A Quilters Gathering - A Weekend of Fun

Last weekend was the A Quilters Gathering quilt festival up in Nashua, NH.  This was my first time attending this festival and I was impressed.  I took two classes with KK and Lynn, each half day classes on Saturday and Sunday morning.  We shopped a bit and saw all of the beautiful quilts.

Our first class on Saturday was with Kathy Kansier, Christmas in Hawaii.  KK ended up having to miss this class, but Lynn and I were still able to make it and had a great time. 

The class started with learning a bit about Hawaiian style quilts.  Kathy showed one of her quilts that she just finished and needs to have sent to the quilter.

 

Then, probably the most interesting and useful skill that we learned was how to design our own Hawaiian style block.  I really enjoyed learning how to design my own because it allows us the ability to do more of these blocks moving forward without being constrained to a particular pattern.  As you can see in the quilt above, Kathy made the blocks above for a particular person and each one tells a story such as the waving hands and the houses. 

We folded our freezer paper and designed our block using a pencil.  I decided to go with a flower and some leaves.  The pattern that I designed is above.  I then ironed the paper to the back of the wonder under on a piece of batik and then traced it.

Here's Lynn ironing on her adorable house and sailboat pattern onto her wonder under.  After ironing and tracing, we cut out our pattern and ironed it onto our white or black Kona backing and begin to sew around the pattern.

Here I am beginning to sew around my flower.  As you can see, I decided not to cut out the center of the flower.  I wanted to limit the complexity for this first piece and avoid any inner pieces. 

Here's my finished piece all sewn down. Isn't it cute?  I love that i was able to finish this in a three hour class. 

And here's what Lynn's block looks like.  She hasn't finished sewing around all of the pattern yet, but isn't it fun and cute?  She's making a sampler quilt with all types of house blocks.


More on the rest of the weekend in another post...