Improvisational Patchwork Class

Last Saturday was awesome! My mom and I headed down to the Quilting Loft to take an Improvisational Patchwork class from Katie Pedersen. Six hours of creativity, companionship, and learning new (to us) techniques went by in a flash. The class was loosely based on Katie and Jacquie’s book, Quilting Modern:Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts, as Katie taught each of the techniques in turn: Free-Piecing, Strip-Piecing, Stitch and Flip Triangles, Slice and Insert, Improvisational Log Cabin, Improvisational Curves and Crazy-Piecing. Strip-piecing and crazy-piecing were my favorites, although I am very pleased with my wonky log cabin block.

The night before the class, I gathered a good selection of turquoise and green scraps to use in a small wall quilt. Since the quilt I started last time I took a class from Katie is still unfinished, I wanted to make something small that I could complete quickly and enjoy using. Katie generously put her scrap bins at our disposal, so I ended up returning home with more scraps than I had brought with me!

I also ended up with eight blocks in three different styles that I liked. I think I’ll turn the log cabin block into a mini quilt, but I’m not sure what to do with the rest. I’m inclined to keep sewing until I tire of the techniques or deplete my pile of turquoise and green scraps. Either of those options might take a while.

All in all, we had great time! I’m already itching to take another class soon!

Photo by Debbie