Diane Gaudynski

I recently had the opportunity to attend Diane Gaudynski's last free-motion quilting (FMQ) retreat, before she officially retired on a sabbatical (updated 7/23).  This class was taught at the Empty Spools Quilt Retreat, aka Asilomar.  I've had mixed emotions about my experience, which has actually made it difficult for me to find the words to write this post.  After thinking about my experience, I hope I can now find the words to share with you what a wonderful opportunity this was for me, and that I also wish for you to have a similar experience, but ideally  many such experiences, in your quilty lifetime. 

As every story needs a beginning, I want to share that it was just a year ago that I decided to take on a personal challenge to "significantly" improve my FMQ skills.  A friend had just returned from taking one of Diane's classes at Asilomar and inspired me with sharing projects she had beautifully quilted after taking Diane's class.  So, I signed up for a class a year out and set off on a journey to prepare myself for the class. In a future post, I'll share more insights about this journey, but today I want to focus on my experience in Diane's class.

I had fallen in love with Diane Gaudynski's style of FMQ, long before I signed up for her 5 day workshop.  I had never been to Asilomar before, and did not know a soul that was taking the class.  Yet, as the class began, Diane's warm heart and encouragement seemed to quickly spread and soon it felt as if I was in a classroom with friends I had known all my life.  And while many students picked up Diane's techniques faster than I did, I was still amazed to see my FMQ skills improve daily. 

A nearby classroom had a group of "Divine Mothers" that chanted daily.  Our quilting group wondered what they may think of us, as we sat at our machines sewing all day.  We had fun creating our own quilty chants and greeted Diane G. with a different chant on two different day.  Thus, we are known as the "chanting quilting group".  Visualize a group of quilters slowly chanting ......"hmmm We worship Diane.  We quilt beautiful stitches.  Fronds, Feather and Froth Forever.  hmmm".  Ok, you had to be there, but we did have fun.

Over the 5 days, Diane took us thru many different techniques where she would talk about a particular design, draw it out on the board, give a demonstration on her machine and we sew it out, at our machines, and repeat-repeat-repeat.  She encouraged us to not "practice" but repeat, with the expectation that with repetition you would master the technique in a positive manner, and sometimes adapt the technique to make it your own style.

We learned to make absolutely fancy feathers, ferns, leaves, that look spectacular.  There were also many techniques for a variety of frilly backgrounds from stippling to lines & grids, along with insights on different weights and types of threads and how they respond differently in FMQ (e.g. stitches blend into the fabric vs stand out on the fabric). 

Diane's techniques also had fun names like bouncing bananas, headbands, ginko, and Diane-Shiko.

While I'm happy for Diane to be able to retire take a sabbatical, my heart is also heavy to realize that she will no longer be teaching.  I do wish a very happy and long life for Diane, and that she may find time to publish more books to share her expertise with all of us.

I've come to think of Diane Gaudynski as the Elizabeth Taylor of the quilting world.  Diane is as beautiful and elegant in body and spirit as her style of quilting, not to overlook that she is also comforting and nurturing.  She wants everyone to continually build on their skills and enjoy the art of quilting, as well as take her designs and make them your own.

While Diane may no longer be teaching, you can still learn her techniques through her books (Quilt Savy and Guide to Machine Quilting)  and by following her through her blog.  And, they are "must have" books for anyone that is interested in learning FMQ and/or improving their FMQ skills.

....."hmmm Fronds, Feathers, Froth Forever". 
http://www.dianegaudynski.net/
http://dianegaudynski.blogspot.com/



Lastly, I want to thank Diane M., who attended the class with Diane G. with me.  As I had forgot to bring my camera battery charger and was not able to take many photos, Diane M., was kind enough to share her photos with me and ultimately with you in this post.