Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Freepiecing freedom

Last Saturday I attended a workshop sponsored by my lovely little guild, the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild.  Guild member Valerie, of Purple Boots and Pigtails fame, was our teacher.  It was her first experience teaching a quilting class and we are so glad we talked her into it!  We all admire her quilts,  especially her use of freepiecing.  She did an amazing job and hopefully will consider teaching more classes.  I am used to improv piecing but I had not tried lettering before.  That's what interested me the most.  Val showed us her method and I was totally smitten with it. She gave everyone in the class some Pink breast cancer fabric and asked us to include some in our piecing, to honour her friend Bernie who very recently passed away. I used it in the roof.
 I came right home and worked on making my blocks from the class into  a  wallhanging for my sewing room .(I totally stole your sewing room wallhanging idea Anja!)  I quilted it with vertical squiggly lines using a pink variegated Sulky 30# thread top and bottom and a  90/14 topstitch needle.  I love how it turned out so much.
 My QuiltySister from Qatar is home for a little visit and tagged along to the class with me and helped me with lugging all my gear and even cutting and pressing.  It was so great to spend some quality quilty time with my sis...I miss her a lot. She enjoyed the class too.  Even though she is a strict to- the-  pattern lover,  she really liked the letter free piecing and tells me she is going to give it a try when she gets back to her sewing room in Doha.  Thanks Valerie, for a fun, learning day.  You rock!

                                                                           
Measures 16" x 46"


Along with the house block, the letters and the trees, we also made a freepieced churn dash block.  I am going to make a cushion with it.  I used the breast cancer fabric in the centre on this one.



Earlier today, I heard from Stephanie, the winner of my anniversary giveaway fabric postcard. The postcard arrived safe and sound and she really enjoyed it.  I can show it to you now.  It is similar to the sample that I used for teaching  my first postcard workshop.  BTW.  I am teaching another fabric postcard class on Sunday if you are interested.  Get in touch with me for more info.


Hope you are having a great day and had time to work on something quilty.