For our October meeting, we hosted the wonderful Sharon McConnell of Color Girl Quilts. You can find Sharon's quilt patterns here and her YouTube channel here. She is also doing some product development for Love Sew. Check out their really wonderful stuff here. (For you lefties out there, Sharon is a lefty, and she is developing products that are lefty friendly!)
We began on Friday night with a terrific trunk show. Sharon showed us several of quilts made from her patterns. Along with getting a chance to see these terrific quilts, we had a good lesson on color and value and how your decisions about placement of those makes a big difference in how the quilt looks. We got to see multiple versions of some of Sharon's quilts to illustrate that point.
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This medallion quilt was just wonderful!
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This quilt is Hula Girl and was one of the quilts Sharon taught in her workshop on Saturday.
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A great illustration for the difference between a scrappy quilt and one using a consistent background.
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Look at how the use of color changes the look of this quilt!
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| Look how the black background on the quilt on the left emphasizes the circles and the white background on the quilt on the right emphasizes the "melons." | | | |
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We all ooohed and aaahed over these dresdens and the pretty "ice cream" colors!
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This quilt is called Sunbeam, and some of us made this quilt in the workshop on Saturday. Look at the difference in how the quilt looks by changing the alternate "rays" in the suns from white to black!
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Another pair of quilts that look completely different simply by changing the color of a few shapes in the quilt!
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We followed the trunk show with show and tell. See below for some fun show and tells!
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Sharon C. brought this beautiful quilt she made from Sharon M.'s pattern.
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This was a wonderful Entangled Sky quilt, made from Krista Moser's pattern (and our workshop earlier this year).
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This stunningly "hot" quilt was very fun to see! Well done!
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On Saturday, we held an all-day workshop at the Ransom Public Library in Plainwell. It was so fun, and the space was so lovely to work in.
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Here, Sharon starts teaching us her paper piecing tips.
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Working hard right out of the gate!
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These Christmas fabrics were so cute!
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More fun colors!
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Lynne successfully created some rays for her Sunbeam quilt. Love that orange!
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| Cindy had never paper pieced before, and look at this beautiful job she did! |
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Cindy really went to town with her paper piecing and made this "hula hoop!" Way to go, Cindy!
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Here we all are with some completed blocks. We had a blast, and if you couldn't be there, we sure missed you! Hope you can come next time. Sharon, thank you for a wonderful day! We appreciated it!
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A few quick business items before we close:
- If you haven't signed up for the November retreat, please do so! We'd love to see you all there!
- The holiday party is in December 6 ant 6:00 pm at the University Roadhouse. We hope to see you there! We are having a swap again this year. Your swap gift should be made with modern fabric and fit in a pizza box...any size! Please bring your gift wrapped in a clean pizza box. You can still come to the party even if you don't want to swap gifts. No problem!
- All of the officer positions are up for re-election next year. Please consider running for an office, as we could really use some help!
See you all soon. We missed everyone who couldn't come to our meeting this month. It sure was fun to be back in person and to see everyone again.
Respectfully submitted,
Stephanie
