Monday, March 25, 2013

15 minutes of play, play, play

We went to Sydney on Thursday, and on Friday I awoke to this sunrise.

Sydney sunrise

And I knew it was going to be a good day.

We had breakfast, and I hopped in a cab to Drummoyne. And after several emails between us, I finally got to meet Victoria Findlay Wolfe, who was going to teach us about her 15 minutes of play philosophy as it applies to patchworking.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

Victoria started by telling us about the quilts that she'd brought along with her (all the way from New York City!). It was the perfect show and tell. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can't handle a quilt meeting without a show and tell. And here we had it in spades (and buckets).

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

15 minutes of play quilt workshop


Victoria took us through a demo of making some "Made-Fabric", which is essentially using your scraps to build and build and build a piece of fabric that you can then cut into a shape or block ... and then you can use the remnants to build your next block. Some people call it crumb quilts, others crazy quilting.

15 minutes of play

All I knew was that I liked it!

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

I decided early in the piece that I might like to try a large triangle quilt - like a thousand pyramids arrangment, but perhaps with the made-fabric blocks upside down.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

I'd brought along some lengths that I thought might be good for the background, and decided to add some print fabric that I got from an online store a few weeks ago which has an mahoosive print - too big to cut up and made into something small.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

Kind of like this. What would you call this? Thousand valleys? Thousand buntings?

Thousand minutes of FUN????

All around me fellow quilters were buzzing along on their sewing machines, cutting strips of fabric and squaring up. Inspiration was everywhere.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

This is what my new best friend Chris (who was sitting opposite me) came up with.Hexagons! I love!

And here is the work of some absolute geniuses that were there on the day. I'm so, so sorry I can't remember people's names!

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

Before the workshop, Victoria had asked that we bring our scraps along. We'd pile them into the middle of the table and just pull out other people's scraps, she said. It was brilliant.  And messy.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

I learned a lot during this workshop. One is that although pushed to pick a colour I don't like working with (purple) I still really don't like it (purple). In fact on looking at my blocks, I noticed there is too much (purple) in there and it makes me squeamish. So I'm going back to reds and oranges and yellows and greens.

In fact that night, after the beers I'd had with dinner with my bestie had worn off, I took out my little Elna Lotus, plonked her on the hotel desk, and made two more blocks. The windows to our room were wide open to catch the breeze. I may have woken a few hundred Elizabeth bay residents with the roar of old Elna here, but hey - it was Friday night. They should have been out partying.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

See that? More red, less purple.  Much better.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

I'm so in love with this way of treating scraps. I think I might be onto a winner here.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

So thanks Victoria for sharing so much of yourself, and for travelling so far. I'm glad I met you, and I'm glad I got you onto that Architextures fabric (I am such an enabler).

And thanks to Material Obsession in Drummoyne, especially  Kathy Doughty who thought to bring Victoria out to Australia. It was such a well run day, and the food was fantastic, as were Megan and Cath who looked after us so well. I doubt this will be my last MO workshop - they really are too fantastic to miss.

15 minutes of play quilt workshop

Gratuitous final sunrise shot from the next morning. Sydney - why do you always look this good this early? Why no bed hair?

Sydney sunrise


9 comments:

  1. Who has bed-hair when you pull an all-nighter at the sewing machine??? Sounds, and looks like you had a ball on your weekend away to Sydney...love the samples you made up, sans the purple...J

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  2. Thanks for sharing about the amazing day you had!

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  3. Ha, fantastic post! Looked like heaps of fun, and you could tell you had a blast!

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  4. What an exciting day you've had! Thanks so much for sharing the inspirational way of using up scraps - I love all the possibilities that you photographed.

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  5. What a fabulous workshop Michelle, and I love the blocks you made. Thanks for posting..so much inspiration in one little post! and...you look great!

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  6. Love your photos! DIDDN't we have SEW much fun! Can't wait to see your blocks finished!

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  7. oh and, your PURPLE blocks look fabulous. ;-) wink!

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  8. oh how completely AWESOME! I saw your Eliz Bay shots on instagram, but didn't realise that this was why you were in Sydney!! I saw you in Victoria's blog post - how amazing that she came all the way to Australia. It's such a very long way - both times we've been to NYC it's been about 27 hours door to door (from Brisbane). I find it hard working with purple too, but have built a small stash as my two girls love it. Love your triangle blocks, they look so good against the text background. Cat.

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  9. I've got some floating crazy quilting that needs a home and I love your triangle blocks! I also have an old Elna. She's good to me when I need her.

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