Sarah's Stash

I took a class last Saturday at www.quiltsandtreasuresinc.com with Laurie Shifrin.  She is the author of “Batik Gems”, “Batik Beauties” and “Batiks and Beyond”.  She taught us her Mango Tango quilt. 

This is the only thing I sewed;

I am actuall short on the brown backround fabric!!!  I used “some” of it for my no-go Dresden quilt, and left myself short!  So…the search begins!

The class was jammed packed with information.  I learned sooooooooo much. Laurie was a very thoughtful instructor.  She has a ton of experience and knowledge, and all she wanted to do was share all of it.  She got in so much info in I was completely exausted when the class ended.  Even though I only sewed one block.  I have complete confidence that I will be able to finish this quilt with ease.  She not only said what to do, but she warned us of mistakes that could happen. 

 We spent two hours inspecting everyone’s color choices.  It may sound boring, but it was extremely informative.  I went from this,

To this,

Looking at everyone’s fabric through different eyes, was a great learning experience.  We learned how to pick out the oddballs, and add colors, no one would ever think of adding. 

The cutting instructions were great.  The little tips and tricks were awesome.  I am now not afraid to cut threw multiple layers of fabric! 

When I got home, I did a lot of cutting, but am afraid to move forward without getting the rest of my dark brown fabric that I am short.  If anyone knows the maker of the dark brown fabric, that would help me along in my search!

Laurie teaches mostly at http://thequiltingloft.com/index.html in Seattle, Washington, and her website is http://laurieshifrindesigns.wordpress.com/.

It is amazing what can happen in 30 days!  I started a new job at my work, and it is very challenging…and time consuming.

I have decided to put away my more difficult projects.  I don’t know what made me think I could design quilts 2 months into starting to quilt.  It brought much frustration, and very little progress.  My Dresden is a no-go.  The brown backing is a “radiant” design, like this;

Why I couldn’t just use 4 quarter panels, is beyond me…Because of my bright idea, the quilt does not lie flat, and because of this, I don’t know how I’m going to quilt it.

I love the idea, and I will eventually come up with a way to salvage this.  But I need to put it down for a while and come back to it.

My Bargello is ready to go to the quilters!  I got this great backing fabric from www.hawthornethreads.com;

and my Four-Patch is also ready for quilters!  This is an old pic, but I’ll post a new one when I get it back.

I only did 2 quilt-block-a-day blocks this month 😦 I’m still on February!!

This month I’m taking the Mango Tango class.  I’m going to stick with classes, and patterns for the next few months, rather than “designing” :).  And I hope to try to get into the March quilt-block-a-day…seeing as it’s August!