Gwen Marston's Last Hurrah

I'm sure you have heard the news.........Gwen Marston has retired.  For sure................. it's official.  We had the cake to seal the deal.

Gwen taught one last class in LaConner, WA over the weekend and it did not disappoint.  After showing several pieces of her work, the attendee's got busy and dove right into their projects

After lunch we walked up the the PNW Textile & Fiber Museum.  It was the last days of Gwen's exhibit and we had a tour through the quilts with Gwen.

Gwen told us she was allowed to touch the quilts :-)

Home dyed fabrics made up this piece.

Pointing out secondary shapes made with the border triangles bumping against the inner round of triangles.

The workshop was titled, Abstracts in Solids, but true to a Gwen workshop, everyone was in their own zone and worked in their own style.  Some were working small, several medallion pieces were started, a few strippy quilts got rolling and there were also  squares, triangles and diamonds in the mix.  It was fantastic to be in a room with SO many creative spirits.

As seen on the tables as I walked around the room...........

Organized chaos......

Organized .........

Matt started sewing liberated diamonds, wait till you see what he accompished. It is fantastic.

"Just start".  Best advise ever.  On a road trip from Washington to Florida, I don't think I would know where I was spending the third night.  I would just start and figure it out along the way.  Quilting in a liberated, free style method is much the same. 

We all started, some finished, some finished more than one piece.  We all worked in our own way, different colors, shapes, textures.  And in the end, we will all have a little piece of Gwen stitched into our projects from this weekend.

Stay tuned for more.  I'll be taking over APQ instagram account this weekend.  More pictures will be posted there and I'll have one more blog with more pictures.

Keep stitching,
Sharon