One Last Quilt Canada Post

I have already treated my Dad to a special meal for Father's Day, and now I'm watching PGA and FIFA while editing my Quilt Canada photos. Are you tired of hearing about the conference yet?!? As soon as I'm off the computer, I'll be back to some relaxing hand stitching. But for now... one more post about my conference experience.
I took a 2 day class on Improv Piecing with Cheryl Arkison,

Cheryl shows the quilt in her book that my
friend Barb is sewing in brown scraps!

author of A Month of Sundays. If you read my blog regularly you might remember, I won a draw for an autographed copy of her new book last year (read about it here). At that time I had just finished sewing a quilt from her first book Sunday Morning Quilts. 
I love both of these books, so it was great fun to meet Cheryl in person and learn from her for two days about improve piecing.










This is Cheryl's sampler quilt that inspired us to get sewing our scraps and try out some of the techniques of improv quilting.

Improve class Log Cabin blocks

We started with wonky log cabin blocks and that was fun. It was a good place to start since most quilters have sewn a regular log cabin block or two in their quilting history, so making an improve version was comfortable for everyone.

Improve class criss-cross blocks

Then we moved on to criss-cross blocks. 
It's funny how the electrical cord hung down the middle of the photo like another line across the blocks!

Improve class slab blocks

Then we started sewing my favorite block... "slabs". 
I have sewn these before  (click here and here to see them) and I really love this method for using up scraps. I have called it crumb piecing since I love to use up tiny little crumbs of scraps.
We also made free hand curves, stars, and anything else we were inspired to try.

One possible "down" side to improve work ... your sewing table becomes a real big mess in a hurry! There were times when I wondered what I was doing with all this mess! But then I'd look around and see that all the other quilters had the same kind of mess on their table. There is no way around it with this technique! It was a fun class with many interesting blocks sewn and a ton of creative inspiration! 
Thanks Cheryl! And thanks to your family for sharing you with the quilting world!
I will unpack my suitcases and put my blocks up on the design wall... check back tomorrow to see them.