I've been home a week, but I can't stop talking about Sewtopia which took place in Atlanta last weekend. You can find out more about
Sewtopia here and
the events page here.
I thought I would show you my Free Wheeling Single Girl block I started in Denyse Schmidt's class Saturday afternoon and finished that evening in our open sew time. I talked about my fabric selections for Denyse's class
in this post.
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| Free Wheeling Single Girl block pieced by Paige Alexander at Sewtopia Atlanta |
Denyse explained to us that Single Girl was her very first published quilt pattern and included many templates making up the rings rather than the more 'freeing' improv method used in her updated pattern. I found a post by Rita Hodge at
Red Pepper Quilts from September 2009 where she
made a block and showed all of the templates.
I took a picture of Denyse and her class assistant,
Rossie Hutchinson with the
quilt top Rossie made.
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| Denyse Schmidt and Rossie Hutchinson at Sewtopia Atlanta |
And I couldn't help myself, I got a photo with Denyse and it shows my progress, or lack thereof, made while in class. Yes, I am SLOW, but I'm OK with that!
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| Denyse Schmidt with me in Free Wheeling Single Girl class at Sewtopia AtlantaI |
When sewing the quarter blocks together, I reversed two of the blocks. This picture shows my original layout before the blocks were squared up. Notice the same tone on tone green fabric in two of the blocks on the left side, Denyse suggested 'disguising' the seam or the appearance of four separate quadrants by repeating the same fabric where the blocks join together in a few of the blocks.
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| Freewheeling Single Girl quarter blocks on the Pellon design wall at Sewtopia Atlanta |
I was expecting the curved piecing to be difficult, but the curves were large enough that they were very forgiving and went together very well. Denyse demonstrated pinning the curved rings to the background pieces and said she likes to sew with concave piece on top. But Rossie said she received better results sewing the convex piece on top. I tried both ways and got good results with each.
And...if I didn't get enough of Denyse in class, take a look at the door prize I won while at Sewtopia. When my name was drawn, I chose a complete fat quarter bundle of her line,
New Bedford, by
Free Spirit Fabrics.
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| New Bedford by Denyse Schmidt for Free Spirit Fabrics |
I love the Modern Solids included in the bundle which include Orange, Kumquat, Flamingo, Solar, Spark Gold, Shell, Dogwood, Licorice, Light Jade, and Asparagus.
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| Closer look of the Modern Solids in New Bedford by Denyse Schmidt for Free Spirit Fabrics |
And if the fat quarter bundle wasn't enough, in our Sewtopia swap bag we received a Modern Solids 75 piece 2.5 "mini charm pack.
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| Denyse Schmidt Modern Solids mini charm pack by Free Spirit |
I love Denyse's modern solids line from FreeSpirit - that is one of my very few purchases from Massdrop (a FQ bundle I split with a friend) and I think they are fabulous. I like sewing curves with whatever is the larger / outer portion on top (I don't know if that makes any sense). I do love the suggestion to hide the seam, I definitely noted that in your first photo and thought it was clever!
ReplyDeleteThere were several people working on curved piecing projects at the modern quilt guild retreat I was at last weekend, including two people working on Free Wheeling Single Girl blocks. Love your fabric choices for your block! Lucky you winning the FQ bundle!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you linked! This was fascinating to me. Thanks for the many links you included in your post, too, for further investigation. I can see I should have driven down from Knoxville this weekend! I love that fabric line you won! The colors are just yummy. desertskyquilts.wordpress.com
ReplyDeleteWow. You might consider yourself slow, but Paige - really, it pays off well. Your precision is just lovely. This quilt will be gorgeous. I have done a few curves but smaller ones and they were tough. I would imagine having a larger curve would be better. Congrats on the fabric win. That is a great stack of FQ's!!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading about your freewheeling experience. Good job of including links, too. I especially enjoyed looking back at Rita's post about the templates from the original DS block. Oh, my!
ReplyDeleteHey, slow and steady wins the race. Slow can be very important. Speed can be where problems start. I LOVE those colors in your Single Girl block. And the fat quarter bundle you won contains a lot of fun fabric. I bet you can't wait to chop it up :)
ReplyDeleteI think your curves look fantastic! ;) And lucky you for winning that fat quarter bundle - you will have so much fun with those fabrics. Sounds like you had a wonderful time at Sewtopia. Thanks so much for sharing your projects on MCM!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lot of fun! Clever idea to disguise the seam, thanks for including that tip! Lovely prizes too, I'm a big fan of Denyse and orange!!
ReplyDeleteOoo, lucky you winning those lovely FQs, they look like they'll be fun to play with! The block looks great too; I keep seeing other peoples' beautiful projects with curves and thinking I must try that. :)
ReplyDeleteLooks like it was a great weekend. Your Single Girl block turned out beautifully.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a great time Paige, and a great win too. Nothing wrong with being slow, I am always last in a class, it's staying power that counts.
ReplyDeleteYour Free Wheeling Single Girl is so pretty! Sounds like you had a marvelous time at Sewtopia, not only that came home with so many wonderful goodies. Great blog message too!
ReplyDeletePaige your Free-Wheeling block is beautiful! It's very clever to use the matching patches to hide the seam. Sewtopia sounds and looks like a wonderful event and I'm glad you had such a great time there!
ReplyDeleteYour block is wonderful, I can't wait to see more together. Great fabric win!
ReplyDeleteNice post! It was so fun meeting you at Sewtopia! Your block and prize are wonderful. I cannot believe I never got a photo with Denyse - what was I thinking? Oh well, the memories are spectacular!
ReplyDeleteLook at you with Denise. Very exciting! Are there any templates in the single girl pattern now? A young friend of mine made the single girl from the original pattern. Your block looks wonderful and what an exciting win!
ReplyDeleteLisa, with Denyse's updated pattern, there are only three templates, two for cutting out the background pieces and only one for the ring, so the individual templates for the ring sections are gone. With only one template for the ring, it gives you the freedom to cut your pieces almost any size. In class, I saw some really great fussy cutting going on with some pieces larger than others.
DeleteWow! I am a bit jealous! What a wonderful time you must have had in that class and at Sewtopia. And your Single Girl is really sweet too! AND fabric?!!! What a lucky girl!
ReplyDeleteSounds like Sewtopia was a good experience for you, and I'm sure it was an enlightening class. I know the work I brought home from one started with a designer, and later finished, has the added benefit of reminding me of the fun I had. I hope your finished 'Single Girl' does the same. Thanks for sharing your insight.
ReplyDeleteYour block is beautiful and this class sounds great !
ReplyDeleteYour block is lovely, your smile says it all and then you even won the door prize...So jealous!!!
ReplyDeleteSeems like you had an awesome day. Looking forward to your next post, Paige.
Hugs,
Preeti.
http://sewpreetiquilts.blogspot.com
Your block looks great! I love the greens and blues in it. DS fabric is wonderful, I love her prints! Looks like such a fun retreat... congrats on the swag and winning the bundle of yummy fabrics!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful quilt block! I've yet to try curved piecing. I really need to, it looks fun!
ReplyDeleteOoo, you lucky thing, sounds like you had a great day, making a beautiful block!
ReplyDeleteI started my fabric stash with Denyse Schmidt. Your curve piecing looks great. I like the idea of large curves to learn with. Have fun with your wins, I know you will make great things with them :)
ReplyDelete-Soma