This past weekend was the first meeting of our Your Second (Modern) Quilt class for 2012. Most of these ladies took the Your First (Modern) Quilt class last year (either in the shop or online), and we were all excited at the chance to move up to the next level of quilting. Originally, I planned to make another scrappy sampler quilt this year, thinking that we’d use a similar blocks-get-harder-as-you-go format, but with higher-level quilting skills involved. But the more I worked on the sample blocks, the more it felt like I was asking my ladies to take the same class over again.
In Your First (Modern) Quilt, we focused on skill-building and working out the mechanics of quilting. This year, I really wanted for us to focus on the greater picture, the quilt gestalt, if you will. I feel like composition and fabric selection and that ephemeral FEEL of a quilt come into play once you get past a certain skill level, and I wanted to really spend these months working through that, all of us together. And so, after a semi-vote taken at the retreat, we determined to make a sampler quilt, but a STAR sampler.
I am beyond excited about this project. I’ve found some really lovely blocks, including the ribbon star up above, from Fresh Lemons Quilts, plus some foundation-pieced blocks, some string-pieced blocks, and some really lovely and challenging feathery stars. PLUS we spent a big chunk of the first class just shopping and selecting fabrics, narrowing our palette to really focus on particular prints or colors, and I took copious notes, because all the ladies chose such delicious combinations. As for the class sample, I’m using that bold Whipstitch yellow as my background (shock of all surprises), and wanted to select other colors that would work well with it–my default tends to be clean white, and I wanted something with some PUNCH. So far, looks like I’m going to get what I hoped!
It’s looking to be a very fun, very quilt-y year.
