Quilt Classes

What a great day. Took off from work and went to two count 'em TWO quilt classes at the LQS. First one was one I had really been looking forward to: Vintage Quiltmaking Challenge. It was taught by one of the three Little Quilts ladies, Alice Berg. She gave us a delectable stack of pink and brown prints and a mystery scrap bag (!) along with a photo of an inspiration vintage crib quilt. The idea is to create our own version of this little quilt using the fabrics that were given to us, as if we were pioneer ladies out on the prairie and had to make do with what we had. The biggest challenge is to decide what to use for the 12" or 15" center block, whether to make our own patchwork or applique block or use a vintage block that we have around (and I may have one!), or what to do with that central area. What fun! So anyway we started off making our scrappy pink and brown 3" nine patches for now, while lots of little ideas are circulating for that center block. Photo below is where Alice was demonstrating that you can have the simple color range in the left-most strip, or you can add different tones of each color and get the marvelous scrappy range in the next strips; strip at right are fabrics to avoid if you are trying to get an authentic vintage look to your quilts.


Second class was Quiltmaking Study, excellent as always; among other things, we saw this wonderful Sunbonnet Sue. This quilt is in the current issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. The quiltmaker has about 16 of these vintage blocks made by somebody back in her family and this is the first of four quilts she is going to make using the blocks for her nieces, I believe. Isn't this just the cleverest setting for sunbonnet babies? How did she think of this?