Monday, May 26, 2014

Gone to Paradise!

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I had the pleasure of giving my lecture and teaching my tile quilt workshop for the Ridge Quilters in Paradise, a lovely town in the hills above Chico, with lots of pine trees.  I arrived on Monday evening and shortly thereafter was treated to a lively thunderstorm which was exciting, since they don't happen often nearer the coast where I live in San Jose.  And I was inside and safe!  It did knock out the power briefly and rattle the windows in the restaurant where I was eating dinner!

At the meeting on Tuesday morning, the Ridge Quilters were visited by the local television station and some filming took place while I was speaking but I think the main subject was their philanthropy work so I suspect and hope that I was left on the proverbial cutting room floor!  It's nice to know they got the publicity.  They are a great bunch of quilters and deserve the attention.

Thanks for the great hospitality you extended to me.

The workshop was small with eight participants who all seemed happy to be learning about making tile quilts.

One participant had already purchased our book, Tile Quilt Revival, and had started making two blocks before she came to class from the patterns in the book.  She started a new block in class.  The first two pictures are the blocks she had already started and the third is her class project.  All these blocks are from the Starry Orange Peel quilt.  I love the hummingbird fabric in the shooting star block.  Nice fabric choices and great applique. Look at the points on that star! 




I hope she and the rest of the class send me pictures when they complete their projects.

Here are the rest of the works in progress from the class.  First the Starry Orange Peel blocks in a nice variety of fabrics with the applique underway, revealing the background and creating the "grout" lines.






And, three  nice "Lotus" blocks in progress.







Nice work everyone!  I hope even those who were reluctant to do needle-turn applique have happily all become great fans of the process.  Thanks for a great day, including the great potluck!