The guild organized a workshop with Claudia Shearer. She called it Post Modern Jukebox. It was very similar to a workshop with Virginia Schnalle I took years ago when I made the Eye of God quilt.
Initially, we had a hard time getting enough people to participate, but invited some other guilds and got enough people not to lose money. Always a good idea.
Everyone was able to make at least a dozen blocks. There were a lot of solids, but people, like me, used prints as well.
At first, when I was thinking about what fabrics to bring, I thought I would bring my box of cool solids. A solid, if predictable choice. I read something about really thinking about your fabric choices. I often grab my most recent fabric purchases as they are the most accessible. Whatever I read made me stop and think.
I knew I would be making a table runner. They are large enough projects to have some design options, but small enough to finish sooner rather than later. My dining room is painted red. I have also been thinking about how I don’t seem to have used much red lately. I got my red bins and also a bin of low volume text prints. I made my fabric decision and stuck with it.
I am pleased with the fabrics I chose and how the piece is coming out.
Yes, I have too much of the pinky red dots I found when cutting out the Mini One Handle Totes last week. I am working on diluting their influence with other fabrics. I used a lot of that pinky red dot fabric and am working on not using so much of others. It would be find if I were making a quilt,but for a table runner, I need to restrict the amounts, I think.
Also, I have not played around with the layout at all. The teacher, Claudia Shearer, played around with the layout a bit. She turned on of the blocks upside down to show how making the blocks the other way would add to my layout options. I need to pretty much make all the other blocks with the high part of the curve starting on the right. I think I need to do some layout work, though.
I have done a lot of ‘free cutting’ in various workshops, most of which were before I started writing posts for this website. Aside from the Virginia Schnalle workshop, I took a class at Fort Mason with Sonya Lee Barrington and she also showed us how to cut improv curves.
I wasn’t excited about this workshop, but feel like I have to be a good guild citizen. I also firmly believe that I can get something out of each workshop no matter how many times I have done a similar technique. In this case, the key tip was a registration mark! This helps a lot with the piecing.