Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Black Opals & Ribbon Candy

This past weekend, my Mom and I were privileged to take Christine Barnes' Black Opals & Ribbon Candy class at one of our local quilt shops, Thimblecreek Quilt Shop. It was a belated Christmas present to my Mom, and we'd been looking for some time for a local quilt class that we might like. We'd been holding out for a class that was about learning a new technique or skill -- as opposed to a class that would just be about constructing a particular quilt pattern (we've already got plenty of those kinds of UFOs!). Mom was skeptical when I suggested Christine's class because ... well ... we are prejudiced against blue (our least favorite color), and Christine's sample quilt in the class advertisement is, well, very blue-ish:
Quilt by Christine Barnes, "Black Opals & Ribbon Candy",
on display at Thimblecreek Quilt Shop for our class.
However, I must have been really drawn to this quilt because I had taken a picture of it weeks before when it was on display (amongst hundreds of other quilts) at the Foothill Quilters Guild show in Auburn, CA. Christine is an expert in the use of color, with a new book out called Quilter's Color Club. So, we decided to delve into some color theory education!

In the days leading up to the class, we had a lot of fun combing through our stash for fabrics to take. Christine's quilt pattern calls for a striped fabric (that's used as part of the sashing), so we chose a few of those, plus a bounty of fabrics that we thought would coordinate well. We joked that we'd have to rent a U-haul truck if we wanted to bring all of the stash with us to the class! We also popped into our local quilt shop (when we were supposed to be out running errands, LOL!), A Quilted Heart, and a new Robert Kaufman fabric called Fiori that features stripes immediately jumped out at me.

At the class, it was fabric, fabric everywhere -- what fun!! Everyone else had also brought plentiful fabric choices ... and of course there were immediate shopping opportunities for even more fabric in Thimblecreek! Christine helped each person with the fabric selections for their quilt, with lots of excellent information about color value and contrast.






Many of the fabric combinations that Christine suggested were ones I never would have considered, but the results were fantastic! She ended up steering both me and my Mom toward fabrics that we had only brought as "runner up/second-choice" options, and we are now LOVING these suggested color combinations. It was really wonderful to see how each person's color and fabric choices came together in unique and unexpected ways. In short, we learned a lot. My Mom purchased Christine's Color Wheel, which we plan to now always have handy in the quilt room at home.

Mom's Black Opal quilt beginning to come together in class, on the design wall.
Holly's Black Opal quilt beginning to come together in class, on the design wall. 
Another student's Black Opal quilt beginning to come together in class, on the design wall.
Since the class, we've been continuing to work on our Black Opal quilts at home ... stay tuned for an update!

3 comments:

  1. Hey welcome to ye blog o sphere! The color combinations are lovely. I think I might be overwhelmed with so many possibilities. How many hours go into finishing such a quilt?
    One Writer's Mind

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  2. I love your blog, especially the title! Very clever. I love when a teacher in a quilt class can guide you slightly out of your comfort zone and the results are awesome!

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  3. nice your fabric combinations.To get more design in weaveron textile click on this link....:http://www.weaveron.com/

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