and reviewed the payment options, refund policy and are an active member of the guild you are ready to register!
Questions? Contact workshopregistrar@gaaqg.com
Note: If your membership has lapsed please contact membership@gaaqg.com. Do not join as a new member.
Online registration requires one of the following payment types:
When paying by check, the online store assigns a pending status.
Mail your check, including your name and phone number, to:
GAAQG Treasurer
Melissa Gregoire
1414 S. Dowling
Westland, MI 48186
Note: When paying by check for either an online or paper registration, your registration is pending until the check is both received and cleared. You will be notified when payment is completed and your registration is confirmed.
Mail-in registration requires a personal check and a completed paper registration form. Please mail both to the GAAQG Treasurer.
Mail your check, including your name and phone number, to:
GAAQG Treasurer
Melissa Gregoire
1414 S. Dowling
Westland, MI 48186
Note: When paying by check for either an online or paper registration, your registration is pending until the check is both received and cleared. You will be notified when payment is completed and your registration is confirmed.
Before placing your order, please review the GAAQG Workshop Registration & Cancellation Policy.
When a workshop sells out, it will be removed from the online store’s list of available products. In this event, you can be added to a waiting list by emailing workshopregistrar@gaaqg.com.
After you have looked at all of the classes shown below and reviewed the payment options, refund policy and are an active member of the guild you are ready to register! …..
Note: If your membership has lapsed please contact membership@gaaqg.com. Do not join as a new member.
Valerie S. Goodwin is a mixed media fiber artist and architect whose works of fine art are included in museum and private collections. Most of her work is inspired by a love of aerial views of landscapes and cities. Many of her quilts are based on maps.
She received degrees in architecture from Washington University and Yale University. Her award winning work has been widely published and exhibited. She also lectures and gives workshops nationally and internationally. For over 26 years, she taught architectural design at Florida A & M University.
Her book, Art Quilt Maps: Capture a Sense of Place with Fiber Collage-A Visual Guide is widely available.
Skill Level: Beginner to Advance
In this workshop you will create a series of small, simple and understated art quilt maps that capture the feeling of haiku, written by each student during the course of the class.
The instructor will guide the student through a structured yet nurturing series of steps that provides opportunities to grow and learn.
Although machine stitching in an option, hand stitching is a key part of the workshop.
Kit Fee – $10.00. Kits will consist of special fabrics and laser cut pieces. All kits will be mailed to Jane Clark for pick up. Contact programs@gaaqg.com
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Skill Level: Intermediate to Advance
Name a favorite place.
Is it in your city, your state, the USA or somewhere far away?
In this class, you can design a cartographic map of a favorite location such as your residence or birthplace. Discover the possibilities of creating a map from fabric, paint and thread!
Using a fun and simple series of painted and collaged, mixed- media techniques, you will create a mixed media fiber art map. Valerie will guide you through a series of steps that will provide opportunities to learn about design while giving you the freedom to experiment within a structured framework.
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Deborah Boschert is an artist, author and teacher. She creates art quilts with layers of fabric, paint and stitching. The personal symbols and details in her work reflect her experiences and feelings about places she’s lived and the things she’s done.
Her award-winning art quilts have been exhibited in quilt shows and art galleries throughout the United States and internationally. She has appeared on Quilting Arts TV and The Quilt Show. She is published in many books and magazines. Deborah is the author of Art Quilt Collage: A Creative Journey in Fabric, Paint and Stitch.
Skill Level: All Levels – With Enthusiam
Create original art quilts by exploring a variety of ideas and techniques with layers of fabric, paint and stitch. Experiment with several methods of creating pattern and marks on fabric then begin composing using intuitive ideas.
Students will learn ways to find inspiration, incorporate personal symbols, and create details with stitching by hand and by machine. Plus, explore new creative possibilities with quick exercises, sketches, list-making and mind-mapping.
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Note special day and time!
Skill Level: Intermediate
Want to make quilts that are uniquely yours?
Deborah shares ideas about fully utilizing your head, heart and hands to create original work. Lots of tips for generating ideas, developing a body of work and exploring themes. Get inspired and leave with action items to get to work in your own studio.
Not a project or technique workshop — just notes and exercises with pen and paper, plus lots of interaction, discussion and ideas.
Supplies: pen, sketch book or paper for note-taking and a few markers or colored pencils.
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Skill Level: All Levels
Design an original landscape collage using graphic shapes.
Learn composition tips and new ways to think about principles of design. Create detail and add texture with hand embroidery and machine stitching.
Plus, we’ll look at lots of examples of how other artists have created unique landscapes.
