QuiltCon: Classes

There were so many workshops offered at QuiltCon, and I was lucky enough to get into two of them.

First off I took Free Motion Quilting Negative Space with Angela Walters. Angela and I have some mutual friends, and I've admired her work in so many different quilts. Her style in quilting is so profound, it's absolutely breathtaking. Obviously I wanted to learn from the master right? Her class was really great. We worked through most of the class time sharing a long arm machine with a partner, alternating turns. Angela introduced several different quilting designs and gave us tips and techniques that were really helpful. I really felt comfortable in this class. 

The long actual quilting was a lot of fun. I took the time (and the space) to practice my samples in actual size (rather than shrinking it down), since quilting too densely is a common problem of mine. I have done several of these quilting designs on my domestic machine, but it was a lot more fluid doing it on the long arm. Seeing Angela draw out the designs for us helped me to figure out a better way to transition from one flower to the next in the floral filler (I had tried this before, but this attempt was so much more uniform). 

I really enjoyed this class. I feel like I'm confident enough to take a quilt to rent a long arm, or to borrow a friend's long arm. Also I had the chance to ask Angela for tips on how to go about doing my crazy idea for long

arm quilting my {Modern} Robin quilt!

***

I also took the Marmalade Quilt class with Elizabeth Hartman. She's a great teacher, and I really enjoyed getting to meet her and see her work up close. I really took this class because I've been a long time reader of her blog, and it was one of the first blogs that I used and referenced when I was just beginning quilting. I learned how to free motion quilt from her tutorials. I did not take this class to learn how to make the quilt - I'm not very interested in following patterns. It is a nice quilt though. I made almost two blocks (a little smaller than her blocks), and I have the intention of putting them into a doll quilt or pillow cover. I really enjoyed the class all the same. 

This is Elizabeth's version of the Marmalade Quilt.

I enjoyed the chance to learn from these two ladies this weekend. Both have been an inspiration to me for a long time, and it was great to meet them in person.