Sew-y Sunday!

Another wonderful sewing-filled week-end! Today I headed off to a workshop with Elaine Quehl, an amazing quilter and fabric dye-r from Ontario, organized by my guild, Mariner`s Quilt Guild. (On a side note, the current blog post is about my recent presentation on modern quilting - shameless pluggery!)

Our morning`s class was all about free form curves. Scary, right? But Elaine's technique is amazing. After her initial explanations, the class of 18 was off to the races, rotary cutting without patterns and sewing them together without too much trouble at all.

 Look, Q-D! No pins!

You just keep cutting and sewing more curves. The technique works best with gentle curves, so some of mine puckered a little. Nothing a wallop of steam and a load of machine quilting won't take care of!

You're unlikely to be shocked by this, but I opted to work with Konas for this project. The materials list called for fat quarters... I don't have a lot of FQs in my stash, other than my monthly dose of Kona.

These colours are (from darkest to lightest, with repetition): teal blue, turquoise, peacock, robin egg, and baby blue









Behold our creations! So amazing to see the variety created from one technique! I'm thinking of adding a bit of aquatic foliage in a lime green and a few orange fishies... I might even hand appliqué them!

I even have some ideas for the quilting... see what a workshop does to you? So energized!

The afternoon saw us working on small flip and sew projects. These were pieced on muslin backing with a technique reminiscent of paper piecing (Try not to cringe too hard, Q-A!) We worked from one of two patterns on offer - Femme Fatale or Ocean Waves. I chose Ocean Waves. Here's Elaine's piece... her goal was moonlight shining on the waves.

 You start out by tracing the pattern onto muslin, and then (horror of horrors!) cutting it apart. You then flip and sew your scrappy bits in place.





I went for more of a daytime feel with mine. I was thinking of afternoon breezes on the beach while staring out at the Caribean. The idea I had didn't line up with the fabric I brought, so a little more sewing time will be needed at home to finish this one off. Section 4 will have lighter turquoises and whites to represent the breaking surf and section 5 will have sandy tones.

This workshop was well worth the time and cost and has solidified my decision to take more workshops. I never would have thought of curved piecing as being something I could improvise with, but clearly, it is possible. Even if a class isn't exactly your "thing", you can always glean a new tip or technique just from being in a room with all that quilt talk. I only wish I had another day of week-end so I could play some more!

Here's hoping you had a quilt-y week-end too! Thanks for reading!

J