Jen Kingwell is an accomplished quilter who has significantly impacted the modern quilting scene.
Born and raised in rural Australia, Jen draws inspiration from her travel adventures and the natural beauty of her surroundings at home in Torquay, Australia. Jen published numerous patterns, booklets, and the popular Quilt Recipes. Jen's talent and dedication have earned her numerous accolades, including winning the prestigious 2023 Rajah Award. Her work has been featured in leading quilting publications and exhibited in shows worldwide.
Unleashing the Power of Color:
A Journey into Quilting and Creative Confidence
Join Jen Kingwell as she shares her creative journey and expertise, encourages confidence, and helps you unlock the limitless possibilities of color in your quilting endeavors. With over 30 years of quilting expertise and a knack for combining unexpected hues, Jen has become renowned for her unique use of color. Jen will address the common challenges of choosing colors for quilting projects. She understands the daunting nature of color selection and aims to empower her audience to trust their instincts and grow confident. By sharing her personal experiences and insights, Jen will break down the barriers of traditional color rules, encouraging participants to embrace their individuality and unleash their creativity.
Cindy Grisdela is the creative force behind C&T books Artful Improv and Adventures in Improv Quilts. As an artist, teacher, and author, Cindy is your go-to instructor for fearlessly learning to use color and mastering improv design. She travels all over the US as an instructor and teaches improv quilting online classes on Creative Spark.
Playing with Colors
Choosing the perfect color palette can be challenging. Fear not—Cindy is here to present four ways to go about choosing a color palette: using the color wheel, her unique methodology for creating an 8-12 color palette, starting with a focus fabric, and being inspired by a piece of art. Using examples of her work, Cindy will illustrate how each of these ideas can work to create an exciting quilt. Learn how to be more confident choosing a color palette that makes your quilt sing—including adding a spark of unpredictability that makes the viewer want another look.
Deborah Boschert, an award-winning art quilt creator, shares her vibrant and layered creative process through her popular books, dynamic workshops, and social media. Joining Creative Spark, she adds positivity and a unique touch to her work with fabric, paint, and stitch, incorporating personal symbols and engaging compositions. Based near Dallas, Texas, Deborah is passionate about fostering individual creative voices in her step-by-step workshops and enjoys travel, crossword puzzles, yoga, and baking brownies.
Using Photos for Color Inspiration
There is so much potential right in your camera rolls! Learn how to pick fabrics from your stash by picking inspiring photos, isolating colors, using online tools to build palettes, and embracing the unexpected. You’ll learn more about how scale, style, and value affect how fabrics work together. These ideas universally apply to different creative projects, including fabric collages, modern quilting, and other mixed-media projects. Deborah's presentation will help you break free from predictable color choices and give you many ideas, inspiration, and practical examples for crafting vibrant color palettes using your own stash of fabrics and photos.
Jennifer Sampou began her design studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and majored in textiles at the University of Vermont. Today, she owns a studio that creates best-selling fabrics and has a quilting book with C&T Publishing, Ombré Quilts.
The Power of Color Proportion
After choosing the perfect color palette, the next puzzle piece is determining the ideal color proportions. Join Jennifer in exploring carefully curated palettes, where she gives you expert tips for manipulating your project's vibe, mood, and overall success based on the proportions you use. Discover the dynamic world of color relativity, where playing with the proportions of just 5-10 colors can unleash a spectrum of infinite possibilities, transforming your projects into a visual masterpiece.
Julia Graves started sewing at ten years old and has always loved fabric, sewing, and general needle arts. She honed her quilting skills through a unique apprenticeship—crafting a quilt for each of her nieces and nephews (there were 35!). Since then, she has made many quilts for special people. Julia’s classes are not just about the stitches; they’re a vibrant exploration of color. Julia enjoys infusing color insights into every lesson, making learning a delightful and fun experience.
