My day with Bonnie Hunter...

Yesterday I took a workshop with the Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame... we have been waiting for her visit to our guild for the last 2 years... yes you have to book her that far in advance... she's popular! Very popular!!  The workshop was Sister's Choice and I showed the two blocks I had done prior to the workshop and here's what I got accomplished yesterday.... 4 more blocks for a grand total of 6... I plan to make 25... I have a ways to go yet.

The prints are Tucker Prairie by One Canoe Two and the black and white prints are from my stash with a heavy emphasis on novelty prints.

Those star points are reading orange, but in real life they are a lovely coral color.

I have all the pieces cut for these blocks... but other projects beckon at the moment.

Here is a picture of what was accomplished by about 45 quilters in a couple of hours....

So many different fabrics and design choices.  Bonnie mentioned that  one might think that my black and white prints would be too busy for this block... a thought I had when I made the first one... but my choice of the more solid reading fabrics for the star points made it work...ooooohhh... such a nice thing to say.

You can see more of the workshop in Bonnie's blog post today. I'm one of the quilters in the first picture... the redhead in the upper right corner in the orange sweater.  I'm also in one of the pictures on her Facebook posts... this one....  short plump one in the dotty orange sweater. Honestly I wasn't trying to photobomb every picture... in fact I spent more time chit chatting and goofing off than I spent sewing. It was a good workshop but I'm not a good workshop taker... I'm that problem student... the one who's focus wanders...who talks too much... who goofs off... been that way ALL my life. I still say a prayer  every night for the nuns that put up with me.

In the evening Bonnie gave a lecture to the guild and if you look at the album of pictures either on FB or her website you can see we had a great turnout...and I even saw the back of my head in one of those pictures...boy I was everywhere. Bonnie talked about her system of organizing your scraps and Leaders & Enders. I applaud her system for its structure and cost savings but.... it is not for me... I'm too crazy and scatterbrained... I blame it on my Italian heritage and getting hit in the head too many times with a softball... I was a terrible player.

Anyway her quilts were wonderful...so many many many many pieces... pretty much the antithesis of how I sew these days. Give me a pre-cut and let me do as little further cutting as possible and I'm happy. I have about one really scrappy quilt a year in me right now. Last year it was that Go 4 It quilt... this year... I don't know yet.  I did order a String Fling 2 book from Bonnie ...there is a quilt in it I like.... not sure I'll make it as big as she did but I do have some scraps I could use. Right now I have them sorted in my newest purchase from Hobby Lobby...

It isn't real deep or tall but it sure holds a lot of bits and bobs. I have it sitting right behind my sewing chair so I can just reach around an grab some scraps. Stay tuned for how this turns out. Oh I found another cool link up site... She Can Quilt... you can see it here ... I'm linking up with them today and spending some time seeing what everyone else is working on. I'm always open to new ideas...but sometimes the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I'll ogle other people's scrappy projects and see what trouble I can get into.

happy stitching-

carol fun