A Sneaky Day Off

Last week I got a chance to attend a class with Bonnie Hunter...She was the speaker at our guild this month, and she offered a number of classes (all of which completely sold out). I was lucky enough to get a slot in two of them -- Virginia Bound and Winston Ways, and I took full advantage. I picked her brain about her Scrap User's System (which I have started implementing in my sewing room over the last few months) and her approach to quilting. I love her use of scraps, and her approach to the more the better. While I love a good organized quilt, and love "color ways" I love prints and fabrics, and love to add options. If a quilt calls for 1 yard of blue, and look and see if I could do 4 fat quarters of blues, to give myself more options, and make it more mine. I look my quilts to be a reflection of me, and while I love putting kits together, I love to see students "own" their aesthetic, even if the quilt changes as a result. I am infamous for the more is better, and those who know me well know that I am a fabric collector...but more on that in another post.

So, back to class....

Virginia Bound

Virginia Bound is from the Scraps and Shirttails book, and is a string pieced block. I had never worked with strings before, in fact, before class I wasn't really sure of the difference between a strip and a string, much less how to classify which ones where.....Bonnie set us straight, and got us working on these right away. They are a great block to burn through odd shaped "strips" and bits and pieces that are not square, not straight strips, or just plain ugly.

I didn't get any pictures in my Virginia Bound class, but Bonnie has some lovely ones on her blog. I stole this pic from her blog...hopefully, she won't kill me, since they are my blocks....

Mine is the rainbow version, where each of the "wings" is a specific color family, rather than all mixed up. I haven't quite figured out what my plan is for the quilt. I was originally going to do each star in 1 color family, and I might still do that, but I need to pull some more color families (like turquoise and purple, and maybe a little less orange). We'll see how it ends up....after market.

Winston Ways

Winston Ways is from Bonnie's most recent book -- More Adventures with Leaders and Enders - the book explores the quilts that you can make using the leader and ender technique. I had never heard of this technique until I caught an episode of Quilt Cam a few months ago. It's genius....really. You have to try it! I started the Leader ad Ender Challenge last year which was made of Half 9 Patch Blocks. And I am also about half way through my Lozenge Leader and Ender from this year....Anyway, check out the technique and all of the quilts that she uses it on...including Winston Ways.

Here's my Winston Ways block that we made in class. It's 12 inches, and has 104 pieces in it. And it is Perfect!!!! It is assembled using some techniques that I hadn't seen before (which is always fun to learn something new). I love the color way, and the precision of the block. I generally don't work with strips that are less that 2 inches, but this one knocked through a bunch of scraps that were left over from 1 1/2" sashings. It was great to see that scrap bin hit hard. I can't wait to work on the remaining blocks in this quilt. I want to make it a king for my bed, so I need about 45 more blocks....which should make a huge dent in the pinks and greens, but leave plenty of purple and turquoise.....I suspect I will need to do some additional cutting into scrap user's to get the variety that I want - but that project was already scheduled for after Market, so now I have an incentive to get it done, and a reward for finishing!!!!

Do you reward yourself for getting things done in your sewing room???

Have a great week, and happy Thursday!!!

Catherine