Heritage Quilt Workshop News

Nine patch nine patch doll quilt

Whoa!  Or however we spell what you say to a horse that is in a hurry.  The summer seems to be rushing away.  I've been working on the late summer/fall schedule for the Heritage Quilt Workshop in West Yellowstone, Montana.  I'm hoping I can just cut and paste it in here.  Here goes. Hmmm.  Long pause.   Looks like I will need to call in my experts, as soon as they get back from hiking, canoeing, and fishing.  Or as Gramps liked to call it, Drowning Worms.

The 1896 Lady's Star block

Here's the afternoon's project.  The 1858 quilt is a design from Godey's Lady's Book.  Drafting the pattern from the sketch in the book was easy. Deciding what size to make it was a little more challenging.  This block is 8" square, but I will definitely teach it in a larger size. Probably !6" so that the individual hourglass blocks will be 4" square.  That makes it easy to work on, and for new quilters that's important.  (Anyone have a friendly name to suggest for people who who cut and sew bits of fabric together but hire others to quilt the quilt?  I'll take suggestions for a new label, but the name has to be a friendly one,  since some of my favorite people would rather quilt than piece, and the other way 'round as well.)  If you look at my block carefully you'll see where the layers of seams made it hard to get perfect points.  I was hurrying to get a block to scan for publicity for my class.  This block, at least in the 8" size,  will be much easier to hand piece than to sew by machine.  Part of the issue for me was the strong contrast.  I like to press seams toward the darker fabric, but this block is complex enough that there were some places that  had to be pressed away from the dark side. 

Anyhow, this block is one that looks fabulous with a whole group of identical siblings.  This is 9 blocks set 3 x 3.  I love designs that look much harder than they are. If the photo looks a little uneven, blame the scanner.

The plan for the 1858 quilt is to use it for the class I'm teaching in West Yellowstone,  Montana, during the week that the Mountain Man Rendezvous is in town.  We'll have a morning Introduction to Hand Piecing class,  and do the 1858 block in the afternoon.  Hmm.  I'd better be sure we make it clear that the afternoon class is not for beginners, or, perhaps, the faint of heart. Hmm again.  Maybe I should change horses in the middle of this stream and go with a less thrilling design for the afternoon group.  I have a metal image of eager new quilters being swept over the waterfall and down the Yellowstone to the Missouri and then to the Mississippi and thence to the Gulf and ultimately the Atlantic.  I don't think they'd come back. 

Time to shut down the machines and feed the cat.  Thanks for hanging out with me for a few minutes this evening.