Last night I spent an hour in my LQS, getting help with a materials list for a couple of workshops scheduled for the weekend. A quilt maven who has developed a specific technique for making those pesky skinny points and stars is coming to town and offering workshops for two quilts. I scanned the materials list when I first received it by email a couple of weeks ago. List of what equipment and supplies to bring. Precutting fabric and sorting into bags for the various blocks is required. No problem. But when I sat down in earnest to figure out what fabric was required, it was a different story entirely. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how much yardage I was meant to buy, nor how many colours or how much of each, since none were listed specifically. I had to deduce it from the cutting instructions, but these weren't clear, either. "Cut Z squares of your light or background" would be used in one place, then "cut X of the light and cut Y of the background" would be used in a different place. So are there lights AND background? Or are they the same thing? And reading farther, I realized that the bagging instructions were also incomprehensible; you would end up with two bags or twelve bags, depending on how you read the instructions. And to make matters worse, the only photos that were ever given were tiny, highly pixellated ones of two quilts draped artfully over a chair, where it was very difficult to see what the blocks looked like. I realized that I didn't even know what I was making! To make a long story short, here's what I came home with:
The fabric above is to make a quilt called Southern Skies. The fabric below is for one called Prairie Claw. I was a bit more cautious and restrained in my fabric choices since I don't know what I'm aiming for. If I like it, I can probably add to the range of colours a bit. With any luck, I'll like at least one of these enough to expand it for a wedding present in the spring. Wish me luck!
