Sue Spargo Magnolia Worksop, Brisbane

Last week I had the extreme good fortune to attend a 2-Day workshop with talented quilt designer and maker, Sue Spargo. Sue's origins include South Africa, England and most recently, Ohio, USA. I saw one of her quilts (Magnolia- in the background of the photo below) on the Material Obsession Blog then saw she was also coming to Brisbane to do workshops at The Quilter's Store. I have always had a love and fascination for folk art and motifs and this quilt really appealled to me. I booked in and ended up spending two lovely days learning and applying lots of hand work and embellishing techniques. Below is Sue talking about one of her quilts, with Magnolia in the background.

Sue came with her sister, Wendy, who dyes Sue's range of beautiful felted wools and also creates stunning contemporary jewellery available from the Sue Spargo website. Below is a rather unflattering shot of myself and Sue posing in front of the Magnolia quilt.

I loved this Leaf Sampler that Sue is making to show lots of different embellishments and treatments for leaves. So simple yet effective and inspirational. Sue is so generous with her quilts, and lets you touch and feel them all as well as brouse through her sketchbooks and inspirational personal working notebooks. It was a real treat!

This is my humble attempt at the block I decided to tackle over the workshop. You can go to Sue's blog to see and read more about her Australian workshops and experience, the other shops, participants and completed blocks. It was a lot of fun and I went home with considerably more embellishing bits and pieces as well as a variety of wools and threads. Thanks, Sue and Wendy!