I’m certainly feeling a new season coming on here in Seattle. Gardening and seasonal cooking seem like kindred spirits to quilting so I’m always torn between the studio, the yard and the kitchen. Luckily the weather has started cooperating by providing us inside time with a squall here and there, and peppering in some sunshine and those huge fluffy clouds I love so much. I want time to do it all, so the weather has been good at compromising.
If you’re living in Seattle during the winter it’s crucial to have indoor hobbies. My Seattle peeps must be feeling the same desire to shift back to the indoor sort and are coming out of the woodwork to cultivate new ideas in Open Studios and request workshop dates.
I’m picking up the bug myself. I’ve been traveling around for months to lectures with the binding half done on my Seeing Stars Quilt and finally caught some couch time to finish it up.
If you’ve taken my improv strip piecing workshop Psychedelic Baby the triangles in this quilt might look familiar. I made the large star from my triangle cast off blocks we create in Psychedelic Baby and now have enough samples for running the Part II workshop.
This in studio workshop will focus on improvisational or traditional layout and design using the blocks from the workshop’s first session.
Here’s the original quilt called Full Tilt that I made with the blocks from the first workshop.
Other quilt examples for this Part II workshop are,
the Intersected Quilt,
and my No Know Quilt.
Some are more improvisational in design and some are simply triangles sewn into rows. Easy to choose a design that works at a skill level you’re comfortable with.
Somewhere along the way stumbled upon a large star layout and decided it was a perfect design for my triangles’ placement.
Keeping with my tradition at this point I pulled from stash for the back. I have a love affair with this Alexander Henry fabric and have some pillows around with it that are in the household rotation.
The binding is a double binding so that the quilt would have a little framing and the quilting is a grid of straight lines.
I really like how it turned out and there’s a bit of star twinkle in some of the fabrics that have silver threads running through them.
A new quilt is always a welcome addition to lectures and for feeding interest in workshops and I’ve got a few of those coming up. October has some opportunities to visit me outside the studio and even the state. I’ll be at Quilting Mayhem teaching my Improv 101 | Coin Quilt.
If you live in Oregon I’ll be at the Stitchin’ Post teaching Psychedelic Baby October 18th and Double-Trouble Triangles October 19th. My Thread Talk is at 6:30pm October 17th; classes are 9AM-4PM. I’d love to see you!
With October being pretty full I’ve stuck mostly to Open Studios, but as always if you see a workshop you’re interested in email me and we’ll find a date that works:) Happy Weekend Peeps!