Color Magic: Transparency, Luster and Luminosity
Go beyond the basics of the color wheel and learn the secret recipes to create transparency, luster, and luminosity to add depth, movement, and interest to your quilts. Transparency is the appearance of overlapping images. Luster is the appearance of light moving across your quilt, and luminosity is when the colors seem to glow. Join Julia’s demonstration that includes a slide show and trunk show illustrating these concepts, along with step-by-step “recipes” on creating it on your own.
Lynn Koolish is a fiber artist, teacher, and author. She is most known for her bright colors of hand-dyed and hand-painted fabric and mixed-media fiber art. Based in Berkeley, CA, Lynn teaches online and in person throughout California and nationally. Her classes are geared towards all levels of experience. Lynn loves sharing what she knows about fabric painting and dyeing in her beginner-friendly Creative Spark courses.
Re-Color Your Stash with Paints & Dyes
Explore various fabric transformation methods using paints and dyes with Lynn! Learn to enhance your existing fabrics by adding subtle textures, altering the overall color tone while preserving the patterns, or completely transforming the look and color. In Lynn’s demonstration, you’ll develop the skills to change fabric colors and patterns successfully and understand how to utilize the color wheel for effective fabric transformations and combinations.
Lyric Montgomery Kinard is an award-winning quilt artist passionate about sparking the creativity she knows each of her students possesses. With playful support and gentle encouragement, she creates a classroom environment where discovery and joy are the products of a willingness to play and fearlessly learn freely.
Taming of the Hues: A Color Play
In this playful and entertaining demonstration, get a crash course on color, explaining each scheme with entertaining and easy-to-remember metaphors. Lyric helps you understand how colors interact, individually and collectively, because color is ALL about relationships! Join her for an hour of laughter as you look at lovely quilts that will help you understand how colors work. Walk away with valuable and practical knowledge that will simplify your color choices, allowing you to perceive the world with a fresh perspective and appreciate the joy of color.
Sheila Christensen is a C&T author, Creative Grids designer, and a nerdy quilter, particularly drawn to working with triangles in piecing projects. One of her favorite things to do is help people choose color and pattern combinations to make unique quilts. Sheila also loves to figure out ways to get great results and give her students tips that will transform their fabric piecing, especially regarding 60-degree triangles. Aside from being an author and designer, Sheila also designs two pre-cut Puzzle Mystery quilts yearly for Cotton Cuts, based on a formula she developed over ten years ago in her home country of New Zealand.
Raid your Stash: Make Beautiful Quilts From What You Already Have!
Go on a creative journey through your fabric stash and discover how to craft beautiful quilts! Many of us are turning to our stashes to make quilts in the ever-rising fabric market. If you’re not accustomed to purposefully selecting fabrics within a defined range, navigating your stash can be hard to work with. Fear not! Sheila is here to guide you on transforming that seemingly chaotic fabric collection into stunning quilts while maintaining a sense of purpose and intentionality in your choices.
Tammy Silvers has been teaching and sharing her passion for quilting since 2000. She designs batiks and various styles of quilt patterns. Tammy enjoys teaching students from around the world, visiting different guilds, meeting quilts, and seeing all the creativity that makes the quilting world fun.
Creating a Gradation from Your Fabric Stash
Do you love the look of ombré or gradation fabrics? Explore creating a similar effect with your own fabrics. Put your fabric stash or scraps to work and give your next quilt project a unique look and a sense of movement. In this demonstration, Tammy showcases various examples of projects using this technique and then will give a live demo of how to put this technique into practice using your own fabrics. You’ll leave with a deep understanding of how to apply this technique to future quilt projects!
If you're a minimalist, it's time to take the back seat; color and pattern play are Timna Tarr's forte. Timna is an expert instructor, fabric designer, and author. Her goal is to encourage students to see their work in new ways. She'll gladly show you the way and offer her ideas as inspiration.
Scrappy Snacks
Learn how to play with color and pattern with low-stakes commitment! Timna will demonstrate how to dig through your scrap bag to make stripey mini circles. Each circle is its own color study but will play well with others so you can turn them into a larger project. Timna will demonstrate string piecing, color selection, and machine appliqué. Be careful, though; these circles are like potato chips – addictive, and you will want a whole handful!
