Collage class

I took a day-long class in Laura Heine collage Saturday.  It was fun but intense.  Six people came, and our instructor, Marie, spent the day running between us, guiding us in making the collages of our choice.  One young woman had never made a quilt before, while others were seasoned quilters.  We all had different patterns, too, and plans for our pieces.  

Most of my time was spent filling in the background of this massive (38" x 50") quilt, Birch Street.  This is the pattern so you can see that much of the background gets partially covered by other things.  There's a lot of layering that goes on in these quilts.

Some people used a solid fabric for their backgrounds which seemed more difficult to me as the center motif had to be cut away to reduce bulk.  I made a scrappy background of black on white prints and managed to get one tree trunk down before leaving at around 2:30 pm.  My feet and back were tired from bending over the table most of the day.

I haven't used a lot of "Steam a Seam" before, so that was an adventure.  I think (hope!) that building the houses and trees will be fun going forward.  I watched other people in the class cutting out lots of flowers for their central motifs.  Kathy had a cat; Jen had water lilies.  I'll be curious to see how theirs turn out.  In some ways, I wish I'd chosen a mini for the first project as my quilt could take a year to complete!  It's always fun to learn something new and different.