Seminar at Sea: Two

No! This is not my work! This is the photo of the finished project from the pattern booklet!

Bonnie and I both chose to take all of our three classes with the same instructor, Karen Combs. The first full-day class was Chip Out of Every Block. Karen is fascinated with optical illusion quilts, something Bonnie has long been intrigued by, so this class was pretty exciting for us. 

There was a class fee, payable in advance. This meant we didn't have to pick out and bring fabric for the class. The fee included six different fabrics and the pattern. We had to bring 3/8 yard of background fabric (in two corners of each of the blocks shown).

The fabric Karen provided was her own design and it came in so many different colors! Each piece of fabric was shaded from light to medium to dark and we learned the best way to cut the fabric to get each piece that we needed. Each of us was invited to choose six different cuts. I ventured out of my usual Periwinkle And Friends palette to gold tones, and as I worked, I knew that I would look to find some autumn leaves fabric for my project's border.

This was an exciting class as we saw the design emerge! Karen demonstrated a new-to-me method for trimming HSTs for the very best accuracy. Yes, it was time-consuming as it was a two-step (at least) process for each HST. But I got plenty of practice and appreciated now knowing that there is a way to make those units look so good!

During class and in the free-sew periods I was able to complete five of the six blocks. I am eager to finish the sixth and put this all together. I think this will be the first thing I will work on.