Karen Bolan - May 2024
Bio: Karen Bolan
Karen Bolan is a quilter in Northern California. Drawn to the layers of design and expression possible in quilting, she loves the learning that comes from experimenting. She endeavors to find efficiencies in process and material use. Her designs are out of the box, and integrate a love of geometry, experimentation, interconnection, depth, and texture. Her work has been featured in magazines including Curated Quilts, Modern Quilt Guild Journal, Make Modern, and Modish Quilter, and her quilts have been exhibited at local and international shows including QuiltCon, Pacific International Quilt Festival, and the de Young Museum. Learn more about Karen’s work by visiting her website at https://www.karenbolan.com/ & IG @karen.bolan
Presentation to Guild
Engineer Your Quilts
May 16th 7pm on Zoom
Free yourself from the need to use someone else’s pattern and appoint yourself head of your own design empire. View a gallery of original quilts and learn how to apply the engineering design process to your quilts. Learn to find and use sources of inspiration, harness nifty software and manual tools, and get inspired by approachable improvisational techniques.
WORKSHOP
Special Effects with Color
Virtual, via Zoom
Saturday, May 18th 2024
10am - 4pm PT
Journey into color mastery by creating illusions and tricking the eye. Color is one of the most exciting things about quilting, and yet it’s easy to feel unsure about our choices. By understanding how we see color and then creating illusions with color, students can develop color confidence and giddy enjoyment. In this class, learn to define and use basic color theory terminology; apply the principles of additive and subtractive color as they relate to vision, light, and the physical world; create mutable color illusions; create a color palette with afterimage effects; and create transparency illusions including a complex transparency illusion with more than two overlapping shapes and textures.
Sales Timeline:
Scholarship: Opens March 18th and closes Saturday, April 13th (winners notified Sunday, April 14th).
Sales open to members only: Mon April 15
Supply List:
Basic items to have on hand:
● Pen or pencil for taking notes
● Glue stick
● Scissors, paper or cloth, as appropriate
● Print the class handouts on blank white paper
● Tools: Rotary cutter and cutting mat, acrylic quilting ruler, pins and any favorite notions, sewing machine in good working order, iron and ironing surface, thread for piecing
● Virtual learning supplies: Reliable internet connection, electronic device with screen, webcam, microphone, and speaker to fully interact on Zoom, plus ideally a stable location to set your device with a good view of your working area and screen.
Colors: To have the best result in this class, you will need a lot of different color swatches (fabric and/or paper) in a wide variety of different colors including lights, darks, mediums, bright colors, greyed-out colors, browns, and everything in between. Don’t try to find only colors you like; even the difficult colors will be useful here. Have available as many approximately 5”x5” squares of solid fabric or paper as you can gather.
If you don’t already have a large collection to choose from, here are a few alternatives to get large numbers of color swatches in one place. Any one of these alternatives will give you a good selection for class. Try to find something with a minimum of 50 different colors.
● Color-Aid - This is a set of 314 paper color swatches. It is a good, mid-price option that will give you a good range of colors with which to work. Invest in the largest size you can.
● Kona Cotton (or any other brand) solid color variety charm packs. It would be ideal, but not required, to get all the charm packs: Neutrals and Darks and Brights and Pastels
○ Note: Fabric manufacturer "color cards” do have large numbers of different colors, but they are not suitable for this class as the colors are typically too small.
● Origami paper - This is the most affordable option. The combination of both example packs gives you a good range of colors. Keep in mind that origami paper won’t have as many subtle colors: Vivid Colors and Other Colors