Robyn Coot's Making Duet Video Workshop

I met Robyn through seeing her work in Australian Patchwork & Quilting and admiring what I saw on her website.  I do hope that you enjoy her wonderful workshop.  To visit her website and see her beautiful quilts,
click here: http://www.robianappliquedesigns.com.au/

When purchasing this product, you will be able to download 3 videos which are about ten minutes apiece. The videos are offered in WMV format for Windows PCs and MOV format for Macs. You will be able to access and download both versions when you purchase the workshop, so if you're not sure which you need, you're covered! To learn more about how downloadable purchases work at Pam's Club, click here.

To purchase the pattern for Robyn's 69 1/2" x 80 3/4" "Duet" quilt, click here.

To buy the video, skip on down past Robyn's biography and click the "Add to Cart" button.

Robyn's Biography

Between us, Ian and I have five daughters and none of them is interested in sewing. I pondered on this at one stage, and realized it was because they always had someone to do it for them – me! As the girls were growing up I was always sewing but it was entirely utilitarian – making curtains, clothes, taking up hems etc. I made my first patchwork quilt in 1982 but I couldn’t find much information on quilting, and although I made a few more over the years, I didn’t really become a quilter until 2000. If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be doing hand sewing day and night and reveling in it, I would have told them that they didn’t know me very well. I didn’t really like hand sewing all that much.

I’m not sure how or why that changed. But it must have had something to do with the fact that in 2000 I started to make patchwork quilts again and then an applique quilt I saw in a magazine took my eye. I had never done applique and this quilt was definitely not a beginners quilt. I made it and learned a lot. But when I tried to find another to make, I couldn’t find a pattern that appealed to me or challenged me. A social worker, I retired in 2002 and found myself with  time to pursue all manner of things ‘quilting’. The ability and time to become totally immersed in the arts that I love so much became mine – I haven’t looked back since.

Having drawn all my life, in watercolour, pastel and pen and ink, thinking up things to draw and drawing them didn’t pose a problem to me. So I set about drawing up patterns and making quilts. Over the next few years I made quilts of my own designs, and I started to show them to my friends. Some talked me into going to our local quilters’ guild, which I did. A year later I took along two of my quilts and was encouraged to make patterns. This resulted in my web site and being contacted by Pam who liked my designs was interested in selling them through her own web site.

I am an absolute addict!!! I think, eat, sleep, drink  and talk quilting. I have a  head full of ideas that just keep pouring in. My Mum asks me, what happens when the ideas run out. I tell her that I will then look in my little book where I have dozens drawn, and I will use those. But I can’t see that happening soon because I will have to live to be 150 years old to even get to the end of those not yet in my book. My inspiration comes from every where. I am very easily influenced by curves and if I see a curve, I generally see a pattern begin to evolve. I feel that I am beginning to develop a trade mark style with my curved borders and I really love them. They can be quite challenging to do sometimes but they are so worth the effort.

I am also a strong colour girl and  not generally attracted to pastel colours. I favour the old fashioned colours of burgundy, rose, sage greens, creams, soft ochery yellows, wedgewood/grey blues etc. I think a gremlin has got into me too, as lately I am loving every purple through to mauve and lilac. At one stage I used to wonder how anyone could use black in a quilt. But if you look at my web site it can be seen that I no longer feel that way as I have made the quilt Hearts and Vines using black and this is not my first. I just love what black does for the yellow and red in that quilt.

Our children have all grown up now and are in their thirties. Our eldest will be forty next year. I’m wondering who will see it as a bigger milestone, my husband and I or our daughter. My wonderful husband (Ian) provides me with the best support and is an absolute whizz on the computer. Technology is the bane of my life and I don’t understand most of it and don’t want to. I like my little lap top and can do what I need to but Ian does all the hard stuff for me.

We left our big house five years ago and downsized to a little house close to shops and all the facilities we are likely to need as we age. Our only pet is an aging isa brown chicken who is looking very undignified at the moment as she is moulting. It seems that not even female chickens are immune to the dreaded vagaries of hormones as she becomes skitterish and  nervous at this time of the year. We have a delightful garden we have built up over the years with lots of fruit trees and a very productive vegetable garden watered from two rainwater tanks. Ian has a bee hive that produces the most magnificent honey  and we have both solar electricity and hot water. Our friends laugh and say that we are right if the economy continues to go bad as we are pretty much self sufficient – this is not really so!

I have been drawing, probably since I was big enough to hold a pencil and throughout the nineties I sold a lot of my paintings. They were mostly water colour and pastels. But all that went by the wayside when I discovered applique. I have called the applique that I do, “Appliqart” as that is how I see it.  When I was painting, I was drawing flowers and still life and now I am doing the same thing, just using a different medium. So to me it is art and the two are intrinsically linked.

My quilts are made to last by having all turned edges and they can be washed and washed. I am of the belief that they take so long to make that I want them to be around and to be enjoyed for a long time to come. I love the fact that people purchase my patterns to create their own piece of art work. When I run classes I find great joy in seeing the many variations of my designs and how others interpret colours and add their own touches to their works. I will continue to do this and create my own patterns as long as I can and I feel blessed in being able to do so.