Last Saturday was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and the week before the show is called Quilter's Affair. There are an amazing number of activities you can choose to do during the week. This year I had planned on several things and it started with a quilt class taught by Tonye Belinda Phillips. I chose this one because I really liked the project. Tonye came to our guild recently to talk about her work. She's a local quilter and has some amazing collaborative projects with the painter who designed the artwork for this year's show. She also has a folk art style of applique that I really love.
Here's Tonye's design.
This is my first block.
Here are the crazy log cabin blocks I worked on the second day of the class.
I really enjoyed seeing some of Tonye's other quilts including this over-the-top vase quilt.
This is a really cool way to make a fancy border. She basted a long straight strip of red to the top of the green, then marked and cut the scallops and appliqued them down.
Truth be told, this is a class I probably could have taught. I'm good at applique and I love making crazy blocks like those log cabins. However, I did learn two good things. How to needle turn those little appliqued circles, for one. I had been using the basting method where you baste around the circle, pull the thread tight around a template and iron it before taking out the template and then appliqueing it down. I forced myself to do it with only the needle turn and I like them. It's much quicker and I figure I'll get better at it as time goes on. The other thing I learned is how to make the stems you see up there. It's really quick and easy if you have the right tool. I'll show how to do it in a later post.
Next up, more photos from Quilt week including the show. My, there were some spectacular quilts there!