Wacky Bird Class With Suzanne Marshall

I was lucky enough to be able to take a class with Suzanne Marshall.  She has a quilt that is in the top 100 quilts of this century and she is an amazing hand appliquier (is that a word??)  She has a unique way of doing applique called take away applique.  When you do it this way all the pieces are on the straight of grain and placement is easy because you trace your entire applique on  lined notebook paper.  If you ever get the opportunity to take a class from her you should do it. Here are 2 of the quilts she brought with her.

This one was one that she hung in the teacher area. It is called Long Ago and Far Away.

This was Suzanne showing us how to do the applique. It is such an interesting and easy way to do needle turn applique.

I chose some modern fabrics for my Wacky Bird. Everyone else chose fabrics that looked like her original birds. We stitched from 9-4:30 with an hour for lunch and this is how far I got on my bird. This is me with Suzanne and me.

She also showed us a very unique way to make bias stems too. Cutting a bias triangle from a square. You determine how wide you want your bias and fold it over twice and press. Then. you lift up next to the fold and baste and cut the bias strip off. It was a fast easy way to make bias. I need to find out how to join the strips though! She developed this technique herself! Very interesting.

That took up my entire Friday but it was a really fun day. Then on Saturday I worked on my back for Jacquie's quilt. Then I ran some errands. Oh we also let Batman go yesterday too. He flew up on the roof and then went into a tree. Farewell Batman!! Have a wonderful life.

I did a little cleaning and came across some things I will be selling. I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch and I found some old leaflets that I know I will not do any longer, so I will show those to you tomorrow. I am hoping to have some more fabrics up for sale this week too. Now off to work on my two old Thimbleberries projects that I got back from Liz and to fix the one block that was bad in my tree top. I hope you are having a great weekend! ~XOP~

More QU

These are from my class on Sunday. Some of the ideas were similar to the Friday class but I still learned some things. It sure made for a long weekend though. I think next time I will only take 2 classes unless there is something I *need* to take, lol. This first picture is an example of what we were learning at the beginning of the class. It was difficult to know what to bring, fabric wise, because I had no idea what we were going to make.

Here is what 2 rows of "mine" looked like. I really enjoyed makinn the border for this.

She had also used this technique to make pagoda blocks like this

At the end of the class she showed us how to make the blocks for this quilt. I really liked this one and it was a neat way to use your scraps up.

She took strips about 3 inches or so (not firm on the measurement) and freehand cut them into wedges. The wedges were put together with the larger part on top to form an arc. She then laid the arc on an 8" square of background fabric and freehand cut around the arc. The background arc was taken away and the pieced wedge arc sewn into the block. Isn't that fun and easy? She called this one "Fruit loops". Appropriate, right?

I just got the Michigan top back from my friend Robin. I appliqued all the "M's" and cut out the quilt and she sewed the top together. Now it is back to me to put the borders on it. It is pretty "IN YOUR FACE, Michigan! But the U of M fans are pretty supportive of their school too. I am hoping to get the borders on this weekend. I also got the last of the pansy blocks back last night from the Church Ladies (CL). I will put the blocks together this weekend too but the border fabric I want I either have to order on-line or I have some friends that will be going to a HUGE fabric shop on Sat and maybe they can find it. (I'm hoping for the latter, less shipping, so keep your fingers crossed!! I got my Jack-o-Lantern wall hanging and my Winnie the Pooh quilts back from my longarner friend so more binding!! (I think that makes 6 or so I have to put on and turn). I have managed to sew the bining on all but these last 2 but they still need to be turned. Last night at the meeting with the CL I brought the Turning Twenty I made thinking I might get to begin turning the binding, but no luck. One of the women told me she loves to sew it down by hand and took the quilt to do it for me!!! I am blessed.

Quilt University part 2

Easy and elegant Lone Star. This was the class I took on Sat. It was my favorite! My friends Ellen and Yuki were taking it with me. I have made friends with another woman in the guild and she happened to be in the class also, so that was fun. This was a fabulous class, the teacher, Judy Thornotn, was excellent! We spent most of the morning trying to decide how and where to actually cut our fabrics and how big of a star we wanted. Mine was easier than some as I wanted the dragon as the focal point. I had to make a large diamond to get most of him in. Yuki on the other hand had such fabulous possibilites it was much more difficult to make a decision!
This is Yuki working with her cardboard window and mirror to view potential stars.

Here is what the start looked like using the cardboard preview window and our mirrors. This one is Yuki's.

This one was mine.

This one was Ellen's.

Here is Ellen acting like a goof. I am *certain8 she will KILL me for posting this one. I guess next time she will smile nice!!

Here is Yuki, *trying* to figure out where she wanted her star to go. It was a difficult choice!

Behind me is the class example. It was really spectacular. I chose the dragon fabric because I wanted to make this for my DD#1 and she loves dragons and purple!

