Round in Circles

This past week, I spent a morning with “Modern Quilt” artist, Cassandra Beaver. A guild in Atlanta had advertised her workshop about quilting circles, and I thought it sounded interesting.

It was interesting, but not about the topic that I thought it would be!!

I was expecting FMQ tips on quilting circles, but the class was really about how thread interacts with fabric to create different colors!! THIS topic was much more interesting!!

This was one of her samples for the class….

My preparation for the class was done quickly, and I just grabbed a few spools of variegated thread, so I couldn’t do what she was teaching, but it was still a fun exercise.

We started with fusible circles…..

…and playing with them to find a pleasing layout…..

Honestly, I could have spent hours just moving these circles around….it was so relaxing!

After fusing and basting, we started quilting….

I enjoyed using my limited thread selection to add non-symmetrical areas to the circles.

As I quilted, I was reminded of how much I enjoy quilting on my domestic machine. It has a wonderful stitch.

It sort of niggled at the back of my mind that my long-arm wasn’t giving me this nice of a stitch. When I got home, I made a few adjustments and was able to fix that problem easily.

It was GOOD that I was “forced” to use a different machine to see that there was a problem.

NOW FOR WHAT I REALLY LEARNED AT THE WORKSHOP…..

When Cassandra started talking about quilting the background, she mentioned doing pebbles. My first thought was NO…NO….NO….NO!!

BUT, she was talking about large pebbles where you stitch around them a bunch of times, separating them from one another and adding marvelous texture…..

Oh yes….THOSE kind of pebbles I can do!!

I can’t wait to try them out on a quilt soon.

So…the moral of this story is….

There is ALWAYS something new to learn…even if it isn’t exactly what you thought!!

Thanks, Cassandra (and East Cobb Quilters) for a sweet morning….

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