Old Elegance Class

Good Morning,

I spent some time last week prepping for my Old Elegance class that was held yesterday (Sunday.)  There was a list of cutting instructions that really helped us get underway quickly.  The class was scheduled to go from 9-6.  I arrived around 8:30 to get set up and then to have a chance for a quick perusal in the vending area.  Gads!!!  I wasn't tempted by the quilting things, but there was a lady who along with her husband, make handmade shaker boxes!  First off, I love any hand-crafted wood pieces, secondly--I LOVE shaker boxes so much!  I spent the morning working on my project with part of my brain and trying to decide just how many of the boxes HAD to come home with me with the other part of my brain.  Luckily, the dominant part was quilting.

If you have taken an all-day class before, you probably know the routine.  We got underway with the instructor, Marcy Patch, introducing herself and then showing us how to proceed.  Most of the parts of the quilt are pretty basic:  half square triangles, four patches, etc., but the "tricky" bit was using the TriRec tools to make the "triangle in a square" points for our star blocks.  One of the ladies referred to the pieces of the block as "Peaky" and "Spike."  Do you remember Doreen Speckmann from her visits to Simply Quilts?  She was such a fun lady and I remember when I found out that she had passed away--it was such a loss to the quilting world.  Did any of you ever get to take a class from her?

The quilt constists of 2 different blocks and I was able to get 4 of the stars and 5 of the alternates done so I could get a sample of how it is going to look.

I am loving it!  I'm so glad I decided on using red.

We worked away until a bit after noon, when we broke for shopping lunch.  There were choices for lunch--we could eat at the convention center's concession stand or leave and visit a number of local restaurants.  I stayed at the venue and ordered a crab cake sandwich which was extremely delicious considering it was from a concession stand. 

I did do some shopping.  After much deliberation and agonizing, I only took this baby home with me.

 

I loved the wood finishes, but when it came right down to it, this blue milk-painted one was THE ONE, and so it came home with me.  I do have their business card--I mean Christmas is coming, right?

After lunch I did a bit more sewing, and then Marcy got out her quilts to show, and her patterns to look at and purchase.  Some of the other instructors were doing the same thing, so it became a bit of a social time where everyone was visiting different rooms and looking at the intructor quilts as well as everyone's class projects.  Then I started back to work and did some more cutting.

It was becoming apparent that I am spoiled by my counter-height cutting island at home.  Bending over to cut at the table was making my back hurt, and I was getting really tired, so I packed up and came home at 4.  I dumped everything in the house and rested for a bit, but finally I took it upstairs and unpacked and then started working again.  I love this project and can't wait to see it finished!

I have know for years that I won the husband lottery.  When I got home I saw that he had done all the laundry!  He said that he knew I was going to be excited about my project and that I didn't need to spend today doing it when I wanted to be up in the quilting room, working on my new project.  What a sweety!!  He was totally right, too, and that is how I plan to spend today.

I have photos of Marcy's quilts but I will share them tomorrow.  She was an awesome teacher, plus she makes my favorite type of quilts--scrappy.  I hope you can come back to see some of the quilts.  They are so inspiring!

Have a great day!  I'll be quilting!

JoAnne