Thom Atkins, The Beading Quilter

Last week, my friend Dale invited me to attend a meeting of the Contra Costa County Quilt Guild. Dale has been trying to get me to come to meetings for a long time, always talking about what great speakers they have. I'd been reluctant to go because their meetings are at night, and a fair distance from where I live, but I finally caved at this invitation and decided to go. I can emphatically say I'm very glad I did! The speaker was Thom Atkins, whose book, Beading Artistry for Quilts, I'd picked up at a show I recently attended.

This is a wonderful book, full of pictures of eye-popping, colorful, amazing quilts, some of which have been beaded to within an inch of their lives. While I've recently begun to incorporate beading into my smaller pieces, there's no way I'll ever get into that much beading on any quilt I'll ever make. The book has, however, certainly given me huge amounts of inspiration to jump in and get a little more friendly with beads on my work. Dale told me she is going to work with her guild to see if they can have Thom come back and teach a one-day class on beginning techniques. I certainly hope that works out, 'cause I'll be one of the first to sign up. I've already joined the Guild - evening meetings be damned - because speakers of Thom's ilk and talent are apparently the norm, and I want to hear more. Next month's speaker will be Tracy Brookshire, and I definitely want to see and hear her presentation. I took a class from her at PIQF several years ago... she was a great teacher, so energetic and inspiring.

Back to Thom: here are some pictures of the quilts shared with us...

"Fire and Ice"

"Tenuous Membrane"

"Partial Eclipse"

"Yellow Brick Road"

"Serenity"

"Death Touches Us All"