Design Wall Monday

Last week I was at a quilting retreat put on by the Pie Plate Patterns ladies in Fountain Green. They do a great job of putting on a small town retreat!  Everyone had a great time!  I meant to take a photograph of downtown Fountain Green, but forgot. The downtown is one block long on one side of the street. With a gas station on the other side of the street. The event was held at the renovated dance hall. I had posted from the event about my first class here. Then I was able to play in the open sew area for 2 days before my last class on Saturday afternoon.

I pulled out my tub of Paradise Punch blocks. These were blocks started as demo's for classes. I had cut enough squares to make a queen sized quilt for my bed. So the tub of blocks had been tucked away for a couple of years. When I started to layout all the blocks, I was amazed at how many I had! I squared up the pile of untrimmed blocks and played with them a bit. I am excited to get back to this project!

I had a bagful of plaid squares leftover from when I made the nine patch quilt for my Dad a couple of years ago. It is on my gallery page. I started sewing them together into twos. Came out even. Then sewed the twos into fours.  Came out even. Then sewed the fours into eights. Came out even. And then finished off by sewing the eights into sixteenths. I ended up with 40 16 patch blocks! Not a single leftover square! I am trying to decide whether to make 2 twenty block quilts or one larger 40 block quilt. And whether to sash them with some shirting prints.

Diane's

Michelle's

Sweet Lady, whose name is on the tip of my tongue.

Another thing that is so cool is when your students from last year bring finished projects from a class that you taught. There were three ladies who brought their projects from my Hudson bay class. Diane's is a top and Michelle and Sweet Lady had completed quilts! Last September my good friend Charlotte brought her quilt to the guild meeting. I have a photograph of her quilt on this post. She had used a different layout than the one I used.

This is my Design Wall Monday post.

BTW, my Craftsy class giveaway is still going on until March 20th.  The link for the giveaway is in this post.

Design Wall Monday---Prep Day

Starry, Starry Night

Sweet Lady Liberty

On my wall/cutting table today I have two projects that I am prepping for a class on Saturday.  I am teaching Freezer Paper Piecing and instead of one project, they get a choice of the two designs that use the same technique. And since I forgot to have the students email me which of the two patterns they plan to use in class, I need to prep extra class patterns. They will get both designs in their pattern pack, but I need to make sure I have enough of both  ready for class working.  Hopefully after this class I will have some time to tweak the patterns so that they are ready to sell as PDF patterns.

Check out my post from yesterday, I am hosting a giveaway this week!

This is my Design Wall Monday Post, check out Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to!

My studio for this week!

Grate in downtown Grand Junction

Another grate

Art in downtown Grand Junction

I love columbines!

Love this yellow blossom

My daughter and I went to Grand Junction to visit my nephew.  We wandered the downtown area during the Farmer's Market.  There are a lot of sculptures on display and somehow I only took 3 photographs the entire evening.  Oh well.  I love the old guy in the bathtub!

We are now up at Bear Lake.  We will be here for the week.  I only brought my knitting and my camera, so that will be my work for this week!  Hopefully I will make a photograph that will turn into an art piece.  I want to do a landscape of the lake.

Craftsy has extended their class sale until Monday the 22nd of July!  And ALL classes are on sale! What a great deal!

My Craftsy class review

I have been a Craftsy designer for a while.  I really feel they give wonderful support to their designers!  I have been thinking about taking one of their online classes and recently I received an email from Craftsy offering me a class in exchange for a review of the class.

Watching the class lesson

It was very easy to sign up for a class.  The email confirmation came right away.  And me being "Last Minute Lewis" had waited until last week to order the class thinking that I would have tons of time this week to "take" the class.  It doesn't matter when you order the class, the class is good forever! So if you are thinking of ordering a class and you don't have time to watch the class right now, order it anyway.  It will be there and available to you when you are good and ready!

I had a few little glitches.  And it was on my side, not Craftsy's.   Like I said earlier, I waited until the last minute.  I also didn't read the supply list so when I started looking at the list of lesson topics I wasn't aware that I needed silk screening supplies.  Does it matter?  NO!  I realized that I could just skip over that lesson and come back to it when I do have my silk screening stuff. I also had a bit of trouble with a lesson that froze, but it was my computer and once I cleared my cache and closed all the other windows that I had open, it was just fine.  I also noticed that one of my fellow students was having problems with a frozen segment and asked for help in the lesson question area. The tech support was available to help and reached out to her.

My review is due today.  As usual I ran out of time this week and didn't get to do as much with my class as I had wanted.   When I get back to my class next week, what happens if I forgot where I was and what I was doing?  No problem.  The lesson will start where I left off!  And if I need to review one of the previous lessons I can access it again.

I chose to take Judith Trager's Art Quilt Backgrounds.  I have heard good things about her live classes, so I thought it would be a good first class.

I enjoyed the introduction.  The first lesson was on making test blocks with a variety of fabrics.  We were assigned to do 6 blocks.  In each lesson there is a place where you can see what other students have asked about and also the answers.  Which is very helpful because Judith answers questions quickly.

Fabrics pulled for the first assignment.

Pieces cut

The starting blocks

My six blocks

The next lesson is on creating a background using fabrics in a color scheme with similar tones.  So I went to the stash. . .

The Stash

. . . I chose to do some sort of ocean scene.  I have been into water lately and just love the idea of the sea and sky with some fish in the ocean.

Sky

Ocean

The next lesson is on designing and sewing together the background for my quilt.  I really enjoyed Judith's designing information.  She really does a good job of explaining how to work with an idea and various ways to accomplish it.  I watched the lesson, but I haven't sewn the blocks.  When I get to this next week, I will go back and watch the lesson again.

