The Wave Landscape Technique Became

 I have been sewing since age 5 that means 62.5 years :) that half a year is important too. I studied fashion design formally at the Technical College of Pretoria, South Africa. Over the years I have learnt many different sewing techniques. From mending, to upholstery to tailoring and creating wedding dresses.

I had a neighbour 40 years ago who was a quilter and of course I visited her often. She taught me quilting basics and opened many doors for me.

And then I began teaching sewing 30 years ago. All sorts of requests were thrown my way by the students. The way that I teach is, I tell the students that I don't know all of the techniques yet, but by the next lesson I will have learnt how to teach them their specific requests :)

20 years ago I began in addition to my sewing classes, to teach quilting. One of the teenage students brought a picture of a seaside with waves and wanted to create a quilt like that.

I only use domestic straight stitch sewing machines, the vintage kinds, when I teach sewing and quilting, so the technique to create the picture that she wanted had to be a simple one. I also only create patterns for specific ideas. I wanted to create a technique that everyone, from my youngest students, to my oldest could use to create fabric art without any special tools.

I told her to leave the picture with me and that I would experiment. I did. The first attempt was ok, the color family was right but it was boring, straight strips with no movement,

So I tried again. Somewhat more interesting this time. Strips which I cut in a curved shape then sewed, then quilted heavily. Abstract but not ocean waves

Next attempt - longer pieces which I cut in a curved shape before sewing. A bit more interesting but not there yet.

I slept on it and then cut more curved pieces and sewed them. It was actually quite difficult even for a small piece, but the visual effect was what I wanted, I finally saw it sewn.

I created a few more pieces, feeling very frustrated, I could manage to sew like that, but it was cumbersome and time consuming and it would be very difficult to teach like that. Were I only an artist, and not a teacher as well, I wouldn't have to share my techniques, so it wouldn't matter whether it was difficult or not if I achieved the effect that I was looking for.

But I want to teach more than anything else.

And then - it came to me!

The technique that I had been searching for came to me! I believe, that because I want to teach, it came to me. A technique that was simple to sew and I could easily teach. even the children, to use it to create art quilts.

One of the fun things, there are many, of teaching children is that they very much want to learn new techniques and are not afraid of attempting anything. So I had eager testers and we began to experiment together.

I surmised that if the children would be able to create fabric art with this technique adults of course would be able to. And they did.

Their first attempts using fabric from the scrap box. I wanted to see if they could create art from fabric remnants, and they did.

A new technique was born, the Wave Landscape Technique became.

Since then I have developed 6 different Wave Landscape Techniques and Patterns and there are many more in the works. Some of my ideas work out and some don't so I keep on experimenting.

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Wave Landscape Patchwork Techniques and Video Tutorials

The tutorials are available here on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/il-en/shop/PriganArt?ref=shop_sugg&section_id=36451937

and here on my site https://www.priganart.com/category/all-products

and the videos classes can be viewed here on my site after purchase

https://www.priganart.com/videocourses