Monday 23 March 2009

Sizzling Strips!

On Saturday I ran a workshop for 12 people based on the techniques Margaret Miller outlines in her book 'Strips That Sizzle!'. Margaret is an inspirational teacher whose main area of interest is colour - a vital part of a successful quilt. The technique involves cutting lots of strips from two colours, making sure you have dark, medium and light in each hue.

June hadn't managed to cut her strips before she came to the workshop (which may be why she is hiding behind her machine!), but quickly cut a selection of green and yellow strips. Betty chose blue and yellow - a classic combination.
Muriel chose purple and green, and had a selection of wonderful green batiks (many of which were lime green and much admired by myself!). Carole's choice was blue and green, which will make for a fabulous shimmer.Carolyn was busy sewing her green and yellow strips together, while Ruth had another set of blue and green.Vicki also chose to use yellow, and was amazed at how many different yellows she actually had in her stash - 'I never use yellow!' she protested. I don't know whether Ann benefited from some of the same yellows, but her selection was gorgeous.Ginny and Alison were quite nervous, as they are both fairly new to quilting. Ginny found it hard to assemble a variety of shades, but people were very generous at sharing their fabrics.

Nik and Sue worked very hard all day, Nik with some lovely African fabrics and Sue being the only one to choose a scheme of red/purple and brown.Here are the fruits of her labours, in a pinwheel arrangement. Nik suggested that it should be called 'Fry's Turkish Delight' as the colours reminded her of the wrapper and contents of this delectable confection!Ginny decided to put her 16 blocks together and intends to border them to make a Linus quilt. They look lovely. Thank you for that.I'm really sorry, but I can't remember who made these next two arrangements. They are both beautiful though and showcase the technique splendidly.I can hardy wait to see the finished quilts which will be coming to show and tell!

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