Talkin' Turkey Class with Bonnie Hunter

I've been sharing my adventures during my time at Faithful Circle Quilters in Columbia, Maryland.  I always have a great time when I make it to their meetings and events.  I maintain my membership there even though I live 3 hours away.  Last week I was attending the Bonnie Hunter classes and lecture.  You can see the first two posts by clicking here and here. 

I was surprised when Sharon and I got  to the classroom on Friday morning because other folks had taken the places we had sat at the day before.  It's one of the few times I've seen folks change where they were seated in a situation like this. Oh well.  We set up and were ready when Bonnie started. 

I've been using my lightweight Elna Carina machine recently -- mainly because the featherweight is soooooo slow.  Although I had it cleaned and repaired the light still doesn't work but using my Ott light works pretty well.  Notice my big bag of red scraps under the table.  No, I hardly made a dent in it. 

We started with learning how to use the Easy Angle ruler and the Companion ruler for making flying geese.  Very efficient method but I was having a bit of trouble with the Easy Angle.  I think I stacked too many strips up when cutting and some weren't the right size.  I didn't try again after I got enough for one block as I wanted to try to keep up.  (Yea, I'm a fairly slow sewer.)  We made nine patches.  After lunch we made string pieced triangles to add to the block. 

I must say I was very skeptical about using phone book pages for the string quilting.  I've worked with newsprint (which is what the phone book pages are...) and gotten ink all over myself.  But, honestly, the pages didn't smear and get my hands dirty.  It also didn't get all over the fabric.  I forgot my phone book so I had to use Sharon's but the good things about phone books are they are free and have lots of pages. 

Sharon is doing her quilt in blue and boy does it look sharp there.  My block is the bottom right.  I can't decide if I want to keep the background really white like Sharon did or mix in different neutral backgrounds like I did on this block.  The two blocks on the left belong to the ladies sitting next to us.    I'm pretty sure I need to get more contrast in my reds.  The gal sitting on my other side had reds that were pretty much the same color.  I decided I didn't like that when I saw her finished block. 

I spent a bit of time getting pictures of a couple of Talkin' Turkey blocks other folks had made.  Here are two I really like.

Caren's really sings.  She loves lime green and it looks fabulous with purple. I may have to make a quilt in those colors someday.  (Wait, I do have a quilt in progress with those colors and black and white ... it's Easy Street by Bonnie Hunter.  Maybe I need to pull that out again and work on it!) 

Nancy turned the color values around.  Hers will be black and beige rather than the white and red most of us chose.  I'm sorry she didn't get a whole block done because I love it so far! 

So, that's all I have on the Talkin' Turkey blocks.  I'll be going to a retreat with my buddies in Maryland at the beginning of June.  I haven't decided what to work on yet.  It might be time to pull out my Easy Street.  I've been taking it when I help at my kids' houses so I'm pretty sure all the units are made and it is time to make the blocks.  Over the next month or so I'll be out of town a couple of times with sewing machine no doubt.  I also have several quilts to throw on Ruthie and quilt.  Pretty soon I'll try to post the pictures I have of the show and tell portions of the Bonnie Hunter lecture and classes.  It was fun to see how others interpreted her designs. 

I'm linking to Let's Bee Social. Take a peak at what folks have shared.  

Happy quilting all!