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
NESTLINGS by Robin is Koehler’s design business where she imagineers new ways to combine applique’ ideas with piecing to create her Whimsical-Traditional style. Her business was opened in 2004 and is a Quilt & Surface Pattern Design, Pattern Publishing, hand quilting services, & AQS Certified Quilt Appraisal business. Robin’s designs can be found in quilt shops and magazines throughout the world.
She has had multiple quilts juried into AQS Paducah and Mancuso Mid-Atlantic shows; but she truly loves to design and bring new, original, fun and easy patterns to products and quilters of all skill levels.
Skill Level: Adventurous Spirits
Ever felt like you have too many balls in the air to juggle? Let’s put some of them onto a quilt…you can even label them if you feel the need:) Bounce is a great intro to basic paper piecing with a modern layout and an opportunity to Quilt-as-you-go.
Paper piecing templates and hand outs included
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Skill Level: Adventurous Spirits
Free form, scrap pieced background
Techniques
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Deb Strain is a fabric designer for Moda Fabrics.
Drawing and painting her fabric designs by hand, Deb has created over one-hundred collections since she began working with Moda. She loves working with different colors and patterns, the more intricate the better!
A life-long passion for art led Deb to teaching art before becoming a designer. Her artwork has been featured on many different products over the years – calendars, greeting cards, garden flags, books, framed prints and more. Recently, she and Scott proudly launched a line of notecards for sewing and quilting enthusiasts titled “Sew Noted”.
With traveling to see her children, creating new fabrics and collections, and other types of new art, Deb’s life is happily filled with color, creativity and lots of hugs!
She will be bringing 6-8 door prizes AND Selling her products! You will want to be present for this one!
Author, pattern designer, and national quilting instructor Beth Helfter has one rule about quilting – it’s supposed to be fun. With that in mind, along with her company motto of “Inspired Designs, Relaxed Attitude,” Beth brings visionary designs and techniques to her patterns and exuberance and encouragement to the classroom.
As a mostly scrappy designer, Beth prefers to dig into her stash to create designs and patterns that appeal to her senses of color and value, using as many different fabrics as possible. Keeping to just a few color families in each quilt palette is one of her best tricks to keeping scrappy quilts from getting too out of hand but allowing them to sing with tone and movement. Her lecture “Consistency in the Chaos” seeks to inspire quilters to think about scrap quilts and pull fabrics to make them shine without overwhelming the eye.
Her penchant for scraps and her need to use as many fabrics as possible in her quilts led her in 2017 to develop the Accordion Sewn HSTs™ method of creating half square triangles that don’t have a match and yet waste no fabric. Her book “Oompah! Jazz Up Your Scrap Quilts With Accordion Sewn HSTs™” was published in 2018, and “Another Round of Oompah” was published in 2020.
If you haven’t yet tried the Accordion Sewn HSTs – Half Square Triangles
yet, it is time! It is incredibly fun and addicting, but it doesn’t just make cool little accordions; once you cut them apart, your quilts are halfway done! This workshop ups your skills and nearly all the HSTs are sewn all at once! Keep it scrappy or not, once you learn the technique and see how easy this is, you will want to ad apt this into all your HST sewing!
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Skill Level:
This is a quicker version of the Hurdy Gurdy throw.
Learn to use Accordion Sewn HSTs method while creating this stunning version of a classic block using gorgeous scrappy HSTs. You will be amazed how the blocks lay out almost like magic!
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Brandy Maslowski is a quiltmaker, textile artist and teacher known for her pursuit of more joy and less overwhelm in the classroom.
She loves exploring the texture, colour and boundless possibilities of fabric and stitch. She travels the world to educate, speak and ignite creativity with the tag line More Joy, Less Overwhelm. Her weekly Quilter on Fire Podcast has exploded on the quilting scene over the last 2 years and the feedback has overwhelmed her inbox with joy.
She is also a BERNINA Ambassador for Canada and founder of the SQUARE ONE 3 day Textile Art Bootcamp and the Confident & Creative Textile Artist Masterclass.
Skill Level: Beginner
Join Brandy for a step into textile art. Play with your favorite fabric scraps, embellishments, and beads to create a beautiful textile art piece mounted on wood panel. Dive into those favorite fabrics you never cut up! Pull out all your tucked away yarns, ribbons and more. This class gets into your treasures and has you playing with color.
Students finish this one-day workshop with an art piece complete and ready to hang on the wall
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
Skill Level:
In this workshop we make gorgeous improv hexagons in the morning to adorn the artful frontof our bag and then complete the project assembly in the afternoon.
For students who love to take their time with a project, they can focus their entire day on the bag front and finish the bag on their own at home with the full professional pattern. For students who want a quilt rather than a bag, Brandy will teach stitching the hexies in multiple sizes, stitched by machine or by hand so they can make it into a quilt.
Click on the date of the workshop in the box below for supply lists and details.
