Victoria Findlay Wolfe is known for her 15 minutes of play concept. It’s also the title of her book. But we were all signed up for a whole six hours of workshop last Friday. After the fun of the lecture on Thursday evening I was really looking forward to joining in.
Victoria started with a demo.
She had brought a big pile of scraps to work from and share with those who didn’t have any (?)
The demo of made fabric continued…
and we all set to stitching. There were more demos including dresden plates and y-seams. Victoria made those look very easy…
We got her to sign our books, which she did with a smile.
The time went by very quickly and I had the beginnings of two quilts by the time I went home. Thanks Victoria!
I had time to stitch over the weekend and now I have two finished pieces.
The first one I’m calling Electus: inspired by Victoria. Its working title was The Reject Quilt but we decided that was far too negative. I’ve decided you’ll have to ask me in person about the reject bit… enough for you to know that it refers to being rejected as a volunteer…
Anyway, all the pieces in the quilt were scraps (rejects) from other quilts but I pulled them out of the bag and used them up… I cut tumbler blocks from my made fabric and Victoria suggested I could arrange them in circles rather than the more traditional rows. I left the edges raw (like my feelings) and basted them to a linen background. The matchstick quilting secures them.
Here’s a closeup of the quilting. I used Aurifil 50 weight cotton #4651 for most of the stitching. it’s a pale variegated thread for just a hint of color seen close up. Every so often I added a line in 12 weight thread.
I used a layer of Quilters Dream Request and a layer of Hobbs wool batting so that I could have the writing stand out where I left negative space in my stitching.
Electus translates from the latin as chosen…
We have an ongoing low volume challenge at our Naperville Modern Quilt Guild and this will be my piece for that. I’m done a month in advance!
I had got the first top made and ready for quilting but there was still some time to go in the class. I switched scrap bag to my brighter bits and put a second piece together, just using strips and pieces without trimming them first. I quilted and bound it on Saturday. I’m calling it Happy Day because the class was just that!
The straight line quilting wasn’t meant to be completely straight. I started in two different places and let it overlap where it met, left of the middle. I wanted to add a spiral but decided to go for a six sided one worked from the outside to the center, just because I could.
I used teal Aurifil 12 weight thread for the HD look. Every time I rethread my machine and cut the previous thread I have about a yard of thread that could be thrown away or used…
I decided to use the heavy weight thread for a little cross stitch embellishment.
I have one box of the #12 thread. It’s coming in handy for both machine and hand work. There are twelve colors in the box and I like to have to choose from them without there being a whole rainbow at hand. It makes me feel connected with our make-it-do heritage. It doesn’t take much does it?
I picked up a couple more projects today so I’m off to do those. I am so lucky to be able to play all day!!
