Today I promised to tell you about Angela Walters' new Craftsy class, Machine Quilting: Small Changes, Big Variety. It launched while I was away so I watched most of it in one evening on my ipad at the hotel. Seeing Angela quilt away using her simple designs in so many variations made me want to get home ASAP and start stitching. She makes it all look so easy and natural - with NO marking! If you read my post about the Baptist Fan test you know I'm all about not marking.
This is Angela's 4th Craftsy class and once again she teaches how to take basic designs and then make small variations to create totally new ones. She demonstrates on a domestic sewing machine which is awesome for non-longarmers. She does offer tips for people using quilting machines and I love that I can make use of all the information regardless of method. There are traceable designs in the course materials and Angela shows lots of examples of how they will look on actual quilts (and how to incorporate them).
After I watched the lessons I sat in bed and practiced the designs on my "crappy doodle" (I couldn't find a real Magna Doodle). I am pretty comfortable with most of the basic designs and learning the variations will just take a bit of practice - especially with the feathers! Angela uses pebbles, swirls, ribbon candy, feathers, squares, and clam shells and it's amazing how many designs you can make starting with these basic ones, altering them slightly and/or combining them. I am stoked to get started! I had such success with her Dot to Dot Quilting class designs on my Teal Quilt so I'm pretty confident these new design ideas will work great for me.
I'm switching gears this weekend and focusing on scrapbooking and catching up my albums. My Swoon quilt is basted and ready to be quilted and I'm starting to think a clam shell design might be just the right one to use. Not only is it a design that Camille Roskelley herself shares in her Playful Piecing Techniques class (she quilts them upside down and calls them scallops but it's the same shape), I know I would love the puffy texture it would yield - not too stiff. I'll ponder that while I'm cropping my photos and creating layouts!
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