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Hand Dyed Silk Ribbon Flowers

I have always been attracted to the wonderful feel and visual splendor of hand dyed silk ribbons. The subtly of color and the sheen of the silk have a wonderful interplay which begs to be used to form beautiful flowers reminiscent of the Victorian era. During this class, I hope to inspire my students to use both commercial silk ribbons and ribbons you dye yourself to discover new levels of creativity in color and composition. During the first day of our course, we will learn how to fabricate flowers from silk ribbons. Special emphasis will be placed on the use of the color variation in the ribbon to achieve unique effects. From this basis, we will spend the second day "playing" in the dyes creating new silk ribbons for our flower creations. The text is intended to be a guide to enhance your creativity. After learning some basic flower making and dying techniques, I hope that each student will expand upon the lessons learned and invent new ways to use these techniques. Of course, the best part will be sharing in everyone’s excitement as new methods are invented during our exploration.

Class Length: Can be run as 1 or 2 day class
Design Class

Have you ever wanted to design a special sampler for yourself but was afraid to start? In this one day workshop, Tricia will demystify the process by teaching you a codified method to design samplers. We will start by examining the few basic forms that most samplers follow and move on to discuss the use of space, value and weight when choosing patterns and placing motifs. How to include "character and whimsy" in your piece will be one of our subjects so that our piece is both personal and has the same "life" that old samplers possess. In addition to the class text, we will use a wonderful Dutch book "Merklap Motieven" as a source of patterns. Half of our class time will be spent playing with scissors and glue so that each student leaves with a special sampler design of their own. Before class ends, time will be spent discussing color and fabric choice for the samplers and how to balance color. Tricia will bring in many examples of samplers and pieces she has designed to illustrate the entire process including preliminary design papers and cut and paste to show the evolution to finished piece.

Class Length: 1 day class