On Thursday November 5, 2009 at 1pm, the Kingston Heirloom Quilters celebrated their 30th Anniversary with a talk from Kingstonian, Pamela Allen, at St. John's Anglican Church followed by refreshments and a mini quilt show. About 50 members and their friends joined us for a delightful afternoon. The following week, Pamela gave a three day workshop, "Think like an Artist". Below are pictures taken at both events.

Pamela's Talk
Pamela brought a variety of her art quilts which span her 20+ years of quiltmaking; an evolution from fine arts to paper collage to fibre collage. And she has never looked back, with about 100 entries in exhibitions and shows in the past 8 years. Pamela is energetic, enthusiastic, certainly whimsical, socially conscious, and a collector of an incredible range of embellishments for her quilts. "Anything I can drill a hole in is fair game". She starts each project with a blank "canvas" and lets the quilt grow. Her subjects often reflect her life experiences, or make satirical comment, using her artist's perspective in bold use of colour and composition. She has perfected the technical aspects of quiltmaking (with such aids as a 360 degree laser level!) and focuses her energy on the creative aspects. Her work is evolving; there is less emphasis on embellishment and more subtle use of colour now. We are indeed fortunate to have Pamela offer us her 3 day workshop "Think Like an Artist", an approach which is will surely benefit us and a most appropriate way to start us on our next 30 years!

Pamela told us stories from her life through her quilts. We caught her enthusiasm, her passion for life and for quilting. We laughed and laughed. How often have you seen garters in a quilt? (Note the buttons down the front of Grandma's dress below.) How about curlers? Say, do you hate vacuuming? Pamela takes all her loves and hates into her quilts. That quilt was called "Snake Charmer"! Look carefully and you can see the curlers along the left side of her dress. What else can you say but what Simone did when she thanked Pamela: "WOW!"

To see more pictures from the talk click here.

To see more of Pamela's quilts, be sure to visit her web page at http://pamelart.homestead.com/titlepage.html

The Mini-Quilt Show
After a delightful talk and show of 18 quilts, guests were invited to enjoy some refreshments and then see a mini-quilt show featuring work from the Kingston Heirloom Quilters. There were several group quilts from the past along with many quilts and wall hangings made by members. A "work in progress" pinned to a sheet, was hung as well - our Fashion through the Decades.

To see more pictures, click here.

The "Think Like an Artist" Workshop

Comments:

Donna Hamilton
Pamela's workshop was wonderful! She got us started quickly. "Just do it!" she said. And we did and it worked. She got my confidence going and others also, I'm sure. Maybe I have some artist in me despite myself.
There are not many workshops where you come home with 2 projects per day. But we did. The bad news is that I now want to collect all types of fabric, all the little things my kids played with when they were young, and all kinds of things that we find in the Dollar Store at a time when I'm suppose to be DOWNSIZING! The good news is that I now know how I can use all that junk that I've collected including all the stuff I gave away last month! Ohhh, the frustrations of learning new methods!
Mary Ann did a great job organizing the 3 fun-filled days. Many, many thanks!

Mary Catherine Robb
Fun, challenging, fun, mind-bending, fun, wonderfully creative, fun...some of the words that were heard at the Pamela Allen workshop last weekend. Pamela in her relaxed informative style had us working on projects that encouraged fabric creativity with happy abandon. As a result we took home about 6 small wall hangings ( lessons ) that we will continue to work on ( aka UFO's ) !!

Jocelyn Ezard
The workshop was challenging - time restraints for setting up backgrounds and using uneven pieces of fabric. We were encouraged to stretch our creativity and we did it all while having a lot of fun. Pamela was knowledgeable and informative.

Mickie Beauchamp

The three days I spent with Pamela was a wonderful experience for me. It took the whole three days for the creative juices to get it all together but I found that maybe I am an artist of one kind or another.

Anjali Shyam

Pamela kept us busy thinking and working at all times; it was very fast paced! It was also very refreshing; I didn't have to measure anything and I could work with whatever fabric was available. However I have come home with a few more UFO's and now I can't throw anything out anymore, including broken watches (I had just thrown out one, before the 'Pamela' experience). I would love to do another work shop with Pamela, soon!

Send questions and comments to: khq at quiltskingston.org
Last modified by dhh: November 20, 2009