Small Quilts with Gwen

Two weeks ago I had a workshop with Gwen Marston on Small Quilts.  I had so much fun!  I took 2 classes from her last year, and I was really looking forward to this year's class. A huge Thank You to Lee from Two Thimbles Quilt Shop in Bellingham for putting on this class.  She did a super job!

Gwen's subject was Small Quilts.  Gwen brought 20-30 small quilts from her collection of 450!  Some of them were traditional - Gwen often makes a small quilt to play with pattern or color or to replicate an antique quilt - and some were in the liberated style. All of them were beautiful and inspiring!  Gwen spread them all out on the floor and then talked about her inspiration and reasoning for each quilt.

I decided to work in the traditional format this time.  I've got so many repro fabrics and thought it was time to use some of them.  I don't know if I could make a big quilt with them anymore.  I find them kind of boring to work with, although I love the way they look all finished.  Small quilts won't make much of a dent in my stash, but I think they're more fun to work with.  There were a few people working "traditionally" and most worked in the liberated format.

Here is my layout.  I had to work with the indigos, of course!  Check out the cool cheddar fabric I found - it looks hand-dyed.  Um, wouldn't that be UN-traditional?  I couldn't resist it!  *grin*

Here's two of my classmates' traditional takes on the small quilt:

And here's some of the liberated small quilts:

love the dots on this one!

I love that the tissue box seems to go with what she's got going on here!

It was so much fun to meet some bloggers I've only "met" on-line and also to make new friends.

Em was so fast, she was quilting already!

Miki

Buffy

I didn't get my little quilt put together in class.  I have to admit, I was visiting too much!  So, when I got back to my hotel, I stayed up late and got it put together.

Here it is, all sewn together and bordered.  I love this border fabric!  Now to get it quilted and bound.

If you get the chance to take a class with Gwen Marston, I highly recommend it.  And I wouldn't dawdle too long, if I were you.  I don't think Gwen will be doing this indefinitely.  If you're in this area (Western Washington), Gwen will be doing some classes at Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue next year.

For more photos and fun from Gwen's class, see Miki's blog here and here, Nifty's blog, Buffy's blog, and last but far from least,  Em's blog.

I'll be back soon - I've got more to show you!

Field Trip Acquisitions

As promised, here are the "results" of my field trip last Monday. But first, I have to show you the results of the workshop I took Friday. One of the members of my guild presented this.

Ta-Dah! We learned how to do this nifty weave-type design. We made bookmarks with this. It's easier than it looks. I will say, though, that new Fray-Check works much better than 10-year-old Fray Check! And it didn't improve it to iron it while it was wet. But everything came out well. The bookmark on the right was my choice of fabrics (with the not-so-good Fray Check on it). The left-most one was the teacher's fabrics, my construction. The second one went better, of course. And, I learned - again - the value of contrast. But I think this is a very cool technique. I'll do it again, on something.

On to the field trip now. Above are the fabrics I bought at Quiltworks Northwest. Most of them are fat quarters with a couple of half-yards for the two batiks at upper left.

These are what I got at Keepsake Cottage Fabrics. The pink and blue were the sale fabrics, and I got enough to make a couple of pillowcases. I got two of the "cat" fat quarters. I not only love that it says Cats, Cats, Cats, but it also has lots of cool fonts. I'm a "font junkie". . . . I LOVE fonts! I have something like 700 fonts on my computer, and I use a LOT of them, mostly for making greeting cards.

Now on to That Patchwork Place. Everyone got a free calendar. And the craft books were "buy 1, get 1 free". So, these were hard to pass up.

I've started playing with beads lately. Maybe I'll show my silly stuff one of these days. I'm just making simple stretchy bracelets. More of the "playing with pretty colors" addiction!

Here are some of the books I bought. I'm enjoying looking at all of them right now. Remember, all of these books were $5!!!

Here are more of the books. Simple Comforts is by Kim Diehl, and I have 3 other books by her. And the Points of View book is by Valerie Hearder, and I'm finding it very exciting and inspirational. I'm gonna have to do some of these one day soon.

And there's more books that I bought, but they're for birthday and Christmas presents, so I'm not showing them here. Sorry. But trust me, they're good ones too!

Here are the patterns I bought. These were $3 each.

And here's the beads I bought. They don't look too exciting here, but I needed some findings and there was a good selection at Quiltworks NW/Beads and Beyond. And the prices were pretty good, I think.

Here's the little yellow bird that had to come home with me. He's so cute, and just the right spot of color to go with all my blue glass.

Now you can see why I needed help carrying all my purchases into the house when we got home! This should keep me happy for quite a while.

I hope everyone is visiting all the bloggers participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. There's so many beautiful quilts to see, and the best part is the wonderful stories that each one has to tell.

Well, tonight is the final Lost episode. Are you going to watch it? I am. I've watched every episode all these years. DH is pretty disgusted with the show, and has a rather negative attitude about the ending. I'm hopeful that the ending will be good, but not too sure it's gonna turn out that way. So, we'll see. My DD hasn't seen the show in a few years, and says she's gonna wait until it's all over, then go read the plot on Wikipedia!