Do you have 2 hours a day to share your love of quilting with children? Then this opportunity is for you.  We are looking for 5 volunteers each day to work with the students at Woodfin Elementary School from Monday, June 1st through Wednesday June 3rd.  [Monday (3rd grade), Tuesday and Wednesday (4th grade) from 12:15 pm to 2:15 pm]

You can sign up to volunteer through the link below.

Sign up for Kids Sewing

All supplies will be provided, so no need to bring anything.  You are welcome to sign up for just one session or all 3 -- whatever you can manage will be appreciated.

Many thanks for considering volunteering for this fun and rewarding opportunity.  If you have any questions, please contact Mary Lou Boise at Projects@AshevilleQuiltGuild.org.

Donna Johnston

Guild Projects Chair

Projects@AshevilleQuiltGuild.org

Round Robins

with Karen Stockwell

An award-winning artist, Karen has been making art for most of her life, but the love of color and texture became her passion and she turned to textile art, often using her own hand-dyed silks and cottons in her pieces.  

Her work has been in major national and international shows as well as being in corporate and private collections, books, magazines, calendar.  She teaches & lectures around the U.S., writes articles and designs patterns.  She has also been a guest artist on many cruise ships, teaching jewelry, quilting and making teddy bears, most notably as artist-in-residence on Crystal Serenity for almost 5 months.  Loving the travel, the colors and ethnic elements of places she’s visited have influenced her work.  Lately, her art alternates between realistic wall pieces—landscapes, people, animals—and colorful graphic contemporary pieces. 

A Michigan transplant who was in FL for 40 years, she now lives in the mountains of Western NC, an area rich in creativity and art, with her husband, Van, and Sheltie, Rocky.

Portraits & Pets

with Karen Stockwell

This is a class for exploring techniques to make a successful portrait, what types of fabric to use, how to master fabric collage, how detailed you want it, or how much to simplify. 

You will use a photo of your subject and I will give directions beforehand on sizing, how to break down into major color groups.

This is a fun class with great results!

Some pet/portrait artists you might enjoy:

Susan Carlson

Barbara Yates Beasley

Danny Amazonas

Bisa Butler

Pauline Salzman

Valerie Wilson

Emily Taylor

It’s All About the Face - Book

Please read the next two sections:

• Supplies

• Preparing photo to make a pattern for your quilt 

  ___________________________________________________________
  
  SUPPLIES
  
  IMAGES

• • 1 full-sized either B&W or color depending on which shows the separation of shades best
  • 1 color photo for reference—either full-sized or 8x10 or both

  FABRIC

  Bring a variety of colors that could work for your subject.  Light, medium and dark of each.  Batiks are usually good, and tone-on-tone that read as solids.  Small bits, and pieces up to fat quarters.  In this case, more is better. 

  Avoid high-contrast or large print patterns—these are hard to use to show lights and shadows.

  Choose fabric that is tightly woven—if it frays, it’s hard to use in the small pieces.

  Muslin for the background, larger than your finished project will be.  Wash & iron this.
  

  SCISSORS

  Paper scissors and fabric scissors.  A pair of small scissors for fine details is also good.

  PINS

  MISC

  A phone to take photos which helps you see the balance of the colors and shading in your quilt.  Phone photos distance you from your work so you get a better perspective on it and can see where it needs changing.

  A light box would be handy, but optional. Tracing paper, Sharpie Extra Fine Line Permanent Marker, Elmer’s School Gluestick, toothpicks, poster-sized sheet of foamcore (Dollar Tree, Michaels, Walmart).  Freezer paper can be handy for small pieces. 

  A piece of transparent plastic the size of your quilt can be handy for placement (I used a show curtain liner from Dollar tree).

  _______________________________________

  Preparing photo to make a pattern for your quilt

  Save your photo on the desktop. A close up, well-lit photo is best. Using your photo editing program clean up the picture—sharpen the focus, crop it so the main element shows well, adjust light/dark, adjust colors. Don’t worry about the background, you will be replacing it.

  If you don’t have a photo editing program, save the photo to your desktop & double click on the photo --  you will have an EDIT choice.  Click on that to adjust & crop.

  Save new enhanced photo to the desktop.  I print a full page color copy of my photo now to use as a reference.

   Black & White photo

  This helps you see the various shades of colors in your photo.  If you Posterize it in color, sometimes the colors get very strange when they’re separated.  B&W can help you see the changes in values you’re looking for.  If your photo editing program does black & white, you can use it.

  Or…

  Go to IMGonline.com.usa.  Go to EFFECTS and find Black-and-white choice.  #1 click CHOOSE FILE & select your photo.  #2  GAMMA CORRECT choose ON ,  then click OK.  Then OPEN PROCESSED IMAGE.  SAVE a copy.

  Posterize

  In IMGonline, go back to EFFECTS to POSTERIZE.   Again, CHOOSE FILE & select your photo.  It defaults with 8 shades of greys.  Try different numbers to see how it works best on your photo.  When you can distinctly see the difference in the areas of light & shadow and have one you like, save it.  The easiest way to compare for me is to print out 3 or so choices, label them with the # of shades.  (Sometimes I use a combination of 2 photos to get the look I want in certain areas.).

  To Resize:

  Open new saved posterized photo in PAINT (right click on desktop photo and go to “open with—” and select Paint) 

  Now you want to change to the actual size you want (a good size would be about 18” on the short side.)  There are rulers along the top & left side so you can see what size you have.  (If yours is not showing in inches, go to FILE, then PROPERTIES and select INCHES.)  Don’t worry about the size and the paper size you are using—this will print on multiple pages to get the size you chose.  You can then cut off the border & tape the pictures together.

  Go to HOME,  then double click on RESIZE.  This brings up the RESIZE & SKEW choice.  Keep the PERCENTAGE option checked so the relative size/shape will be the same as your photo.  The 100 x 100 that shows is the % size your photo will print.  If it’s too large, try something smaller, ex 80 x 80, if it’s too small, change to something like 125 x 125. 

  Once you have the correct size, go to FILE > Print > PAGE SETUP.  In the lower right box SCALING, choose  Adjust to 100%.  This will keep the aspect ratio the same.  Further down it will  show you how many pages it will take to produce the photo, ex 2 page by 3 pages.  Click OK.

  Go back to FILE and PRINT

  (You can also just go to Kinkos, Office Depot or Staples or a blueprint shop to get it enlarged to whatever size you want.)

  I also like to print a full -sized color copy for reference.

   TIPS:

  The eyes are one of the most important features and sometimes this area is a bit dark and hard to distinguish exactly where the pupils are, the irises, etc.  If that happens, I often make myself a cheat sheet of that area—I make a copy on the desktop, crop so just that area shows and brighten it up a bit so I can clearly see how it should look, where the lines are.  This also works with noses and mouths.  This is for reference—you will still use the colors of your original pattern, but now you know the underlying anatomy.

  Crop away as much background as possible so you’re not printing extra pages with 1” of an ear on it.

  Please call me ahead of time if you have any questions on this process of getting the right sized posterized image to bring.

  Karen Stockwell

  727-992-1068

  Karenstockwell.com

  
  

Registration for Members will open:  4/20/2026

Registration for Non-Members will open:  5/19/2026