Tag Archives: scrap quilt

Augusta Cole: Variety is the Spice of Life

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Augusta Cole’s motto is “Variety is the spice of life” and she travels with a lovely quilted wall hanging bearing that motto.  You can see the wall hanging and a good picture of her on the front page of her website.

Augusta designs and teaches beautiful scrap quilts that I’ve admired for years, and certainly scrap quilts have plenty of variety!.  She was one of the instructors at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium, so I took the opportunity to interview her.  I’ve been following her online ever since I found her Snappy, Scrappy Stars quilt pattern many years ago.  Here is one of the multiple versions I’ve made of that quilt (her version has a much fancier border):

I was unable to lift pictures from her site–which usually is how people want me to get pictures to go with my interviews–due to the format. These pictures of some of her quilts are those I took at the quilt symposium. 

Augusta says she has a lifelong history of crafting and keeping her hands busy.  She took up quilting after her second child was born, and “it came very naturally.”  A class with Karen Pervier was especially influential, and Karen remains a good friend.

After living in New York state and North Carolina, Augusta now lives in the Richmond (Virginia) area.  Since retiring from her career as a physical education teacher, she travels to teach quilting.  Her husband is supportive and even keeps the books for her!

I was unable to fit in a class with Augusta, but a friend who took her class really enjoyed it.  She reports Augusta is a lively and engaging teacher.  Augusta’s patterns are  available on her website.  (Go look at her pretty quilts even if you don’t need a pattern!).  I continue to be inspired by her many variations on scrap quilts.

Addendum: Here is a picture from Augusta’s Cutting Bee class, kindly provided by Chris Crouch:

 

Donation Quilt Catch-Up

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I now belong to THREE groups that make donation quilts, and it may be a bit much.  I’ve decided to focus on the group I’ve been working with the longest, both because it was the original and because we donate the quilts locally.  (I fear there’s some truth to Garrison Keillor’s quip that most donation quilts sent to other countries go to hot climates where their best use is as compost.)

I see from my notes that I fell behind on donation quilts over a year ago due to being over-committed.  Duh.  Anyway, here are my recent attempts to catch up.

I found this panel in the SCRAP BIN at a shop where I teach, so I got it for $1 an ounce! The finished quilt is 34″ x 44″.

This top was started over a year ago when I wanted to experiment with half-rectangle triangles. The finished quilt is 40″ x 48″

This was made from slabs swapped in one of my groups. I spy some orphan blocks incorporated into slabs!

This one was done for leaders and enders, and is going to have to be entitled “Nobody’s Perfect”! Finished size is 34″ x 39″

I made this after starting the blocks as a class demonstration last time I taught “Twinkle”. Finished size is 40″ x 40″

I can just hear somebody saying, “Well!  That certainly is a variety!”  It would be more efficient to make the same pattern multiple times, but I just can’t do it.

What are your favorite donation quilt patterns?

 

Another Scrap Class

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Here are some pictures from the recent scrap quilt class.  The block is directional, so it is considerably more difficult to get right than it looks!  Nevertheless, everybody got it right by the end of the day.  Here are a few of the blocks with their makers:

Gail chose the more challenging smaller size and still was the first to finish a block!

Here are a few of the larger blocks:

Sorry I got the glare on the glasses, but the block is beautiful!

This woman made a small block, too!

Love those bright colors!

My next class at Studio Stitch in Greensboro is Twinkle on Thursday, February 21:

I looove this quilt!  Join us if you can!

My Quilt is in Quilty Magazine!

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This quilt was designed with friends at a retreat and remained unfinished for a year while I contemplated what should go in the big.white.center.  

Eventually I decided on petals, finished the quilt, and submitted it to F&W, where it was accepted for the January 2019 issue of Quilty.  I love Quilty, so I was thrilled.  And now the January issue, including my quilt, is available at Barnes & Noble.

This is Quilty’s “glamour shot” of my quilt

Once I got going on what to put in the center, I made another version with a ring in the center and the addition of a floral border:

If you pick up the magazine but want to make the quilt with the center ring instead of the petals, e-mail me and I’ll tell you the measurements.  Alternatively, just trace a dessert plate from your collection, which is what I did 😀

Triangles: What Do You Think?

