I didn’t post all last week because I was away at a Nancy Crow workshop! I’ve wanted to attend one for five or ten years. Probably from the first year she started holding them. I was never able to do it when I was working full time, or in the few years since I started working from home, so I was thrilled when it worked out for me to attend this year.
I signed up for the Strip-Piecing and Restructuring workshop as soon as it was announced last fall, and I started gathering my supplies last November. It sounds funny, but I knew it would take a while to get all the fabric she asks her students to bring, and then I came across a terrific sale on Kona cottons ($3.83 a yard!) on Thanksgiving Day weekend, so I decided to buy as much as I could then. That gave me all of December to pre-wash, fold, and organize it. Wouldn’t you know, I still ended up making a quick run down to Fabric Shack two days before I was supposed to arrive for the workshop. Any excuse to go fabric shopping, I guess. It is definitely different buying fabric online versus in person when you can see the exact color.
I arrived for the workshop on Sunday which gave me the opportunity to haul everything in and set up my stuff. Then they had a welcome dinner so we could get to know the other students. There were twelve ladies in my Strip Piecing class, which was taught by Nancy Crow. There were at least that many students or more in Elin Noble’s clamp-resist dyeing workshop which was held downstairs. You can read one account of that workshop on Janet Jo Smith’s blog.
The facility is beautiful. They moved a pre-Civil War timber frame barn onto their property and rebuilt it. It is spacious and well-lit. There was lots of room to spread out without bumping into anyone else, and we had huge design walls to work on. It’s true that Nancy asks for you to do a lot of work. I started by 7 or 8 AM each day, other than the first, and I worked until 8 or 9 PM each night. Of course, that was broken up throughout the day by gourmet lunches, snacks, and dinners. A terrific retreat, really!
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about our first assignment, and Wednesday I’ll show you our second assignment.
Comments
3 responses to “Nancy Crow workshop: strip-piecing & restructuring”
Sounds like a good time! So gld you were able to get away and have a good time.
Have a great day.
Always, Queenie
I would love to do a workshop with Nancy. I am waiting for her to come down to Ausralia. Lucky you.
I do feel very blessed to have the opportunity to learn from her! I’m eager to see how what I’ve learned will merge with my own work.