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Heidi Parkes - Diary Quilts: Documenting, Manifesting, and Storytelling with Stitch


  • Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts N50W5050 Portland Road Cedarburg, WI, 53012 United States (map)

Monday - Friday, May 12-16, 2025

10am-4pm each day

Class Fee: $950 WMQFA Members/$1,000 Non Members

Workshop Description:

Have you ever tried to keep a paper diary? Sometimes it’s easier with cloth! Heidi will lead students in creating a Diary Quilt in this 5-day class. Students will receive a wealth of information in advance, with videos on handwork techniques, and a welcome video to spark creativity and offer guidance in collecting and packing fabrics. Quilt top construction will focus on hand piecing, but Heidi will also do a few sewing machine demos in class. Construction choices like this add to the diary effect by chronicling color preferences, found fabrics, trades, and daily whims around stitching with a machine, or by hand. 

Heidi will insert strategies for efficient stitching, ways to balance abstraction and precision, and will guide students in riding the line between personal and public. A Diary Quilt can reframe the past, record the present, and represent dreams for the future. Different from a memoir, diaries are tools, holders of secrets, and spaces for play.

Heidi’s clear, yet gentle teaching style allows students to follow their own pace, reflect, intuit, and ultimately: create their own unique quilt top. On the morning of our final class together, we will make plans for quilting and discuss strategy around quilting style, thread color, and overall layout.

Participants will receive a surprise sewing kit personally curated by Heidi!

**If a student needs a refund after they have received the PDF for Framed Quilts or Diary Quilting, they should still be charged the $85 value of the pdf content.