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It all started with this beautiful batik that was ON SALE…And I have quite a collection of batik scraps from other projects, so I decided to make a scrap quilt with colors that would go with the sale fabric. Initially, I made the blocks really scrappy:

Then I made a few that were more controlled and liked them better:


This is just up on the design wall, not sewn, and I’m thinking of taking out the really scrappy ones. They kind of jar my nerves.But, what do you think? It’s good to have opinions from quilty friends!

Update on the Shirt Quilt

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Remember this?shirt quilt

This pile of blocks barely made a dent in the pile of shirts!

And here is some of the quilt up on the design wall:

The holes are because I unaccountably made too few double 4-patch blocks.  Luckily, that was one of the easier blocks in this quilt, so it the error won’t be difficult to fix!

As you can see, both the red and the orange made good accents.  The interesting thing to me about this quilt is that those little accent blocks save the day.  There is WAY too much variety in the quilt for it to be a good design without those diagonal orange and red lines created by the tiny blocks.  They pull the whole thing together by giving it structure.

I’ll update you when I get the holes plugged 😀

Classes Coming

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I recently started teaching at A Stitch in Time in Franklin, NC. It’s as “local” as quilt shops get for me in this rural area, so I’m very happy to be able to teach there. It’s an excellent shop and I sort of have to work to avoid drooling on the fabric…well, you know what I mean 😉

So here is the quilt I will be teaching in July…

scrap quilt

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

August…

“Red Pepper” is made from a quilt pattern entitled “Yellow Pepper”

And September…

modern quilt

Happy Squares, one of my original designs

Of course, while I was in the shop I got a little fabric!  This is a specially-printed piece from Hoffman California that has 8 coordinating fat quarters in a 2 yard cut!

There were other nice prints in the series, but I’m a fool for dots.  If you need some, too, you can order from A Stitch in Time (and no, I do not make any money from it; this site is non-commercial).

Have a great week!

 

A Few Pictures…

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…from a recent very productive quilt retreat!

This string quilt by Rena was a very successful design, I thought:string quilt

Here’s the back of the string quilt, and she also made this cute Halloween quilt top:

Mary made a string quilt, too, this one all in purple:string quilt

And Jerri finished a large Bonnie Hunter quilt with a zillion pieces:Bonnie Hunter quilt

I worked on half rectangle triangles, which turned out to be a lot more work than half square triangles:Half rectangle triangles

And a good time was had by all!

What have you been up to?

A Little Break for Fun

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After finishing a big project and preparing classes for the next quarter, I took a little break and used some of the scraps from the unsorted pile.  This is where scraps go before I cut them into the standard sizes I use for storage.scrap block, slabs, scrap quilt

Cheryl Arkison, who blogs at Dining Room Empire, calls this type of block a slab. Of course the idea of joining scraps as you find them has been used by many people in various ways.  I really enjoy making them in a single color, so I made a few when I had a minute.slabs, scrap blocks, scrap quilt

Of course, this didn’t make a dent in the scrap pile, but it was fun!  Has anybody out there found a way to make a real dent in the scrap pile?  It seems to me to grow and grow, with no decrease in size no matter how many scrap quilts I make!

Classes Coming Up

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I’ll be teaching two classes at Studio Stitch in Greensboro, NC, this coming quarter.

First is a “Secret Message Pillow”. Go by the shop to see the sample and sign up!  That class will be the morning of Saturday, January 27, which means the pillow will be finished in time for Valentine’s Day.

scrap quilt

Scrap quilt made with strips that finish 1″ wide

Second, I’m teaching a scrap management class that will show several ways to use even small scraps to make beautiful quilts. I call it scrap management because that’s what most of us need: management of the scraps. One option is shown above.  That class will be March 24 and we will have all day to play with our scraps.

Detail of Scrappy New Year

All you need to bring is the basket (dump truck load?) of scraps that have been accumulating in your studio.  Sign up at the shop and come have fun!