Sue Benner Workshop

NeedleChasers of Chevy Chase was fortunate enough to book Sue Benner for a lecture and 2 day landscape workshop this month. She is an extremely interesting artist.  Please take a look at her website to learn more about her and see her work, you won’t be sorry. She uses a fused quilting technique using many fibers but especially a lot of silk which she has dyed. She also uses paint when layering her fused pieces. Here are a few of her landscape pieces used with her permission from her website.

Artist: Sue Benner  March #19 – Willow Creek 2006 – 40″x 29″
Dye and paint on silk and cotton, found fabrics, fused, machine quilted

Artist: Sue Benner  Marsh #17 – River Bend  2006 – 17″ x 44″
Dye and paint on silk and cotton, found fabrics, fused, machine quilted

Aren’t these beautiful? Wouldn’t you want to try to learn how to create something like this? 15 of us got this chance last week. Let’s be clear, we didn’t do any dying or painting. We simply tried to learn how to layer fused fabric in a way to represent a landscape that was special to us.

Sue Benner with the NCCC workshop group

I used a picture that I love of a wheat field in Iowa that I took last summer while we were traveling to the Tetons in Wyoming.  Notice that the Teton mountains are there in the background.

Here is my attempt at the fabric landscape of this picture. I actually love the bright colors, even though the original picture is rather dull.

Fabric – Size is about 16″ x 20″

We did a couple exercises during the first day of the workshop. Here is a great example that Debbie Lamb-Mechanick did. These are only about 6″ x 8″ in size.

Debbie’s trees
Photo- left
Fabric – right

I love the abstract leaves. I just think that the color makes the picture.

My “table mate” for the workshop made this sunrise picture from her vacation home on the beach.

Donna’s Sunrise

Wouldn’t you love to look out at that everyday that you’re on vacation?

All 15 participants in the workshop did something quite different and they all looked fabulous. Not only that, but it was a lot of fun to hear the stories behind why each person picked the photos or pictures that they used.

Thanks, Sue Benner, for such a fun and informative workshop.

Me and Sue Benner