Out & About: Katie Pasquini Masopust workshop

detail of the finished quilt

Last May (yes, I can’t believe it was so long ago!), I had the privilege of participating in a workshop led by the well known quilt artist, Katie Pasquini Masopust at the Studio, Loch Lomond.  It was five full days and I really enjoyed it.  The subject was from watercolour to finished quilt.  By the end of the five days, all I had to do was bind the quilt... which is why it has taken me so long to share it.  As June was rather busy with PomPoms and then other things took over, I only got round to finishing it a few weeks ago.  

The finished quilt

 I learnt a lot from Katie and her process is really interesting.  This is a quick and rather abbreviated summary of what we did.

My original watercolour

We painted lots of watercolours (most of mine were disastrous but the aim wasn’t to create a great watercolour painting, just source material), then we selected the best bits of each one before deciding which one to make into a quilt. 

The selected detail to make into a quilt

These were then traced and blown up in full sized patterns, which were meant to be copied exactly.  She also does ‘proper’ appliqué – none of this raw edged stuff – and showed us her technique. 

The back of my applique

 

Laying out the pieces to applique

Applique in progress

 

Finally, Katie heavily quilts her pieces to add interest and tends to use a similar coloured thread to the fabric, using a different pattern for each area.

Quilt ready to be trimmed

Being awkward, I was the only person in the class who created a horizontal piece, but now that it is complete and trimmed down to rectangle, I think I may prefer it to be hung vertically. 

 

It was a great learning experience, not just for what I learnt, but for what I also discovered about my own working practices.  For instance, I don’t like working to exact patterns, I want things to evolve and life is just too short not to use raw edge appliqué (besides I like the effect)!  Also, I like the quilting to add to the design as well as the texture of the piece. Overall, it was a great experience and even though I am highly unlikely to make another quilt like this (it is Katie’s technique after all, not mine), well worth going to.