camp stitchalot and a little progress

I'm excited to tell you that I am going to be teaching at Camp Stitchalot in August! There will be 3 other teachers that weekend: Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, Dan of Piece and Press and Rossie of Fresh Modern Quilts. Brenda of Pink Castle Fabrics is the host for the weekend. I'm excited that I get to teach at camp, but I'm beyond thrilled to be able to learn from the other teachers. What a line up!

For my class I will be teaching how to make a slab (improvisational piecing with scraps) based on the material in Sunday Morning Quilts. It's one thing to make a smaller piece (a single block) from scraps, but how do you take it beyond a block? I'll be covering how to use this technique to make a larger quilt. It's quite fun!!!

The solids above were sent to me so I could make a sample block using the slab technique. I started with Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids in Marine, Turquoise and Luna along with some Kona Cotton in Bone. I added in a few scraps of my own because I needed a bit more variety. (We were allowed to add scraps, so I didn't break the rules. No worries!) It was an interesting exercise to work with a limited color palette, but I also enjoyed the challenge of working within those parameters. It's good to stretch your skills! Speaking of stretching...I had to chop these up to make scraps in order to make my block. THAT was probably the hardest part! :)

This is my final block and it measures 20" square. I rather like it! It was fun to sew with fabrics that someone else selected. This block will go into a sampler quilt along with blocks from each of the teachers. I can't wait to see how they all play together!

 

If you are interested in going to camp, you can find all the details here. I hope to see you in August!

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In other news.....quilting time is hard to come by these days, but I'm trying to be content with the time that I get. I don't always do so well with the contentment piece, but I'm working on it. :)

Currently in my machine....my leftovers quilt. I'm estimating that I have less than an hour of quilting time on this one. It's a big quilt, so I'm excited to have made that much progress. I'm looking forward to picking a binding fabric!

One more bit of progress...while my sewing room is still not organized, I have my cutting table cleared off. Woo-hoo! This piece was formerly an island in our kitchen, now the center of my sewing room. My husband teases me saying that I'm spoiled, but I think it's a dandy fabric holder/cutting station! I'm very thankful to have it! (By the way, gotta LOVE that billiard light above it, no?)

The island turned cutting counter (it's from IKEA) happens to hold a whole lot of fabric! Hurray!