New York Beauty

We were fortunate to have Karen Stone as the guest speaker at our quilt guild meeting this month, and I also attended her New York Beauty workshop. I've always loved Karen's quilts, and had previously made a quilt using her Birds of Paradise pattern (which is the only quilt I've ever sold). I love her use of color and a multitude of fabrics, and she spent a lot of time in the workshop walking us through her color design and fabric selection process. After that, we made a couple blocks with her pattern (paper-piecing and curved piecing). I don't plan to make a full quilt with my class blocks, though. I decided years ago that class samples can just be samples. Otherwise, I feel too much pressure to choose the perfect fabrics before I really know what I'm doing.

I bought one more of Karen's patterns, so now I've got two waiting in the wings. I try to take at least one quilting class a year, and I'm glad this one came along at a convenient time. It's left me feeling quite inspired about quilting right now.