Tighe Flanagan taught a great course about precision piecing to about 20 of our members on September 17^th.  Our guild has been focusing on skill-building this year, so his piecing techniques were right on point.  Many of the students came to class for that purpose, but others came to learn more about tessellating quilts and Islamic geometry.  

Tighe is most known for his quilts that feature his modern interpretations of classic Islamic geometry and art, and he told us that he especially loves finding designs in situ as inspiration for making his own quilts.  We worked on his Fig Leaf quilt pattern that is based on a fairly common motif in Islamic tile work.  Tighe likes fig leaves so much that he planted a fig tree in his yard—presumably, he likes figs, too.

In class, Tighe used a slide presentation to describe the “silver ratio” and how it is derived from using a pattern of diagonal lines drawn using specific points on overlapping large and small circles as guides. The concept sounds extremely complicated, but his drawings and explanation made it clear. Using the silver ratio grid, the resulting shapes can be much more nuanced than if they were built around squares and half-square triangles.  Students included a math teacher and other math fans, who all really enjoyed his explanation, and it was clear enough for even the math-phobic to get a sense of the idea.  

As we cut and sewed some of the blocks, we had ample opportunities to ask Tighe questions.  Some were quilt-related, but others ranged through math, computer programs for designing quilts and publishing patterns, and art in Islamic cultures.  Tighe shared his impressive knowledge with us.  He is warm and clear in his teaching, so it was really fun to talk with him.  

Some people were daring and used multiple colors in their quilts, while others of us played it safer with just one foreground and one background color.  It was really amazing to see the tessellating pattern come to life as we placed our blocks up on our design walls—almost like magic!  

One great thing about Tighe, whether he is talking in class or writing a pattern, is the respect he shows for the cultures from which he draws his design inspiration.  He also does a great job of describing the geometry behind the design, which is especially important given the development of geometric concepts in Islamic culture.  

You can check out Tighe on Instagram at @TigheFlanagan and check out his line of patterns and templates on tigheflanagan.com.

For the paper piecing, Jenny sent over templates ahead of time that we printed and had ready for the workshop. She walked us through each step of using them for the paper piecing, peppering her instruction with lots of tips and tricks. I’ve personally used both the traditional sew-through-the paper method and the freezer paper method, but only had instruction in the former. After Jenny’s class, the freezer paper method felt so much more comfortable and I love that you can reuse the templates a few times! By my second cog quadrant, it felt natural. Jenny thoughtfully gave us time as part of the workshop to work through our individual issues while being on hand to answer questions as they came up during actual implementation of the techniques.

Once we had the chance to make some cog curves with our paper piecing, we moved on to the curve piecing which we’d use to form them into a complete block. Jenny demonstrated her method for piecing curves without pins which is a big win in my book since it allows you to move so much faster. Although Jenny’s instruction was straightforward, this is definitely a technique that will take practice. However, I like that Jenny’s templates build in allowance for doing it without pins which gives students much more confidence to try out the technique while having the assurance their sample will still turn out successful.

Finally, Jenny covered some of the principles she uses when designing her cogs and thistles quilts. She explained how she decides when to stop and start, how many teeth to put on her cogs and ways to accent the cogs using fussy cutting techniques. These were all great for those of us looking to use the techniques from this workshop to put together our own quilt!

Overall this was a really fun way to spend the morning that stretched some creative muscles I hadn’t used much. Jenny’s teaching style is easy going, but informative. She focuses on her topics, but you also pick up so many general quilting tips that she tosses in along the way. Jenny shared some of her other workshops coming up that make creative use of curves and I have to say I was intrigued!