Lisa Ellis classes

On Friday night my quilt guild brought Lisa Ellis to speak and teach classes. She spoke on Healing Quilts. It was a great lecture. She helped start a program where art quilters used the plants and animals who scientist use to make cancer drugs as inspiration for art quilts. These quilts were donated to a hospital and used to decorate the walls of the treatment rooms of the cancer treatment facility. They started at Walter Reed and have done installations in Michigan and Alabama. They have been asked to make quilts for many areas in Michigan including the morgue. One group of quilts were based on microscope pictures. Fascinating. I was so inspired by her. I want to do this for some of the hospitals here in town.
On Saturday she taught two classes. The first class was her technique on the cathedral window block. I really like the cathedral window but never like how it was made. I LOVED THIS CLASS! The technique was so easy and the quilts she made were beautiful. Here is my finished block and I cannot wait to make more.

I was able to finish most of this in the 3 hour class. 

The next class was an art quilt. It was called Graceful Trees and we were allowed to buy a kit. We had four choices: Fall, Winter, Spring or Summer. I picked summer. We took several strips of fabric and sewed them to a stablizer and then we added our tree. The technique to make the tree was so easy once she showed it to us. You take slender strips of fabric and build the tree. The fabric has Misty Fuse on the back so as you build the tree you use an iron to put it into place. Here is mine with the tree built.

We quilted the background before we added the tree. Now we quilted the tree. I added my leaves after I quilted the tree. Then I quilted them. Here is my finished project.

I'm so proud of how it turned out. I'm going to enter it into our quilt show. The classes was stress free and fun. I finished most of both pieces in the classes. I put the finishing touches on Sunday. Usually you never finish class projects once you get home, but these were practically done when I left class. After the classes, we took Lisa on a tour of Knoxville and then out to dinner at Not Watson's. It was so fun getting to know her. Hopefully we will see her again at next year's Quilt Con in Nashville. Sounds like a lot of people are going to be there.If you ever get a chance to take a class from Lisa, do it. She is one of the best teachers I have ever taken a class from.