Macaroni

Big Sky Quilt Retreat is taking place this weekend at the Shrine in Billings, Montana.  I hung out at the show and just had fun on Thursday.  Today, Friday, I got to take a class!  I selected Susan Cleveland's class:  Piping Hot Curves - Macaroni.
Susan Cleveland is full of energy and she is a great teacher.  I had a lot of fun in the class.  It took the whole day, but this is the fun block that I ended up creating.

I was just thinking about quilting within the macaroni's and creating a wave type thing across the center of the quilt.  It was working out great in my head.  But then Susan Cleveland had a wrap up session and talked about quilting and finishing our set of macaroni blocks.  One thing Susan Cleveland mentioned was that we could not densely quilt by the piping because the piping does not shrink the same as the cotton fabric.  If we did quilt a lot on the quilt, we would end up with the piping waving like the Rocky Mountains.  Since this is not the goal I am hoping to achieve, I do not plan on creating any additional macaroni at this time.
Although I am sad that I am not going to create a macaroni quilt, I am really glad that Susan Cleveland mentioned the Rocky Mountains.  I would have been more sad if I had created 8 more macaroni, did a bunch of quilting only in the center of the quilt, and had Rocky Mountains.  Susan Cleveland kept saying, "You have more fabric than time" so you can waste a little bit of fabric.  Along those same lines, I do not have enough time to make all of the quilting mistakes in the world.  I get to make plenty already!

Modern Block

I have been curious about the modern quilting movement but I haven't done anything about it but gather opinions and information - until recently.  I went into Nancy Sasse's Four Winds Quilting Shop in Billings in February to pick up fabric for the Hawaiian fabric challenge.  I allowed myself to get talked into joining the Modern Quilt Block Exchange group that Nancy has going on in her shop.  I do have to admit that it was not a difficult sell.
This is the first block I have created for one of the other members of the group.

Since I joined the group even after it was already started, I present my block at the very end of the program.  It is lucky that I request a block last because I do not yet have any idea of where I am going to go with this modern quilting fun.

I do like to try new things.  I was thinking the other day though that I need to slow down on how many new quilting things I am trying and get a style of my own.  But then again, I my not be ready for that kind of groove!