Designing Monday

This week I took a class from Laurie Ceesay.  Laurie is a Wisconsin quilt artist who is also a hair dresser.  She specializes in portrait quilts and has appeared on the Quilting Arts TV show.  Our class project was one of her patterns called Bella.  Prior to class we purchased the pattern and each stitched up our backgrounds which were 25 charm squares.

Then during class we copied the appliqué design onto Wonder Under, ironed it to a fabric that we chose for hair and features and then followed a grid to apply the appliqué.  Laurie helped several of us cut out our appliqué pieces so we could get going on our projects right away.  I was able to get some of mine ironed down before lunch and by the time I went home, I had stitched down almost the whole thing.  We just stitched using a straight stitch along the edges with a walking foot.  The neat part is before we stitched we layered the whole thing -- backing, batting, and quilt -- so it became a quilt as you go using the applique.  Very quick.

Since the class I have added quilting around the sides and added some quilting between the appliqué strips to look like hair.  Much more to go and Laurie's special touch is to add embellishments.  Can't wait to get to that step.

Laurie taught a class in color theory to our guild on Tuesday night and brought lots of samples.  When she taught our class she had about 10 different Bella quilts in many different color schemes.  Great inspiration.  Each was embellished and quilted differently too.  What a fun class!  When you get a minute, click on the link at the top of this blog entry and check out Laurie's work.

Hop on over to Judy's blog  to see more great designs,