Sisters and what's next

​Ooooooh so this post is supposed to be full of photos from classes and the quilt show day and all the other lovely things that usually come after my annual Sisters trip! Instead I've been hibernating and trying to get my sleep back :D I have to say that I think the jetlag going over there is worse than the simulated jetlag of being here.... basically I got up at 12.45am every morning, and started teaching at 1.30am, then went back to bed at 3.30, to get back up at 5.45 and teach until 8.30am. Then it was daytime, so instead of falling into bed and trying to sleep your weird schedule off like you do with jetlag, I was awake for the day..... I was completely wrecked after 5 days like that! 

The good thing about it all was that everyone enjoyed their classes from what I could see and have heard. I've received some lovely messages from students, and lots have posted their work for me to see as well. Val organised for me to have the wonderful Helen Brisson in the classroom for the Scrap Mountain class on Monday and Tuesday, and then Tonye Phillips - who knows a thing or two about applique! - in class for the Mystery Class on Wednesday (which was for my Tweedle Dee bag, they got a lovely surprise I think!), and for the improv Hop, Skip and Jump class on Thursday and Friday. My gratitude and appreciation for them and for Val, and for all the students who were so accomodating and kind about me teaching them from inside a massive TV, is enormous. 

I don't have any photos from the Mystery Class, except this one of it from inside my screen hahaha. The Mystery Class was an idea I came up with last year and Val decided to implement. Essentially, there's some teachers whose classes sell out minutes after they become available for sale - mine sold out in 4 mins this year! Some student book for the same teacher over and over, and it means that new students don't get to come in a try those teacher's classes. It's lovely that people want to take more classes with teachers they love of course - but it's also nice for others to have a go! So the Mystery Classes are all popular teachers, and you don't know who you're getting or what project you will be making. Fun, huh? 

Hop, Skip and a Jump is an improv design class. My quilt using the techniques taught in class (pieced improv triangles and curves - no applique!) is this one which I made quite a number of years ago for Sherri Lynn Woods' book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. I had in my mind when I made it that the triangles were like little girls playing hopscotch... the big triangles at the top are the jumps when the stone throws are easy, and then they get harder and harder and require more balance.... down until the little tiny triangles bouncing about at the bottom of the quilt. These are the strange things I think about when I design :D

Everyone in class worked on making loads and loads of wonky, improv triangles on Day 1, and then we designed with them on Day 2. At the end of Day 1 I got them all to tell me their quilt ideas (they had been asked to come up with a theme of sorts before class), and then I did a little sketched idea for each of them overnight while they slept (and I was wide awake) before class the next day. Some of the ideas they came up with were wind chimes flower beds and pieces of pie

Here is Patti's finished flower beds top! She wanted all the blocks of colour from the flowers in her garden to be represented, I think its wonderful!

Alice worked on a layout similar to mine, she nearly has it finished. I think the fabric she used for the solid curved sections gives the quilt a feeling like a river... she thinks it looks like "cosmic sky space" so you can interpret it how you see it! Her curves look wonderful though.

When I finish teaching at an event like this I always have so many ideas and so much sewing mojo. I have things that have to be done right now though so I can't dive in to anything new... mainly my next Block of the Month, Słodki, begins on August 1 and have to get a little further ahead of everyone before I can rest of my laurels. I think this might just be my favourite of all the BOM quilts I have ever designed. The more I sew the more I love it. If you haven't ever done one of my BOMs before this is the year to dive in.... Not only are there two different sizes of each quilt, but there are two different applique levels (easy, more piecing than applique, and lots of applique with the piecing) and I'm making both the small and large quilts, in very different colourways and distribution of prints and solids. 

I also have some very exciting things up my sleeve for the coming months, things I'm not allowed to tell you about yet. I will be showing a few little hints here and there though, so stay tuned.

Sarah x