Diary Quilting: Abstraction for Aesthetics and Secret-Keeping
Diary Quilting: Abstraction for Aesthetics and Secret-Keeping
Join Heidi on a Mighty Network with four learning modules providing video instruction.
Optional LIVE Zoom Co-Working Sessions: It’s okay to attend just a couple of these. They are offered at 3 times to hopefully meet the needs of a variety of students.
Saturdays noon-2pm Central: 4/12, 5/17
Mondays 6-8pm Central : 4/14, 4/28, 5/12
Tuesdays 11am-1pm Central: 4/22, 5/6, 7/29
🌎 🌍 🌏 This link to World Time Buddy will help you to easily understand the times. (Class meets in Chicago Time)
Diary Quilts:
Heidi has become known for her Diary Quilts at QuiltCon, Quilt National, as 2024 Artist in Residence at the Pfister Hotel, and in her current exhibition at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts: Soft Magic. Enjoy this unique opportunity to learn from her, and try your hand with this special approach to quiltmaking.
“Join me this spring 2025 for Diary Quilting! This class introduces you to personal narrative, code, abstraction, logging daily life, dreaming about the future, and reframing the past. This healing practice focuses on hand piecing a quilt top, and allows you to work with any techniques that you like. I’ll offer guidance on composition, aesthetics, storytelling, technique, and the art of diary. If you’ve studied Diary Quilting with me in years past, this iteration holds the topic at a new angle, and welcomes you back.” ~Heidi
These are some qualities of a Diary Quilt:
In contrast with an ‘autobiographical quilt,’ a ‘diary quilt’ can conceal or reveal secrets at the discretion of the maker via abstraction and code.
A diary entry can reframe the past, track the present, and anticipate the future. There is magic in working with all three of these time zones!
Telling your story can be deeply healing, and engages the therapeutic benefits of cognitive reframing.
A Diary Quilt can be made with any technical skills that you already have, or with a handful of skills that will be taught in class.
Heidi will guide students in creating their own unique composition with an emphasis on the theme of abstraction for aesthetics and secret-keeping.
*If you’ve previously studied Diary Quilting with Heidi, this will be a fresh take on the topic! We will delve deeply into the concept of abstraction, both as a method of making the work beautiful, and as a way to maintain our privacy while digging into meaningful topics.
Class Format:
Four learning modules about Diary Quilting: Abstraction for Aesthetics and Secret-Keeping. These include video from Heidi, and links to a carefully curated selection of video on YouTube, podcasts, etc.
Eight optional co-working sessions to ask questions, sew alongside Heidi, and converse with fellow students
An exclusive Mighty Network platform with a Studio Community conversation thread in which you can share progress on your Diary Quilt, and exchange comments and give feedback to fellow students
Class will center on making a quilt top. The techniques for completing the top with quilting and binding will be entirely at your discretion, and on-demand resources for these steps are available in the shop
Beginner Friendly: Module 1 includes instruction on threading your needle, appliqué, knots, basic stitches, and getting started
Class Itinerary:
⚡️BEFORE class:
Watch for the link to the PDF Welcome Letter immediately after checkout (and in your email). This will give you access to our Mighty Network
Add the LIVE co-working sessions to your calendar with an easy RSVP
Create a profile on the Mighty Network, and introduce yourself in our Studio Community by making a ‘Virtual Studio’ to share photos and text
Module 1:
Watch the pre-recorded videos on technique, preparation, and concept (helpful for beginners!)
Watch a lecture introducing Diary Quilting, and receive some creative prompts, and links to additional optional videos
Modules 2, 3, and 4:
In video lectures, Heidi will share the stories behind some of her quilts, and provide a rich description of how Diary, Abstraction, Aesthetics, and Secret-keeping contributed to making them
Heidi will link to some special resources that have influenced her quilting with these themes in mind
Co-Working Sessions:
Watch Heidi add to her Diary Quilt in real time
Learn about relevant techniques, as requested by fellow students
Converse about our theme, the learning modules, and Diary Quilts in general
Share about your quilt with the group
Additional Resources:
#HPdiaryquilt is an instagram hub for students to connect and share
The class website will include links to books, YouTube videos, podcasts, and additional resources that Heidi has found valuable in her practice of Diary Quilting. There is also space at the end of each module for students to share additional resources that they’ve found useful.
After Class:
After the LIVE sessions have completed, this class will become an on-demand class. Future students can purchase access at the same price, and can connect with you on the Mighty Network. You will have ‘lifetime access’ to this class.
Please keep posting updates about your quilt on your Virtual Studio in the Mighty Network! We want to know how you quilt and bind it, we want to read your artist statement, we want to cheer you on if it’s in an exhibition, and we want to see you wrapped in your quilt drinking hot chocolate with your dog. ❤️
Additional Info:
This class can accommodate a large number of students, allowing for a robust class community and engaging conversation in our co-working sessions and on our Mighty Network
In the future, the class will be sold exactly as-is, as an on-demand class, incorporating recordings of our co-working sessions.
‘Lifetime access’ to the class is connected to Heidi’s lifetime, and a continued career teaching quilting. We hope this will be a long time.
You can see Heidi’s favorite sewing supplies HERE . The Little House Needle Gripper Silicon Thimble is a favorite that you can find with $5 off via this Snuggly Monkey coupon link. Further details on supplies will be shared on the class website, but the most important supplies are a needle, thread, thimble, and fabric.
All purchases are final.
⭕️ BE READY AFTER CHECKOUT: that is the easiest time to download the PDF required to access this class. (You will also get an email from no-reply@squarespace.info with a link to the PDF, and a separate email with your receipt.)
Further Resources:
If you would like to enhance your experience in class, or if the pricing of this class is out of reach, Heidi has some wonderful low-cost and free options for you:
Heidi’s Creativebug classes come with a free trial:
Learn to embroider handwritten text by hand in 40-minutes
Create a Story Quilt top with Heidi in this 4-hour class
Learn three ways to Appliqué Circles with Heidi
Heidi’s YouTube Channel includes information on Diary Quilting:
Heidi’s Diary Art playlist includes 7 conversations with makers about diary, personal narrative, and creative habits
Quiltmaking Episode 4 highlights the work of 3 students who share about their Diary Quilts, made in previous iterations of this class with me
Soft Bulk Episode 15 highlights a Travel Diary Quilt that Heidi began in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Soft Bulk Episode 11 highlights storytelling and manifestation in Heidi’s Scavenger Hunt Pattern
Lectures from Heidi:
Quilting as Therapy Lecture
Habits Lecture