The NEW Strip-piecing & Restructuring: I & II - a 10-day workshop

The NEW Strip-Piecing & Restructuring: Parts I & II is one of three (10-day) Foundational Workshops that underpin the advanced Composition Workshops developed and taught by Nancy Crow.

The other two (10-day) Foundational Workshops are:

• (2) LINES, SHAPES, CURVES, CIRCLES & FIGURE/GROUND COMPOSITION
• (3) SETS & VARIABLES: Parts I & II

LENGTH: 10 days

LEVEL: Intermediate (Note: All students are required to have good machine-sewing skills and good skills with a 60mm rotary cutter)

SEWING MACHINE: Required for straight sewing...nothing fancy!

Preferred/recommended CUTTING MAT: 1 or 2 ( 24” X 36”) green OLFA cutting mats with one side plain green and the other side ruler- gridded.

DESCRIPTION:
Strip-piecing is defined as a way of creating new fabrics or “fabric vocabularies” out of existing fabrics by cutting strips selvage to selvage and regrouping/sewing them together. It is one of the most fascinating and intriguing ways of producing visual imagery that can be cut up and restructured for use in a given composition. Its use can be a life-time study as the possibilities are endless when coupled with a supple mind and a vivid obsessive curiosity. In addition, it is one of the most effective and valuable ways to learn about color, value usage, proportions, line, shape and scale in a very fluid manner.

If students want to learn to work more effectively, more efficiently from “instincts” and “intuition” they must come with an open mind and no agendas, ready for growth and for risk-taking!

PART I: STRIP-PIECING

• STRIP-PIECING: In Part I, students will be given Design Exercises that outline how to create specific fabric vocabularies known as strip-pieced fabrics. In creating these brand new specific fabric vocabularies, students will develop the muscle memory needed to cut free-hand a large variety of widths of colors quickly and fluidly. In addition, they will also become more efficient machine-piecers. The resulting strip-pieced fabrics will be used in exploring rudimentary figure/ground composition as outlined next.

PART I: RESTRUCTURING

• RESTRUCTURING: Next, In Part I, Design Exercises will push students to cut improvisationally all sorts of SHAPES (ELEMENTS) and LINES (ELEMENTS) out of their already strip-pieced fabrics. These ELEMENTS will be used in RESTRUCTURING which means combining shapes and lines into new figures or configurations. As a result, students will become more experienced in construction and engineering techniques and more comfortable with generating ideas that promote excellent figure/ground composition.

PART II: STRIP-PIECING

• STRIP-PIECING: In PART II, students will be given New Design Exercises that outline how to create specific and often more complex fabric vocabularies (known as strip-pieced fabrics).
• These New Design Exercises will encourage:
  ——THE EXPLORATION OF LINE
  ——THE EXPLORATION OF WIDER WIDTHS OF SHAPE
  ——THE EXPLORATION OF SCALE
  ——THE EXPLORATION OF A WIDER USE OF VALUE
  ——THE EXPLORATION OF A WIDER USE OF FLAT COLORS

***As students become more efficient machine-piecers, they will use the resulting strip-pieced fabrics in restructuring to explore more advanced figure/ground composition as follows.

PART II: RESTRUCTURING

• RESTRUCTURING: Next, new Design Exercises will push students to cut across and restructure strip-pieced fabrics in an even more improvisational manner to create ever-more complex structures. Students will experiment with all sorts of cross-cuts that create new SHAPES and LINES (ELEMENTS) out of their already strip-pieced fabrics. These will be sewn together and then recut. These elements will be used in restructuring which means combining shapes and lines into new figures or configurations. Groups of configurations will be strung together or combined with other sewn structures to create increasingly complex compositions. As a result, students will become more experienced in construction and engineering techniques and more comfortable with generating ideas that promote excellent figure/ground composition.

Sewing machines will be used in this workshop. MISA has a limited number of machines to rent, please reach out to misa@madelineschool.com for information. 

Lodging options for this workshop begin on Sunday, January 10, with a check out on Friday, January 22, weekend lodging included.  

Workshop Schedule:
Sunday Night: Welcome Reception at 6pm
Monday – Friday: 9am – 4pm

*Subject to change*