The International Quilt Festival comes to Houston every year with exhibits of gorgeous quilts, vendors offering lots to buy, and classes covering a variety of quilting topics. The first class that I took this year was "
Meet Me In Hawaii" with
Kathy Kansier.
It was a fabulous class with the one big snafu being that the published supply list for the class did not include paper scissors, fine-tip embroidery scissors, or pins. Fortunately Kathy had some scissors for sale and many were happy to take turns with theirs (if they had them). We were in a classroom supplied with sewing machines, so we need not lug a machine (whew!).
This Kathy's class quilt which she shared, suggesting that we lay it down in the hallway to get photos of the full quilt. The one drawback was that more than one person walking by did not notice there was a quilt on the floor. We were standing around its edges taking photos, yet they cut between us and stepped onto the quilt! Yikes!!
In our three-hour class, everyone drew and cut their own original pattern to use for their Hawaiian applique block. Once the design was cut from freezer paper, it was traced and cut from fabric provided in the class kit. Then it was fused to the background (white or black) and machine applique'd before class ended. An impressive amount of learning, cutting and stitching was completed together that night.
This is my block, my original design. I was perhaps the only one to not finish my applique in the class.... It was my second block that I cut out, as my first design was even more detailed and intricate. Actually the true reason might be that I did not have the proper supplies. Fortunately I was seated next to a generous soul who happily shared her newly purchased scissors. Thank you Lish!!!
Kathy kept telling us that designing these blocks is addictive and I believe she is right! Since finishing my first block at home, I pulled out some freezer paper one evening and cut the three designs below. They will be stitched down soon, once I purchase yardage of solid Kona cotton white fabric and Wonder Under (for fusing).
These images are the reverse of my intended design. You see the paper patterns laid on top of different batik fabrics. Each block will be a batik in the center of the block, the design, that is stitched onto a background of white. If I can cut the batik fabric carefully, I might be able to fuse these designs as they appear here -- where the batik is stitched down on the edges, leaving the white design in the center. This will give me the positive and the negative of each design. Hmmm, I will have to try hard to do this.
Can you see the pineapple in the design below? It is meant to be a pineapple, not a pomegranate.
Below are the remnants from each design above. Can you match each triangle to their coordinating blocks above?
Answer key: The one on the far left is the pattern on orange/red above; the middle triangle is the pineapple block and the far right matches to the top pattern on blue above.
Just seeing them here is making me itchy to get sewing again!
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