Incredible Workshop!

I had the pleasure of spending the last two days in an intermediate applique workshop taught by David Taylor.  David also lectured at our guild meeting last night.  He is a fantastic teacher and presented a wonderful program!  I only wish I would have spent the time needed to adequately prepare for the workshop.  I decided not to use my own photo at the last minute and instead opted for one of the class kits.  I still learned a lot, but I would have loved to have David's help making a pattern from one of my photos. Here he is demonstrating how he creates his patterns using tracing paper over an enlargement: 

And here is what one of the patterns looks like when drafted (this is one of the class participant's kitty):

David has a very interesting applique stitch.  I tired very hard to do it but failed miserably!  I resorted to my usual method for stitching, but did use his method of prepping the pieces.  The jury is still out on the starch prep method...I love having the edges all perfectly turned when I am ready to sew, but I sure hate getting them to that point!  I am starch-challenged.

David does incredible, extremely heavy quilting on his pieces. He showed us his stitching process on the white board - it's like drawing lots of tiny, close together flames with all different colors of thread.  I can't believe how close he gets his lines without ever crossing over!  Here's a shot of the demo:

Gee, one of these days maybe I will finish my hummingbird and give this a try...