Flying Home Day.

Check out the gorgeous colors of this wonderful Good Fortune quilt!

Our show and share was terrific during our workshops in Atascadero, California this week – ALL of this amazing workmanship – brought to class to share with everyone in attendance – the most fun reveal of the day!

purple and gold and rusty red and green on brown – how YUMMY!

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Straits of Mackinac, the California Way!

Aqua to Turquoise – our color theme of the day!

I fell in love the moment I walked into the classroom – not only were many of us playing with this gorgeous color range, but some came all decked out wearing our “color of the day” and even SEWING on a machine of this beautiful color.

And it doesn’t stop there.  Check out the sippy cup behind.  Oh beautiful!

Straits of Mackinac from String Frenzy.. SO much fun and creativity packed into a 6 hour workshop day – could they do it?  Could they get even ONE BLOCK made?

With 35 students in class, I was hopping between two rooms watching folks tackle one unit at a time, breaking the room into 3 smaller groups for hands on demo time.

My plates were spinning – but we got it done with smiles and laughter!

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Making Webs!

Making Webs – and loving the creative mess!

Workshop day 4 in Atascadero in conjunction with the Seven Sisters Quilt Show – String Spider Web!

We had a blast – and everyone got to choose their own block size, drafting their own kite template and deciding how they wanted to set their blocks – be it the traditional version from the free patterns tab, or the Serpentine Web uptake from my book String Frenzy!

My suggestion – gleaned from time I spent in the presence of Gwen Marston herself – “Don’t commit too soon!”  Give yourself the opportunity to make blocks – MANY blocks – and then play with them, not deciding what was going to happen until the quilt itself lets you know.

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Talkin’ Turkey with Strings Attached!

Another full class and full day of stitching up the scraps!

Yes, that is me waving my arms around like an Opera singer – having a wonderful time explaining something about the wonderfully imperfect nature of string piecing being the ORIGINAL improv!  String quilts are just the best for letting go, going with the flow, and not letting the worry of perfection consume you.

I love having folks in class who have NEVER done any kind of string piecing before.  They have no pre-conceived notions or bad  experiences with other methods stopping them – they just dive in and go with it and have a great time!

And oh, did we ever have a great time!

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