Pinnacles Quilt Guild Workshop

When I visited Pinnacles Quilt Guild in June the scheduled workshop was postponed since it was the same day as the start of the local Shop Hop and who wouldn't rather go shopping at multiple shops and reap all the rewards!  I'm wondering now why I didn't go on the Shop Hop too!

Last Saturday, ten of us gathered at Bev's fabulous studio in the hills of Hollister.  Several of us didn't want to leave at the end and threatened to hide in the shower but Bev warned us that there was no room in the shower, she had fabric stored there!

This was a really great group of quilters.  Some had lots of experience with quilting in general and with applique while others were fairly recent beginners.  That said, they all did a great job of working with the tile quilt method and produced some fabulous blocks.

Bev had taken my workshop previously at the King City guild in January and as a result of the class, she had finished four blocks.  She had the finished blocks on her design wall and I was delighted to see them.  Each block is Block A from my "Lotus" quilt which is on the cover of Tile Quilt Revival but Bev has oriented each block differently to add interest.  Here's a photo.

 

 Bev designed another block in class which will become a pillow in her living room.

The Lotus block seemed to be the most popular of the day.  Here are more and as usual a nice variety of fabrics from Asian to a cat.

Two students chose the Orange Peel block.  Polka Dots reign in the first one.

And when I took a photo of this block and showed it to the maker, she decided that the yellow was too bright and chose another fabric.  She had already started appliqueing the orange peel shape to the right. Taking a photo of the work, sometimes let's us see things that we didn't see before.  The second photo is her second fabric choice which does work better.

Thanks for a great day!  I forgot to say that the potluck lunch was super!

Too much time on my hands??

I have a few weeks between lectures and classes and just in time, Frances B. Calhoun from Lynchburg, Virginia sent me a photo of the fabulous tile quilt she made from our book, Tile Quilt Revival.   She named her quilt "Circles and Friends" and had this to say about it, "It was a joy to make and I’ll probably do more.   It is an opportunity to use lots of wonderful prints I have on hand.   The fabrics in this quilt are practically all decorator samples."

She used a black background fabric which give the appearance of stained glass.  Our method for making these quilts is  much less labor intensive than the traditional stained glass method of adding bias strips.  You create the lines by taking away something:  turning under the seam allowances and revealing the black background fabric. The black sashing and border make a great finish.  

Thanks for sending me the photo, Frances.  Great job!  I love it!

In the meantime,
I've been filling my time with various projects.  

For quite a while I've been working on some blocks from a pattern called "Dancing Umbrellas" from Laundry Basket Quilts (Edyta Sitar).  I've been using this as my carry around project that I take to my Saturday Sew Sisters quilting group of six friends.  I chose to make just nine blocks from batiks rather than the 25 featured in the pattern and also added a border.  I call my quilt "Dancing in the Rain".  Right now it is on exhibit at Prairie Queens Quilt Shop in San Jose with a few other offerings from the Applique Goddesses group.

And another project from  Edyta Sitar, from her book, Scrappy Fireworks Quilts is this sewing box.  I bought the book because I loved this project and I'm happy that I finally had some time to get it made.  I used "happy" Kaffe Fassett fabrics for my little house.  

 It''s about 10.5'' x 4.5'' and 8'' high.  Not sure what I'll use it for but I do smile when I look at it!


 And the last but not least too much time on my hand project was recovering my desk chair.  Thomas, my dear sweet cat (unless he's biting me!) clawed the seat of my chair near to the shredding point -- usually when I was sitting in the chair in order to get my attention.  I saw a picture in a book the name of which escapes me and I don't own, of how to recover your desk chair.  Off to Beverly's I go (where I found the flat folds on sale for half price) to get some fabric.  The chair was originally green and I could have gotten a good enough green plaid and not have to deal with covering the back rest.  But I was really tempted by a big brown paisley.  Anyone can have a green plaid chair, I thought, but not everyone can have a brown paisley desk chair! Covering the seat was easy since it only required a staple gun which I had in my toolbox.  The back did require a little sewing, both by machine and by hand.  And, I have enough paisley fabric left to recover the seat if dear Thomas shreds it again.  This project makes me smile too.

And here is a picture of my pal Thomas, who likes to help me sew.