Basket Weave Strings

 On Day 3 of Celebration I shared some pictures of Bonnie Hunter's Basket Weave Strings class.  Since then, I've worked on making more blocks.

The process for this project is to work with your scrap strips, divided into 2 groups - color, and neutral.  According to Bonnie, neutral is anything the color value of a brown paper bag or lighter.  It can have print and pattern and color, as long as the background is neutral.  Another factor is the value of the fabric you put the neutral next to. The darker the value of the color, the darker the neutral can be, as long as there is enough contrast. 

These are my boxes of colors and neutrals.  The colors are primarily batiks, the neutrals are more of a mixture of batiks and other commercial fabrics.  But you can see there are actually light colors in with the neutrals, not just off-white or tan or beige.

The blocks are pieced on a paper foundation.  I used newsprint; Bonnie likes to use old phone book pages.  Cutting the foundations is the only measuring needed.  After that, pieces are trimmed to be a bit longer than the paper.  If they are too wide, they can be torn into narrower strips.  Its ok if they aren't straight; actually being a little wonky makes the blocks more interesting.

Here I am chain piecing 2 blocks.  You can find Bonnie's directions for making this quilt here.

 I shared this picture before, of the blocks I got done during class.

These are the ones I've done since, I think about at least 20 more, so total I should have 35-40.  It takes 98 squares for the quilt.  However,I think I might do something else with some of them first before I do a quilt, which means even more blocks, but I don't think I'll run out of scraps any time soon - stay tuned to see what I do!

Celebration Day 4

Our final day at Celebration was a morning wrap up on Sunday.  After breakfast, we gathered in the auditorium for class show & tell, final announcements, and some additional "bonus" door prizes.  Then we said our farewells and headed home, with fond memories of stimulating classes and all the fun.  These pictures are small, but since there were 9 teachers who each taught 2 classes, this post would be really long if I didn't make collages.

 Above, class projects by Cindy French, Laura Blanchard and Nancy Prince.

 The 4 above are Pat Speth, Linda Ballard, Linda French (longarm quilting), and Priscilla Hair.

 The last group is more from Priscilla Hair, Bonnie Hunter and Come Quilt with Me.  There were also 2 classes on Electric Quilt with Evelyn Townsend, but alas, nothing to take pictures of!

Our final trip through time in the tardis resulted in Virginia & David Banks being the winners of the BabyLock sewing machine.  Actually, Virginia was the winner but since they both quilt, maybe they will share it!

 And finally, one last look at the beautiful scenery and a fond farewell till next time!

Day 3 Continued

Saturday lunch was a "tea party".  Everyone was encouraged to wear hats and/or gloves to lunch and everyone received a favor of a tea cup pin cushion.  There were some great hats!

Our Saturday evening program was a trunk show by Bonnie Hunter of her string quilts, followed by more door prizes from the time traveling tardis, block lotto drawings, and announcements of the silent auction and raffle basket winners.

Celebration Day 3

Saturday started with an early morning walk down to the lake.  Here are some shots of the view.

My second workshop was with Bonnie Hunter, called Basket Weave Strings.  I usually tend toward more artsy classes, but this time I felt like doing something different and I really liked the  look of the project, plus I've never taken a Bonnie Hunter class before.  She's really popular with a lot of quilters and its easy to see why. Bonnie's enthusiasm is contagious and she helps us make a dent in the scrap bin - and create a few more!  This was a pretty relaxing class, just a bit of instruction to start with followed by plenty of time to sew.  The string blocks are pieced on a foundation, so other than cutting the foundation papers, no measuring required!  Strips are random widths and don't necessarily have to be straight.  

 Above Bonnie is showing some of her antique string quilts.  The class project is on the right.

 Bonnie demonstrates the foundation piecing process.

These are the blocks I completed in class.  There might have been more, but after sewing 10 blocks I realized that I was sewing without any tension, so then I had to fix them all.  I was happy to get 16 blocks done in spite of that.

Celebration Day 2

Day 1 of Celebration was a half day - afternoon arrival, getting settled in our rooms, followed by dinner and an evening program.  Day 2 was the first workshop day.  I took Thread Painting with Nancy Prince.  We worked on portions of a small landscape - one section was done on stabilizer and then used as an applique, while the other was stitched directly onto the background.

The finished project will resemble the picture below.

Friday's evening program was a lecture by Pat Speth, the "Nickle Quilt Lady" (she is the author of the Nickle Quilt books).  She had lots of quilts to show that all started from 5 inch squares, and also showed lots of border options.

The evening was capped off with more door prizes and time traveling antics.

VCQ Celebration 2014

This is a long overdue post.  VCQ's Celebration retreat happened at the end of April, and I'm finally getting around to writing about it.   We have this retreat every two years, with 2 days of workshops by both national and Virginia teachers.  It is a jam-packed weekend with vendors, a silent auction, 3 evening programs that include trunk shows, door prizes, block lotto drawings, and lots of fun!  This year's event was no exception; in fact, the committee did an outstanding job with their "Quilting is Timeless"/Dr. Who time travel theme. 

Above is a view overlooking the lake at the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H center, and the main activity & dining hall building.

Here you see the Quilting is Timeless Tardis created by the committee, and Monique & Marty in garb from one of their time travels.

The first night features show & tell of projects begun at previous Celebrations.  There were many quilts shown this year, quite of few of which were like the bottom picture, Jamestown Landing, which is one of Bonnie Hunter's patterns.  Bonnie was a teacher at the last 2 Celebrations, and again this year.  Everyone loves her scrap quilt classes.