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Arts Center invites you to step into the crazy quilter's world

April 20, 2012|By BOBBIE CURD | bobbie@communityartscenter.net

Bobbie Curd / bobbie@communityartscenter.net

The Community Arts Center’s crazy quilter is at it again, and this time she’s inviting others into her world of colorful madness.

Pat Isaman, our resident artist whose wall-hangings adorn the upstairs Farmers Market Gallery through April, is offering two special sessions next month of “Liberated Basket Quilting.” Isaman invites anyone who considers themselves an intermediate to advanced quilter to join her for two different sessions of quilting technique shared through the mind of a progressive — some say alternative — non-traditional quilter.

“The class name is the title of the quilt — it comes directly from a book written by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston, called ‘Collaborative Quilting,’” Isaman says. She describes the method of technique, which author and quilter Marston coined “liberated quilting.”

Isaman says it’s simply the construction of quilt squares without using a formal pattern.

“You freely cut into the fabric, thus liberating yourself from the formal pattern, and just having fun — letting your eye and hand dictate where you are going.”

Is this quilting gone mad for the traditional quilter?

“Once students start to work in this method, they usually don’t go back to more traditional ways of making quilts,” Isaman says.

The method is attractive to her because it is totally fun and joyous, there’s no measuring — or at least very little of it — and you don’t have to worry about the precision that usually accompanies making a traditional quilt.

So, to use the words of Community Arts Center Program Director Brandon Long: Don’t you overthink your art?

“Freddy Moran uses bright, clear colors and that’s what I love about her quilts — that’s what appeals to me,” Isaman says. She wants participants to feel creatively free.

Should students plan on taking both sessions if they are serious quilters?

“The students usually want to take more classes like this, and they develop skill sets that they can use to design their own quilts, instead of copying everyone else’s!” Isaman says.

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