Class at the AQS show in Lancaster....

My friend, Kathy, and I took a class by Gail Garber called Color and Contrast. This wasn't a class that talked about the color wheel....it was a class that encouraged us to use contrast in our projects and showed how important it is. We didn't sew...but we were given bits and pieces of fabrics rather randomly and had to work with what we were given. We were cutting them and pasting them down to look like different types of quilt blocks. In the beginning, we all did very traditional things and then we got more "artsy-fartsy" as I like to call it. We had a lot of fun AND there was no UFO to take home. Here are some photos from that class. (The completed quilts are ones done by the instructor.) If you click on them, they will be quite large but it will give you the chance to see her work up close. She does her quilts by paper-piecing but her design process takes a long time, as you might imagine from seeing these very involved art-quilts. She also does a lot of curved borders and bindings.

This quilt was done as a memorial to the tragic events of 9-11.She also uses mostly hand-dyed fabrics that she buys....but she does also use scraps...like the pyramid border above that used scraps of many different reds. These next two were very striking to see in person.

You might notice that she does a lot of flying geese and I like how the colors flow along the edge of this next quilt.This next photo shows Kathy and a few other gals working on their block designs. Gail would give us a sheet of paper with a box drawn on it and the box was drawn to look like something simple....a 9-patch or a 16-patch. (Some of the other ones were more advanced shapes and we didn't get to all of them.) We didn't have to make OUR design look like a 9-patch or a 16-patch...just had to make sure it stayed within the outer confines of the box on the page.Here are some of the results......mine is the 3rd one down on the right side...with the two circular shapes on it. Mind you....these were all glued in place but her books, apparently, teach you how to take your design and do it with paper-piecing. I had fun doing this....but it's not my "cup of tea"....though it was nice to think outside the box for this one morning! She taught a few other classes at the show and I believe she taught people how to go from the design on paper to making it with paper-piecing during at least one of those other classes.

My wonderfully fun class on Monday.....

I absolutely LOVED my class with Gyleen Fitzgerald on Monday. (Click HERE for her website.) She gave a lecture first at our guild meeting on her newest book.....Quilts: Unfinished Stories with New Endings (which you can see on her website). She had ALL the quilts from the book there to show us and to describe how she finished them for the book. (She had acquired them in various stages of completion and some went back to the 1920's). It was a fun and fascinating talk. She sure keeps everyone's attention. This first photo is one of the quilts....the front of it.......and then the back....Gyleen does backs that can actually be used as fronts.......and each one is terrific.I took several photos of quilts but overshot my flash on some of them......and wish I hadn't as some of them were better shots than these previous two. Next is a photo of 3 of us who made blocks for the quilt by which we are standing. It is a quilt Gyleen has featured in one of her tiny books (In This House) as well as she has a pattern for it. In the photo (left to right) are me, Kaye (click here for her blog), another gal from guild named Pat (no blog) and Gyleen. My block, in case you were wanting to know, is in the 3rd row from the top...2nd block from the left...a yellow house with a cat in the window.
Below, Gyleen is holding a top made from the blocks from the free Block of the Month she designed that may be found on her website. It is based on tiles.......pretty crisp-looking. I may decide to make these, because we all know I don't have enough projects already in progress. hahahahaHA I didn't think to ask Gyleen if the fabrics in this are any of her hand-dyes...as she does beautiful hand-dyes (on top of being a writer, designer, teacher AND holding down a fulltime job as some kind of engineer, I believe). I wish I could bottle her energy...that's for sure!
The last photo (below) shows my project from class........no borders yet. It's Gyleen's Batik Star Tesselation pattern.....REALLY a fun pattern once you get the hang of it....and easy, too (again, once you understand how to do it). I am NOT one to do lots of colors...I usually pick one safe colorway and everything is pretty much "matchy-matchy" but I trusted Gyleen and took chances with this and like it a lot so far....although I will be the first to admit it is really WILD. (Nothing like a scrappy batik to look wild, I guess.) I will show it again once I get the border fabric chosen and done (and I am going to spill a couple of stars out into the border the way she showed us to do it). As I have told you before, if you ever get the chance to hear her speak or take a class from her, go DO it. (I think she may be at the Houston show teaching this year...unless that was last year and time has just flown by!!! LOL) Check out her website, too (at the link above). If you take a class from her, she provides support to you via telephone and email until you are done with the project, so you are not left dangling with unanswered questions...which is terrific. I am currently picking her brain about borders for this piece! Gyleen...if you are reading this, thanks for being such a super quilt designer and teacher (and lecturer).

A little of this and a little of.........

So...Day 2 of the repair project is done. Day 2 saw the ceilings being removed as well as the insulation and a whole dump truck being filled with that "junk". I have taken photos and will probably put them all in a post someday when the job is further along (or maybe when it's done).

I made good progress today on my disappearing 9-patch and will show some photos of that on the blog tomorrow. I am happy with how it's progressing.
The last item on today's "agenda" (but not the least, as the saying goes) is to tell you that I am very excited that I'll be taking a class with Gyleen Fitzgerald on September 14. She will speak at our guild and then teach her Batik Star Tesselation pattern to several of us who signed up for the class. (Two of my neighborhood quilting pals....Kaye and Sherry with no blog... are taking it, also. YAY!!!) Click HERE to see the pattern for that class. It looks quite difficult, but Gyleen has a way of making her patterns easy to do AND fun, so I am confident I won't have any problems doing the quilt. Above is a photo of Gyleen teaching it to another group. (Thanks, Gyleen, for giving me this photo to use.) She is a wonderful speaker AND teacher...and if you ever get the chance to see her, be sure to GO. You won't regret it...I promise! Gyleen also has a website that you might like to see.....click HERE for that and have a look around at her books and patterns, hand-dyed products, free BOM, newsletter, etc. I've mentioned her before when I told you I did one of the paper-pieced houses for a page in her little book called "In This House"....which was SO much fun! She has another book I love called "The Dream" and I'm about to buy her newest book.....called "Quilts: Unfinished Stories with New Endings".