Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Crazy German Artist!

The quilting in the above photo was done by German Quilt Artist Claudia Pfeil.

Meeting German quilt artist Claudia Pfeil was one of the biggest highlights of my week at MQS. She has such an outgoing, lively and sometimes crazy, personality. She's not afraid to say and do just about anything! It was a delight getting to know her. Ornamental Pfeathers, the class/demo I took with her was nothing short of inspiring. Her creativity drives her to keep stitching at an intense pace. During the whole demo, she rarely stopped sewing. From one feather to the next, her creativity kept building. It was fascinating to see her in action.
        She also made sure to have the essentials handy....she had CHOCOLATE. Not just any chocolate...yummy German chocolates. She passed around a basket of them halfway through class. The Giotto truffles were my favorite. Later in the week, she kindly gave me a whole package of them...so now she is my friend forever :-)
In the photo above we are holding up a feather that I got to help design. After demonstrating several of her gorgeous feathers, like the one seen above, Claudia asked for 3 volunteers to design new, preferably challenging feathers for her. I raised my hand along with 2 other women. We didn't actually sew or draw the entire feather for her, just the spine - simple line drawings for her to follow with her machine. Mine, as you can see from the photo was quite curvy. When she started to stitch mine she asked: "Who's is the drunk one?" I guess you could say it looks that way. The funniest reaction we got from Claudia was when one of the other 2 volunteers handed in a feather design with a right angle in it. *It was certainly challenging! Claudia pretended to be flustered and jokingly glared at her students saying: "Alright WHO gave me this one?!" The student gingerly raised her hand. Pointing her finger at her, Claudia said, "Well, I'm going to remember you!" The whole class laughed. Claudia stitched all 3 of our feather designs beautfully. Then I asked her if we could "pretty please" have them since we designed them...she said yes.
A little bit about the Artist: Claudia has won several major awards at both American and European Quilt shows. She has won several ribbons over the years at MQS, including viewer's choice in 2009. At this year's European Quilt championships, her quilt Cordoba *seen below* won Public Choice and first prize in long-arm quilting. She is the mother of two sons and owns a quilt shop in Germany. She is an APQS representative. She also travels across Europe and America offering classes and workshops.

Favorite Claudia Quote: "Don't breathe! Just quilt!"

The following photos are posted with the permission of Claudia Pfeil. These photos of her award-winning quilt, Cordoba, were taken at MQS.
All photos stitched by Claudia Pfeil

1 comment:

Sharon D said...

Bethany,

One of the troublemakers from our class at MQS -- "Create Exploding Texture". Love the feather you designed for Claudia, she is totally amazing. Your blog is very cute, keep posting the great pictures and stories.

Sharon D.