I will continue to review the class in the next couple of weeks.  I really like how the class doesn't start and stop on a specific date.  I like the fact the teacher is very accessible to me if and when I need help.  Try out a class on Craftsy, you will enjoy it!

Guild meeting

Charlotte's Moose.

Charlotte's Fall quilt.

Kathy's Christmas Banner

Charlotte's blocks

Kathie's Block

Kathie's other block

Kathy's block

Last week I had blogged about preparing my demo for my local quilting group.  Last night was the meeting and it seemed to go well.  I missed getting photographs of all the strip sets that the ladies were cutting.  It is always fun to see the other color schemes and fabric choices that others select.

I am still viewing the lessons for the Craftsy class  by Judith Trager that I am taking.  It has been wonderful so far!  I will have a full review for you tomorrow.  

Recess is over, back to class.

Monday Mess

Mess blocking the design wall

Bookcase, nice and tidy.

Cutting table is the sort station.

Our son and his family came for the holiday weekend.  So to add a guest room I had to take down my sewing machine and move the table to the corner.  Since the center of the room was cleared, I thought it was a good time to rearrange the furniture.  I had been thinking about switching places of the cutting table and book case.  So to do that I had to take everything that was stowed behind and under the cutting table and take all the books off the shelves.  With sweetie's help the furniture was moved.  Now to sort and put back the junk, er, ah, sewing supplies.  I was able to get the books sorted and neatly put back.  Now to get the mess of in-progress-projects and scraps sorted and stowed neatly.  This is my design wall Monday post for the week!

Also on the agenda today is to take a Craftsy class.  I was offered a class of my choice to try out one of their online classes and give a review. I have heard good things about taking Craftsy online classes from some friends, so I am looking forward to the experience.  After looking over the selection of quilting classes I decided to try  Art Quilt Backgrounds taught by Judith Trager.  A friend of mine had taken a live class with her and raved about it.  I trust her judgement.  So I am off to view the first lesson.  If anyone would like to join me Craftsy is offering a sale on classes purchased before midnight tonight at a bargain price of $19.99.  

New Dish Cloth Pattern

I listed a new Dish Cloth pattern today.  Simple Straight Reversible Textures Knit Dish Cloths.  It is available at both my Craftsy and Ravelry shops.  Four fun to knit patterns that have pretty textures on both sides of the cloth.  Only 99 cents for all four patterns!

Starting off the week right!

I listed another dish cloth pattern.  This one is a variation on my Simple Straight Knit Dish Cloths pattern.  It is named Simple Straight Knit Textures Dish Cloths.  It is available for  99 cents at my Craftsy shop and also on my Ravelry pattern shop.  There are 4 different patterns included. I will have one more in this series of patterns, Simple Straight Knit Reversible Textures Dish Cloths.  It should be ready next week.

Another great start to my week, one of my fabric yarns is featured in an Etsy Treasury!  

A New Pattern in my Craftsy store!

Close up of Garter Stitch Dish Cloth

Garter Stitch Dish Cloth

Close up of Stockinette Dish Cloth

Stockinette Dish Cloth

I listed another Dish Cloth Pattern on my Craftsy store!  This is for a Simple Straight Knit Dish Cloth.  I am trying to train myself in writing up knitting patterns, so I thought I would start with some simple dish cloth patterns.  This is a free pattern.  I would appreciate any any feedback.  Thanks.

New pattern up on Craftsy!

Dice and Splice  Heart Shaped World

I listed another one of my Dice and Splice patterns on my Craftsy pattern site!  It felt like it took all week to edit the file!  Thanks so much to my friend, Lisa, she went above and beyond to help me get it ready to publish. This pattern features 2 sizes of quilts.  The small one is perfect for a Valentine!  I also have the cutting list for a lap size.  I have several more in this series.  I am not sure when I will be able to get them up and ready, I have some other projects with looming deadlines that need to be worked on first.

Trying to get my groove on.

Squares cut and organized.

Machine applique.

Square that block!

The back view.

I am working on a new pattern for my Craftsy pattern shop.  I needed to take in progress photos to show the technique. I took way more than needed, and am trying to pare down the pattern so it doesn't turn into a 20 pager.  And it is always a challenge to try to word things in a simplified manner.  Most look at the photos/drawings and don't pay attention to wordy descriptions.  I had hoped to get it listed today.  MMMmmmmm.  Well, we will see!  

A new pattern in my Craftsy store!

Paradise Punch

I added a new pattern to my Craftsy pattern store. It is one of my favorite quilts, Paradise Punch.  It is a free form Drunkard's Path block.  No worries curves, they are not intended to match up.  I used a variety of batiks.  I have had students in my classes use various color schemes and themes.  30's repros, polka dots, blues and purples.  Or just totally scrapbag, it all works!  

Dice and Splice class

The Horseshoe Mountain Quilters Opportunity Quilt.

Close up.

Peggy's strippy quilt.

The only photo I took of a student at work.

Dice and Splice Flag Quilt.

I taught my Dice and Splice Flag Quilt at the Horseshoe Mountain Quilters yesterday.  It was fun!  We had a potluck lunch as well. Peggy brought the Opportunity quilt which she had quilted on her long arm quilting machine.  The guild makes a quilt each year to raise funds for a scholarship to Snow College.

Peggy also brought her strippy quilt.  It is the same pattern that Sherre used for her red and black quilt.  It is a 3 dudes pattern.  Even though they both used black, the two quilts are quite different!