by Kim Buchmann on December 19th, 2011My Holiday Season UFO juggernaut rolls on! We had a very quiet weekend…I managed to stay focused and completed three more UFOs. YAY me!
First up was this project from a precision piecing class with Philippa Naylor at Festival. I only completed the small portion on the left during class. It was only a 3 hour class *and* I forgot to bring my cutting mat, so Philippa graciously loaned me hers between her demos. I decided to make the block into a throw pillow for my guest bedroom, so I made a complimentary mate with the dark and light reversed in the border. Philippa is one of Mom’s personal favorite instructors and now I see why! I got lots of tips and tricks for cutting, pressing and pinning which has vastly improved my piecing. Prior to this class, I was extremely intimidated by half-square triangles and they usually turned out poorly. Although there are a couple of OOPS-es here, I’m very pleased with the results. This was also the first time I made fabric choices without Mom’s guidance or without buying coordinating fabrics from one line. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good as Mom is with mixing colors, prints and textures, but clearly I’ve inherited her fondness for purple!
Next was a small Sunset at Sea project from a class with Carol Doak. I wanted to jump into paper piecing as soon as possible and every quilter I talked to said Carol was the go-to instructor for a beginner. I’ve no doubt about that now! She was very effective in removing the mystery and the intimidation factor from the process for me. I was the last person to finish my block in class, but I got her done. I saw numerous Sunset at Sea quilts at Festival and I love the way you see different shapes and movement within depending on the color choices. I’ll definitely be revisiting this pattern in the future and can’t wait to tackle more intricate patterns with paper piecing.