Here is Kimber's top. She had the most difficult time trying to make her star because there were bare spots without a lot of interest in some of her fabric. I think she made a good choice for final placement. She used denim like fabric for her background. She wanted a western look.

I really liked this one. The ribbons gave it such movement and of course I loved the dragonflies too.

Yuki just sent me this. She finished her top at home on Sunday. Isn't it great!!? I just love her fabric choice!

Ellen chose an oriental fabric with cranes on it. It was neat because the wings made fantastic circles. It kind of reminded me of a hurricane!

This is how my top looked. We had to sew the quilt top together in quarters. I got an entire half sewn together and then one quarter. I just put them all together for the photo. Isn't it spectacular?? i relly loved it!!

I took a couple of close ups too. This is what the center will look like once it is finished.

This shows the actual diamond I used.


This class was so much fun. The technique was not as difficult as I thought it would be either. I think I will make more of these. I did get a couple of nice tips from Mary and Judy (the teachers). Mary brought tissue boxes, (you know, the ones where the tissues pop out of the top?) and we kept them at our sewing table to use for threads and scraps. You could also keep one in the car for trash. Judy showed us a way to keep your rulers so they won't get broken during transport. You know those cardboard bolts that are left over when you buy your fabric? She used those, put 3 elastic bands that she had safety pinned together around the board and slid her rulers under the elastic. Isn't that a great tip?? Let me know what you think of the class and the finishe (almost) projects!!

Quilt University

QUILT UNIVERSITY!!!
I took 3 classes this weekend, as you probably read about on my last post. The first one was all about free form piecing. Drawing with your rotary cutter, if you will. It was an interesting class, to say the least. I was WAY, WAY outside of my comfort zone! I did learn a lot, though. Here are some pictures of the things our instructor, Mary made. First is Mary with the leaf table runner we made.

This is the first thing we did. We stacked four 12 inch squares and cut circles through them, shuffled them and sewed them back together. This showed us how we would be doing our leaves.

Mary's brown evey susan quilt.

Mary's Tree

I loved the dragon flies so here are some pictures of those. The leaves we made were like the wings and she showed us how to do those too.


Mary's blue Carrots! I just loved this. Her first one had orange carrots on blue background, but when you cut one you get an opposite, so here is her opposite! Isn't the fun fur yarn she used for the tops of the carrots great?

This is how my leaf runner turned out. Then I had to choose borders. This was one combination. I ended up using the green as the first one followed by the blue and purple. I had someone take my picture with it but it was blurry: ( I will take another one later and post it then so you can see. We made "wonky" borders too.


I have to go and do some actual work for my job so I will post more from the classes later! Let me know what you think of this.

Quilt University

Quilt University is almost here!! What is QU you may be asking?? The Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild puts on a Quilt University every 2 years (it alternates with a quilt show). I finally joined this enormous guild. I have been having a great time going to the meetings. They usually bring in a speaker, then there is show and tell with personal quilts and quilts people have made to donate to the groups charity, Safe House. (Abused women and children's shelter type thing) Check out their website for a list of the classes they are offering to see what fun we will be having this weekend.

I signed up for 3 classes and I got into all three! The first one is tomorrow and it is called Free Style Quiltmaking. The teacher is Mary Bajcz. I choose some fabrics last night and got them all pressed and ready for the class. I gathered all the things I *think* I will need too. It is really difficult to gather fabrics when you don't really know what we are making. This class and the one on Sun are technique classes. Here is the description from the registration packet:

"A simple idea with countless possibilities: stack up pieces of fabric, slash through the stacks, rearrange the pieces and sew them back together into units that can be combined into traditional, pictoral or abstract designs with curves 9or not). Think of this as drawing with your rotary cutter, but you don't have to know how to draw."

Sounds interesting, huh? She said to bring lots of fabric and things that read as solid. Pretty general, right? I have no idea, so I just pulled a LOT of stuff from my stash. (Maybe this will help reduce it, lol). I am taking the class with one of my best friends, Ellen. We were comiserating about fabric choices last night on the phone. It should be fun though.

On Sat I convinced Ellen to join Yuki and I for a lone star class. Not a traditional one though. It only has 16 pieces! It will be 50 X 50 and have a kaleidoscopic effect. From the book Easy and elegant Lone Star Quilts. I chose a Japanese dragon print (for DD#1, but don't tell her) It is purple, cream, black and orange. I found a fabulous dark purple to use for the background too. It should be an interesting Sat.

On sunday I will be taking a class by myself (no Ellen or Yuki: ( ) It is called Quick tricks for Slick Chicks with kathleen Campau. The booklet says, "Learn fast ways to make blocks, using techniques and shortcuts that will change your life. And ridiculously easy pieced curves will free you to express your inner weirdo. The wilder your fabric choices the better" Ellen talked me into taking this one and then she didn't get into the class! I guess I will go and learn for both of us.

I am charging my camera batteries and will try to take a lot of pictures to post as the weekend goes on. Wish me luck!!