Jacqueline de Jonge Class

While I was visiting in Oklahoma, my daughter and I took a three-day class from Jacqueline de Jonge on Monday July 21st through Wednesday, July 23rd. It was held at the retreat center of Prairie Quilts in the town of Hennessey, 1 hr 22 minutes and 72.5 miles north of my daughter's home in Oklahoma City.

The Prairie Quilts store is on the main street of Hennessey and behind it is a brick building called The Hive, devoted to holding quilting retreats. The classroom is spacious and a delicious lunch with dessert was served daily. Robin and I stayed overnight three nights at the Sleep Inn & Suites, 0.5 miles north of Prairie Quilts on Main Street.

 

Robin has a second sewing machine so she loaded it in the car for my use. We set up across from each other near a bright sunny window. 

Here are the orange toned colors in my autumn table runner kit. The dark chocolate background, shown in an image from the instructions, is a deep luscious contrast that ties in well with the other lighter toned batiks.

The paper piecing is very labor intensive and time consuming. The smaller interior circle shown had 32 pieces. An outer ring that wraps around it had over 100 pieces. I was too absorbed and busy stitching away to take any in-progress photos of that section. This paper piecing technique contrasts sharply with a method like chain piecing. Even the removal of all the paper takes a good amount of time and effort. I guess, as with any process, once I get better at it, it will go more quickly.

The class did not have a formal agenda; students each had their own project they chose to work on. Jacqueline continuously circled the classroom, stopping at each person and assisting them with where they were at in their specific creation, many quite large and intricate. I chose a moderately sized table runner in an autumn colorway, which finishes at 20" by 60", as a small kit to learn the techniques. Although I have been sewing for over 60 years and quilting for over 50 years, I found myself the slowest student in the class of maybe a dozen or so folks. 

Here is a closeup of a portion of the outer ring. The tiniest orange piece is directly under the one inch mark on the ruler. I looked at that teensy piece and said "Jacqueline. Really?" She replied, "Yes. Really. If you do not do that I will haunt you!"

At the end of the third day both my daughter and I took photos with Jacqueline showing our progress. I am holding the sum total of my efforts — one circle with a tail — and, that center yellow sun still needs to be stitched down via appliqué. I asked Jacqueline how long it would take her to sew this table runner. She estimated about four hours. The saying attributed to Theadore Roosevelt, "Comparison is the thief of joy," can be so true if you let it. I am impressed with her answer, but I am not going to let it discourage me. I will continue to work on this table runner a bit at at time between other projects.

In the following photo, on the left, Robin has two additional stars similar to the one she is holding to show for her accomplishments. By the third star, her points were absolutely perfect!

The final photo is my goal. In the three day class I completed only one full circle. I still have two more full circles to go and four quarter-circles at the corners. Then the set in process for all these components will prove to be challenging I am sure. Perhaps by next autumn I will be finished...?