Teaching

Today I had a class with five lovely and talented women.  I taught them how to make origami kimonos out of strips of fabric.  They all made some wonderful kimonos out of a variety of fabrics - one was even a sombrero pattern, that came out looking oriental when it was done.  You'd never know it was sombreros at all.  We had a couple of hours of lots of fun, and enjoyable comaraderie as fellow quilters and it was amazing to watch these little strips of fabric transform under their hands into adorable little kimonos.

Here are some pictures of the kimonos they made, some with finished or almost finished quilts to put them on:

Not the best pictures I've ever taken, but I was limited to using my phone today.  See that yellow fabric?  It had sombreros on it... you'd never know, looking at the kimono!

Aren't these the cutest things ever????

I had SO much fun this morning with these ladies!!!  What a great way to spend a Saturday morning!!


On a side note: Two of the ladies in the class were professional teachers in their fields and said I did a great job demonstrating and teaching the technique, and being patient with them when they had questions.  That made my day, too, as I have been having sleepless nights with bad dreams leading up to the class for a few days now.  Can you say performance anxiety????  I have it in spades, and was sure something was going to go disastrously wrong.  It didn't!  Hooray!!!

New Projects

I started two new BOMs this week.  Am I crazy or what?  After all, I'm still in the middle of the Alaska quilt, but I joined these BOMs - one I signed up for months ago and it just started, the other I just signed up for last month.  I finished the first block for 'Autumn Joy' - It's an adorable bunny block.

I added some eyes for the bunny with french knots but I did that after I took the picture.  I can't wait for block two! 

The other BOM is the Woodland Creatures Quilt, and I am working on the first block now, which is the squirrel block, which is fine with me - I love squirrels!  Picture to follow when I get it done.  These are huge blocks too - 18 1/2" squares of fabric! It's going to be a massive quilt, which is okay - It is kind of a baltimore album kind of quilt with animals on it, so huge is appropriate.  Of course, I made a mistake and put my fusible on the wrong side of one of the fabrics, so I have more work to do before I can put the block together... Maybe tomorrow or Friday??

A finish!!!

Challenge quilt is FINISHED!  I think...

Now I have to work on the two BOMs I signed up for - both started this month.  Hopefully I have nothing else on my plate now except those two, and my Alaska quilt, so basically 3 BOMs.

Of course I'm not even going to think about all the tops that are languishing needing quilting... sigh.

New Goal

I have to set a new goal for myself this month, so my initial goal is to finish my challenge quilt for the guild challenge.  We had to blindly pick two paint chips and make a two color quilt using the colors on the paint chips.  We were allowed to add one other color, and a background color as well.  My paint chips were purple and violet (oh boy - what a combination - basically purple and purple).  We could use multiple values of those colors, of course.  I chose to add indigo to the mix, and for my 'background' color, I chose peach, which I put in the foreground instead of the background.

Here is what I have so far:

I am adding some peach colored yoyo's to the corners to embellish among the appliques.  The yoyos have beading to make them more 'flower like' - I hope it all comes out okay - and of course those kimonos have to be sewn onto the quilt - right now they are just pinned. 

I have until April 10th to finish this one up, because that is the reveal date for the challenge.  I hope it goes over well - I've had a lot of fun making and quilting this one.

The initial posting for the online '2013 finishes' challenge is at this site.  The reveal for the paint chip challenge is not online - it's at my monthly guild meeting.  Wish me luck - the quilts get voted on by the entire guild membership.