“Faith, family and friends can get you through
anything…but stitching will keep you sane!”
I’ve
always shared my knowledge of the needle-arts by teaching basic skills in
sewing, crocheting, cross-stitch, ribbon embroidery, beading, jewelry making, and
traditional quilting at local guilds.
My first venture into crazy quilting was at the nudge of a friend to join a 6-inch crazy quilt heart swap. Little did I expect that this little project would become the ignitor for a huge undertaking in my life. Crazy
quilting allows me to use skills from my other hobbies as possible
embellishment ideas. This keeps me creative and interested in expanding my
knowledge.
The frustration at my own limited skill in embroidery at that time led me to create templates for marking my needle up/down position in the hand embroidery stitches. This allowed me to get beautiful results that were nicely sized and uniformly spaced. The template set is available at my Etsy Shop (www.shawkl.net).
That template adventure finally prompted the creation and marketing of a full set of templates and a blog to document the creation of basic seams. This "Twelve Dozen in Twelve Months - TDITW" Challenge spearheaded a literal movement in crazy quilting. It led to the annual blog challenge "CQJP - Crazy Quilt Journal Project"; still going under the skillful guidance of my friend and fellow stitcher/teacher Katie Bock. She even had it on Facebook now, so loads of folks can enjoy the work of all participants.
In
2011, I began a series of free online crazy quilt courses. This draws hundreds
of ladies from across the globe to participate. Courses are taught in progression style, with a different course offered each two weeks. All of these are announced for registration and hosted on BlogSpot. Information can be reviewed at my blog (shawkl.com) just by clicking the Classes Tab at the top.
The students of my classes were always asking for more...so, that prompted me to create several books on crazy quilting techniques. The first few were published by Create Space, an Amazon publishing company. All of these are available on Amazon.com
Then in 2018, I began working with C&T Publications on creating books that would market directly to quilting and hobby stores. The first of these is "Stunning Stitches for Crazy Quilts" which launched in May 2019. It is available at C&T Publications and on Amazon.com. Since then I've done two other books for them!
During 2008 through 2010, I taught regional workshops across Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. When the online classes and book developments took over my life...these teaching venture were stopped.
Now, after several successful book launches...I'm happily looking forward to more promotion of my "in-person" teaching once again. So, if any of my workshops might appeal to your group; I hope you will contact me so we can discuss that. If you just need someone to come to a Guild meeting for a short lecture/trunk-show on Modern Crazy Quilting...I'd be happy to do that as well. The lecture can be a sole endeavor or in conjunction with one or more workshops. I also love to attend retreats, so would be agreeable (most likely) to being a guest instructor for that as well.
Hope to hear from you (and then get to hug your neck with visiting with your group)! :)
How to Contact Me:
Mail: Kathy Shaw, 103 Gadsden St., Piedmont, Alabama 36272
email: shaw.kathy@yahoo.com (don't forget the "dot" between shaw & kathy)
phone: 256-282-9612 (cell phone) (can accept message as well)
