Had a great day of training yesterday and to my surprise when I walked in, I knew someone in the room. Used to be a student in some of my classes and I see her from time to time. What a neat surprise! Always like to keep in touch with people. This industry is small!! I'm sure some of you know her as well, and if you don't, you will! She's going to be working in a quilt store soon. Not super close to me, but close enough. Country Concessions if you must know.
Last night was a bit of a crazy night as I had to do paperwork that I would normally do in the day time. And two more quilts got added to the list of "deadline" quilts. Happily, two got removed. One was removed because it was in a box and on its way south. The second was for the Trendtex challenge which will be on display and available to bid on at Quilt Canada which happens NEXT WEEK. You must check out the information for Quilt Canada. It's going to be exciting and yes - I'll be there all week.
Check out the Trendtex Challenge. There are some incredibly clever quilts here. I had hoped to make one, but with all the moving of stuff, I couldn't even find the darn fabric. I found it last night after I concluded that it must be in the last place I hadn't looked and yes - there it was. So lesson learned, if you're going to do a challenge, don't wait. I'll take that fabric and incorporate it into my stash.
Quilt Canada, for those of you who don't know, is in Ottawa this year. The dates are June 12 - 15. If you're going to be in the area, come check it out. I'll be in the PFAFF booth or the Husqvarna Viking booth. You can check out all the details here.
The Canadian Quilter's Association which hosts Quilt Canada is attempting to include all quilters across Canada whether they make it to Quilt Canada or not. They have various activities like their 52-week block sew along, a mystery quilt just for members and a whole lot more. They are going to update the social platforms to keep those who can't attend in the know and lots of other things. If you're not a member why not? Let's support our CANADIAN quilt institute and keep Canadians quilting!! They have a great website and a great quarterly magazine.
Today's the day - we get to finally see some of the show and tell from the ongoing class that I'm hosting at The Hobby Horse.
Actually, today is the homework that came in from the previous month's class. What I love about these classes is that there is no penalty so if the work gets completed the following month, they can still bring it in.
This is the book that we're working from. Each block is represented twice. The second time, there's a wee tweak to the first one - mostly in the coloring. Which goes to show that any block can be remade.
I'm taking it a step further and discussing how the block can be modified or changed, not only by color, but by scale, value, but also how the block is constructed. It all depends on the block.
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| Ultimate Quilt Block Collection book by Lynne Goldsworthy |
OH MY GOD - I just realized that I did NOT post the homework blocks from the previous month. ACK!!!! I must do that!
Hard to believe but these two first blocks are the SAME block. Yep - just the light/dark have been reversed.
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| The positive version |
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| And this is the negative version |
That's totally amazing. Same block - same piecing. Totally different look.
Each month, I choose a number of blocks that the class could work on. While some of the students are working on different blocks to make one quilt, others are working on smaller projects.
These next two photos are the same block. The block is made up of four smaller blocks. In the first one, all four blocks are the same. In the second photo, there are two positive blocks and two negative blocks.
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| All four smaller blocks are identical |
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| There are two positive and two negative blocks |
Here's one more version of this block. Notice that the value contrast between the two fabrics is quite high. In the orange block above, there is a wee bit of bleeding as the lightest values of that print are bleeding into the white and not giving the sharpest lines like this block below. Also, the contrast between the dark purple and the white is greater than the contrast between the orange and the white.
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| High contrast in this version of the block |
We also talk about how the block could be constructed differently depending on what you're doing with it.
Here's a different block. We chat about grid systems for various blocks and how they can be changed to make something totally different from the original pattern. Oh yes - the more I talk about what we're learning, the more I want to take the class. Oops - I'm teaching the class!!! It's an exciting class. Too late to sign up for this run, but we can always run it again if anyone is interested. Coming to class and learning from seeing what the others did is HUGE. Oh yes - I'm learning from my students almost as much as they are learning from me!
This next block was all about value placement. I do love the colors in this block. Even though there is light, medium, and dark in this block, the dark is very dominating while the two mediums are similar in value and color and tend to blend into each other. The beauty of it all? There's no right or wrong. It's just about understanding why something works or doesn't work according to your eye.
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| Gorgeous teal block |
Oh, shoot - as I'm looking at these next two blocks which were bonus blocks in the back of the book, I see that BOTH people made the same mistake. And I missed it in class. I'm pretty sure I missed it in class. Can you spot the mistake? Well, technically it's not a mistake, but changing it would make assembly a whole lot easier. I'll e-mail the group about that as I think they are making quilts from these blocks.
Same block, two different colorways. Both are very exciting. What's nice about this block is that it is fast, especially if you chain piece. And we love chain piecing.
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| Blue/purple version |
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| Black/grey and red version |
Wow - that's exciting. I hope to get another bit of show n tell up tomorrow. I spent the greater part of last night immersed in quilt design stuff.
I have to laugh. I have a super busy week this week and I'm away most of next week. And I have a lot of stuff that needs to get done before and after I leave the house each day. I'm hyped! I probably got more done last night than I would have if I were home all morning. My brain just thrives on this kind of "pressure". I crank out e-mails, thoughts, designs in no time flat. Case in point, I'm using a specific collection to design a quilt. You'll laugh when you see it. But I had no idea what to do with the fabric collection. Then on the highway yesterday - BAM - the idea just came to me and now the quilt is almost designed. I've no idea how that happens, but it does. I love it!
I honestly don't know what I would do if I retire. Yes - I can sew and read all day, but it's this busyness and keeping in the loop and designing and writing and having deadlines - well - that's what keeps me awake!! I'd probably sleep all day without that happening in my life!!!
On that note, I'm out of here. Got a few more e-mails to crank out before I leave.
Have a super day!!!!
Ciao!!!
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