Sunday, May 8, 2016

Weekly update: May is green! and a great workshop

Green is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for May.  Here's my block, and here are the five blocks I've made so far.








Block Lotto is using the RSC colors for each monthly block. Here are three sets of green leaves (upside down).


To continue the green theme:
I made mug rugs to go in gift baskets for three AAUW branch officers whose terms are ending. The new officers will be elected and installed on Tuesday.




Robbi Eklow was the speaker at our guild meeting Wednesday evening. She gave a workshop on free-motion quilting on Saturday.
I met Robbi through a librarian-quilter colleague in 1998.  Robbi had posted to an online quilting bulletin board that she'd gone to the Lake Villa library in the town next to hers. She chatted with the library's staff artist as he worked on a poster for an event.  My colleague sent me a copy of the message, since I was LVDL director at the time, and Robbi and I eventually met in person.  She was one of the local artists commissioned to create artwork for the new library. Her quilt is still displayed at LVDL.

Robbi is talented, generous ("take pictures and touch the quilts"), and has a great sense of humor.  Here are pictures from the trunk show.   (She makes wall quilts -- some are pretty big, but they're still wall quilts. She said she has no quilts on the beds in her house. But now that she is a grandmother she foresees kid-friendly, wash-often quilts in the near future.)












front of quilt 
back of quilt 





























The fourteen of us who took Robbi's workshop learned a lot.  Here she is explaining her technique.











Here are my class samples, sewn with rayon thread on felt squares (layered in 2's) for practice, as well as a muslin quilt sandwich (muslin-batting-muslin).


Now I just need time and a project on which to put my new-found skills to use!

I'm linking up with
 Rainbow Scrap Challenge
 Monday Making
 Design Wall Monday
 Oh, Scrap!
 Main Crush Monday




9 comments:

  1. That looks like a fun workshop. Thanks for sharing all your pretty green blocks with Oh Scrap!

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOVE those mug rugs you made for the gift baskets!! SEW glad to hear that you enjoyed your class.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looking forward to seeing what you do with your new skill. I admire you for even trying!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, Robbi's quilts are gorgeous! Looking forward to seeing how you use you new found skills.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The 5 RSC blocks look great together. And I love the Mug Rugs.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Neat blocks that you made! Thanks for the Eklow tour, too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Her quilts are awesome. Did she suggest using felt? Any particular reason? Looks like you did really well on your samples. Got any tips to quilt soon?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love taking classes that teach skills we can take home and practice. Have fun with your practicing! :) The block design you are using for the RSC challenge is such a nice block. It will be fun to see all the blocks together! Thanks for linking to MCM!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love what you are doing with your greens. You have a good green collection.

    ReplyDelete

I have turned on comment moderation so be patient if you don't see it right away. If you are no-reply or anonymous I will not reply.